My patriotic and nationalistic feelings towards Pakistan were always present especially when I moved out of Pakistan and noticed everything about our country is stereotyped either as "Indian" or "Arab."
I was even more saddened and frustrated that many of my own people welcomed these stereotypes and felt like I was the only one seeing this.
It was not just the cultural stereotypes and Indian hijacking of our identity that bothered me, but also the propaganda wars incited by the enemies of Pakistan against our country and people.
There was also the damned problem of the typical Pakistani mentality of "Muslim first, Pakistani second" that made things only more difficult.
After hopeless Internet searches to find others who were noticing what I noticed -whether Pakistani or other-I truly felt I was alone.
A few years later by chance I stumbled upon a website covering the History of Pakistan. Rich, ancient history that has been ignored by Pakistanis thanks to radical Islam and stolen by the Indians, again thanks to radical Islam.
The site covered the Indian propaganda war against Pakistan as well as Indian theft of Pakistani history and culture.
This raised hopes in my mind, but not by much as I was unable to communicate with the site owners.
More years passed by and things didn't seem any brighter. The lies just got worse, theft of our history and identity continued, Pakistanis were more interested in being like Arabs based on their perception of Islam.
But then a miracle took place. I met a few Pakistanis who also voiced protest of Indian hegemony of our history and culture.
We eventually created a whole site and forum on how to protect our history and culture from thievery. A friend of mine and well known blogger Robert Lindsay actually wrote a page on my case.
We did well for the first year or so. But something went wrong I felt. It is what is a normal problem and the cause of the Pakistani identity crisis. Either be Indian or Arab.
In the case of our forum, I felt we were infected with Wahhabists, those who had ideas of making Arabic a second language and even one with making it the national language.
Living in the Middle East has also exposed me to the racism and superiority complex of most of the people there. Being amongst them feels very alien and discomforting. What feels equally alien is being amongst many Pakistanis who make full efforts to imitate the Middle Eastern peoples and worship them in the name of Islam.
I have come into contact with many Pakistanis who have the same issue. Those who reject Indianization, turn to Middle Easternization in the name of Islam and those who reject Middle Easternization have a pro-Indian stance.
It was always the case when Pakistanis had to criticize one cultural invasion or the other. Whenever I met Pakistanis on the Internet concerned about this same problem, it was either be one or the other.
At most other times, they were not entirely helpful to do something about it, weather blogging or informing historians and others of this historic distortion and cultural stereotypes.
These instances have taken place over quite a years. Aside from perhaps one or two people who see the threat of both Indianization and Islamic Middle Easternization, the rest of Pakistanis are silent to the problem or are either picking one or the other side.
As far back as a few months, I decided I had to pursue this cause on my own. Even our shared blog has had very little contribution besides myself.
When we patriotic Pakistanis worked together on our forum, many of our views strongly differed added with Wahabbi Arab wannabes coming in to make things worse.
Ever since I have felt an independent means of writing on issues representing my views is the best solution instead of a shared blog that struggles to accommodate common views of several people; hence Pak Independent came into being with that being the reason of choosing this particular name.
I was even more saddened and frustrated that many of my own people welcomed these stereotypes and felt like I was the only one seeing this.
It was not just the cultural stereotypes and Indian hijacking of our identity that bothered me, but also the propaganda wars incited by the enemies of Pakistan against our country and people.
There was also the damned problem of the typical Pakistani mentality of "Muslim first, Pakistani second" that made things only more difficult.
After hopeless Internet searches to find others who were noticing what I noticed -whether Pakistani or other-I truly felt I was alone.
A few years later by chance I stumbled upon a website covering the History of Pakistan. Rich, ancient history that has been ignored by Pakistanis thanks to radical Islam and stolen by the Indians, again thanks to radical Islam.
The site covered the Indian propaganda war against Pakistan as well as Indian theft of Pakistani history and culture.
This raised hopes in my mind, but not by much as I was unable to communicate with the site owners.
More years passed by and things didn't seem any brighter. The lies just got worse, theft of our history and identity continued, Pakistanis were more interested in being like Arabs based on their perception of Islam.
But then a miracle took place. I met a few Pakistanis who also voiced protest of Indian hegemony of our history and culture.
We eventually created a whole site and forum on how to protect our history and culture from thievery. A friend of mine and well known blogger Robert Lindsay actually wrote a page on my case.
We did well for the first year or so. But something went wrong I felt. It is what is a normal problem and the cause of the Pakistani identity crisis. Either be Indian or Arab.
In the case of our forum, I felt we were infected with Wahhabists, those who had ideas of making Arabic a second language and even one with making it the national language.
Living in the Middle East has also exposed me to the racism and superiority complex of most of the people there. Being amongst them feels very alien and discomforting. What feels equally alien is being amongst many Pakistanis who make full efforts to imitate the Middle Eastern peoples and worship them in the name of Islam.
I have come into contact with many Pakistanis who have the same issue. Those who reject Indianization, turn to Middle Easternization in the name of Islam and those who reject Middle Easternization have a pro-Indian stance.
It was always the case when Pakistanis had to criticize one cultural invasion or the other. Whenever I met Pakistanis on the Internet concerned about this same problem, it was either be one or the other.
At most other times, they were not entirely helpful to do something about it, weather blogging or informing historians and others of this historic distortion and cultural stereotypes.
These instances have taken place over quite a years. Aside from perhaps one or two people who see the threat of both Indianization and Islamic Middle Easternization, the rest of Pakistanis are silent to the problem or are either picking one or the other side.
As far back as a few months, I decided I had to pursue this cause on my own. Even our shared blog has had very little contribution besides myself.
When we patriotic Pakistanis worked together on our forum, many of our views strongly differed added with Wahabbi Arab wannabes coming in to make things worse.
Ever since I have felt an independent means of writing on issues representing my views is the best solution instead of a shared blog that struggles to accommodate common views of several people; hence Pak Independent came into being with that being the reason of choosing this particular name.
No comments:
Post a Comment