So What’s Pakistan Like: Inequality

February 28, 2013
God, Pakistan
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It gives me no pleasure to write negatively about Pakistan.  Far too many people do that already.  Scan the airwaves for articles about Pakistan and the overwhelming majority will be negative.  In fact I can predict with some confidence the kind of phrases you are almost guaranteed to read: failed state, nuclear weapons, terrorism, sectarian conflict, human rights abuses.  What bothers me is not that these things are untrue – there is some truth in them, at least – but that they represent only one side of Pakistan.

Yet despite my fondness for the country I have come to call home I cannot deny that inequality is one of the most visible aspects of life here.  In Pakistan I have visited the homes of the wealthy, with air conditioning in every room, paintings on the walls, crystal glasses, fine china, and luxury food three times a day.  I have also visited the homes of the poor, mere shacks of battered brick propped up with planks of wood, where dinner is cooked over a cow-dung fire.  And I have seen homes even more impoverished than that: the shacks of canvas and cardboard which shelter the masses of shivering refugees from Afghanistan, Baluchistan, the tribal areas.

In Pakistan luxurious Toyota trucks with sparkling paint drive past children begging for rupees at traffic intersections.  The homeless sleep on pavements, huddled in thin blankets, while the children of the wealthy walk past to their expensive schools, dressed in crisply-ironed uniforms.  The wealthy splash thousands of rupees on dinner at one of the seven restaurants in the Islamabad Marriott while outside the homeless eke out an existence on the grace of others.

A friend who works in northern Pakistan commented that when he takes his household trash to the dump he is followed by gangs of children who fight over what his family throws away.  Once, in Murree, I was so moved by the street kids who followed me around begging for food that I handed over the can of Coke I was about to drink – only to see them fight for it viciously.

Inequality exists everywhere; we live in a world in which billions of dollars is spent on dog food in the West while children starve to death in Bangladesh and Mongolia.  But it feels more stark in the developing world.  Perhaps welfare softens the starkness of inequality in the West, while the absence of state welfare over here means that the poor really are wretchedly poor.

What’s a Christian to do?  We can’t ignore it.  We can’t do nothing.  But the task seems too great for any personal effort to make a tangible difference.  “Be the change that you want to see in the world” said a famous South Asian, Mahatma Gandhi – not a bad place to start, I suppose.

Optimism

February 26, 2013
Parenthood
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We were walking past a cricket pitch in Lahore when one of my kids gasped.  Eyes open, he pointed excitedly at the centre of the pitch.

“Look Daddy!  A steamroller!”.

An old metal roller lay next to the wicket.  The groundsmen had just been using it to roll the wicket flat in preparation for a match and now it lay on its side, supine and ungainly, like a hippo taking a nap.  My son ran over to it excitedly, grabbed the handle, and pulled.

Nothing happened, of course.  The roller weighed several times more than my son did.  It would have taken three or four men at least to move it.  And yet he tugged and tugged, his eyes widening with the effort, the optimism of youth set against the immobility of a a heavy roller.

After a while he gave up and wandered off to chase some crows.  He never would have moved it.  Of course he wouldn’t.  But I’m glad that in his mind at least, nothing is impossible.

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Lahore Literary Festival

February 26, 2013
Pakistan, Travel
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We were talking to a friend the other week who works down in the Punjab.  Among other things, he casually mentioned that there was going to be a Literary Festival in Lahore in a couple of weeks.

 “Oh” he added.  “And William Dalrymple is going to be there”.

 That was it, we were going.  For my wife and me, people who are interested in Asia, Christianity, travelling and history, hearing William Dalrymple speak is about as exciting as things get.  His book From the Holy Mountain is just about my favourite book ever, and his other ones are excellent too – In Xanadu, City of Djinns, and his history book The Last Moghul is one of the best I’ve ever read.  And as if that wasn’t enough, excellent Pakistani authors were going to be there too – Mohammed Hanif, Mohsin Hamid, Bapsi Sidhwa, for example.

 If you haven’t heard of those three authors, you need to.  Get thee to Amazon, gentle reader, and start buying!

 Well, it was excellent.  Well organised, with interesting topics, and the turnout was incredible – hundreds and hundreds of enthusiastic young bibliophiles (that’s Latin for “book nerds”) packing the auditorium and applauding their literary heroes enthusiastically.  Some sessions were so popular that they had to shut the doors to stop people crowding in.

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And that, I think, is the abiding memory I’ll take from it.  Living in Pakistan we see one side of life very frequently – the poor, dusty, messy side, with beggars at traffic intersections and trash in the streets.  What we don’t often get a chance to see is what we saw at the Lahore Literary Festival – the huge number of Pakistanis who are intelligent, well-informed, passionate about their country and eager to make it better.  They were full of questions, asking Mohammed Hanif about the role of satire in modern Pakistani literature, applauding Ahmed Rashid when he criticised the Pakistani government, listening attentively to recitals of Urdu and Punjabi poetry.  What a country could be built by people like these!

 The silent majority of Pakistanis are informed, educated, and take an interest in world affairs.  This was the first time that I’ve seen them make their voice heard.  Long may it continue.

 Oh, and William Dalrymple wasn’t bad, either.

So What’s Pakistan Like: Religion

February 18, 2013
About us, God, Pakistan
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 Hold on tight, here comes a comment which is Completely Blindingly Obvious: Pakistan is a very religious country.

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 Not much of a surprise, is it?  Pakistan was the first Islamic state ever founded, carved out of British India by the iron will of Mohammed Ali Jinnah and set up as a homeland for the Muslims of the subcontinent.  Muslims from across India moved here, fearing for their future in a Hindu-majority country, while Hindus and Sikhs living in what was about to become Pakistan flooded the other way.  Right from the outset Pakistan’s identity was defined by the religious persuasion of the overwhelming majority of its inhabitants.

 And this religious identity runs even deeper than that.  Pakistan is a pretty loose-knit country, consisting of a range of ethnicities with not a whole lot in common: Punjabis, Pakhtuns, Baluchis, Sindhis, Kashmiris, people from the Northern Areas, and then a whole new group of Mohajirs – refugees who fled here from India and made a new life for themselves.  In my experience these groups have only a few things in common: hospitality, the ability to cook amazingly good food, a distrust of India, and Islam.  And even the Hindu and Christian minorities, about whom I will write in greater length another time, are deeply religious.  Early on in our time here I tried to explain to someone that modern Britain is a mostly secular country – but trying to translate “atheist” into Urdu proved tricky; nobody really knew how to say it, so we ended up by using the word “pagan” which is not really the same.

 See?  Pakistan is a country which has no comprehension of the word “atheist”.  It’s probably like trying to explain to a man living in the Gobi desert what snow is like.

 This identity affects more or less every sphere of Pakistani life.  The daily routine is punctuated by the call to prayer which echoes out at defined intervals.  Friday, the holiest day, sees most shops shut.  If you ask someone how they are they will probably respond “thanks to God, I am well”.  Everything has religious names – shops might be called “Bismillah Drinks Stall” (Bismillah means In the Name of God) or “Praise God Chicken Shop”.  I once bought some house plants from a guy in the bazaar who prefaced every single comment he made with the phrase “Insha’allah”, which made for a slightly odd conversation:

 Me: How much is that one?

Salesman: God willing, it is two hundred rupees.

Me: And that other one?

Salesman: God willing, it is only one hundred and fifty.

Me: Ok, I’ll have that one and that one.

Salesman: God willing, that is ok.

Me: How much does it come to?

Salesman: God willing, three hundred and fifty rupees.  But, God willing, as you are a guest, I will make it three hundred.

 And so on.

 There are two points I particularly want to make.  Firstly, the vast majority of Muslims I meet here are charming and polite in the way they present their religion.  Of course, there are different faces of Islam in Pakistan – there are groups who will murder Shi’a people because their interpretation of Islam differs from their own, for example – but every Muslim I have met has been polite, interested, and sincere.  I’m a Christian, so they disagree with me, but they do so nicely.

 And the second point is this: I like the religiosity of Pakistan.  I like that religion is a big deal here, because it’s a big deal with me.  I like the fact that I can walk into the bazaar and have a conversation about religion with just about any stranger I meet.  Modern Britain is so aggressively secular that any mention of religion marks you out as some kind of weirdo; received wisdom is that religion is dangerous, warlike and retrograde.  Over here, by contrast, everyone talks about religion, among most Pakistanis there is an ingrained respect for faith, and generally it is peaceable.

 There are exceptions, of course.  I’ll write about those later.  But the broad picture is probably a lot more pleasant than you’d think from reading the Western media.  As a Christian I much prefer a country which writes “Praise God” on its buses to one which writes “There is probably no God, so stop worrying”…

So What’s Pakistan Like: Warmth

February 15, 2013
About us, Pakistan
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People make generalisations about Pakistan all the time.  I don’t like it when they do, because they tend to be negative – “it’s dangerous”, “Pakistani people hate the West”, “it’s a failed state”.  But here I am making another one: Pakistan is a remarkably hospitable country.

It really is.  I used to post updates on Facebook of all the times people treated me differently because I was a guest: taxi drivers who refused to take my money, vegetable sellers who were so charmed by my stuttering Urdu that they gave me free tomatoes, shop-keepers who invited me to drink tea with them after an acquaintance of, oh, two minutes.  After a while I stopped because there were just too many stories, and people were getting bored of them.

Perhaps in stopping these updates I did a great disservice to the people of Pakistan because hospitality is the salient characteristic of the people here, by a long way.  When you watch the news you may get the impression that people here are angry and hostile.  When I walk through the bazaar, on the other hand, my impression has been unremittingly positive.  People here are instinctively and unfailingly polite, charming, helpful, and welcoming.

I have so many anecdotes I hardly know where to start.  A week ago I went to a different bazaar to buy vegetables and had to insist four times before the stall-holder would accept my money.  A taxi-driver a month or two earlier was slightly easier; I only had to insist three times.  Once I was driving with a friend when his car broke down.  Two passers-by dashed over to help us push it to a nearby gas station to get it fixed and steadfastly refused payment afterwards.  Buying bread from a tandoor (clay oven) a while back was tricky in that the roti-wallah refused payment on the grounds that we had been away from Pakistan for a month and he wanted to welcome us back.  Another time, on a trip to a city in the Punjab, some desperately poor people invited us into their home and insisted that we drink Pepsi, even though the price of a single bottle could have fed their family for a day.

I can’t promise that this hospitality is innate among every single person in Pakistan; I imagine there are some who are so hostile to the West that, were they to meet me, hospitality would be the last thing on their minds.  What I can say is that after two years and several hundred personal meetings with Pakistani people every single one has been polite and hospitable.

Here’s a final thought.  If a Pakistani were to travel to the UK, or Canada, or the USA, or somewhere else in the West, and met two hundred or so individuals, would every single one be hospitable and polite to them?  How about you – if you met a Pakistani on the streets of London or Toronto wearing shalwar kameez and a prayer cap, what would your initial thoughts be?

Next time, why not try being polite?  Saying “salaam aleikum” and smiling goes a long way, you know.  It might be the most Pakistani thing you do all day…

So What’s Pakistan Like?

February 13, 2013
About us, Pakistan
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One of the consequences of living in a newsworthy country like Pakistan is that people always want to know what it’s really like.  The media is at least partly responsible for this interest: people see images of bomb attacks, drone attacks, protests and other events in Pakistan, then remember that they have a friend living in that same country, and immediately want to know how things seem from our perspective.

 Answering this question takes more time than they usually want to spare for the simple reason that Pakistan is a complex country.  Everyday life defies simple explanations, which is what people usually want.  Contrasts exist in Pakistan like nowhere else I’ve experienced.  I’ve seen camels strolling casually down a major city street, side by side with brand-new Land Cruisers and Corollas.  I’ve seen brand-new frozen yoghurt shops that seem to have come straight from California – and penniless Afghan orphans sitting outside, sifting through rubbish to earn a crust of bread.  In major cities here you can eat imported American cheeseburgers alongside Pakistanis wearing designer clothing and taking pictures of each other on iPhones, and then walk outside to see homeless casual labourers dressed in rags waiting for work.

The simple answer is that there are lots of different Pakistans.  A very religious Pakistan, and a largely secular Pakistan.  A rich Pakistan and a poor Pakistan.  A safe Pakistan and a dangerous Pakistan.  A Pakistan of startling beauty and a shockingly ugly Pakistan.

So, in an attempt to answer this question, I’ll write a series of blogs about this wonderful, perplexing, bizarre country, in an attempt to provide a more rounded and realistic impression of Pakistan than one tends to get from the news outlets.  Stay tuned!

Specks and Logs

February 10, 2013
God, Snippets
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“Of course, the thing I most object to in their religion is the violence of it” said one man to the other.  “It seems that they are unable to express their religious views without killing people who disagree with them.”

 “I agree” said the second man to the first, stroking his beard pensively.  “Their track record of combining their faith with military power speaks for itself.  They claim that theirs is a religion of peace and yet we see them attacking others, declaring war, and invading foreign countries in the name of their God”.

 “Not to mention persecuting people of their own faith whose interpretation of their scriptures differs from their own!” added the first man angrily.

 Both men paused to reflect.

 “And then there’s the fact that they always break their word.  They make treaties with their enemies and then break them.  Always have done, always will.  Can’t trust anyone from that religion, history proves that quite well” snorted the second man.

 “And don’t even get me started on their contempt for science and progress” said the first man, stabbing the air with an enraged finger to emphasise his point.  “The way they persecuted scientists and constantly stand in the way of progress and development.  Some of the poorest countries in the world are based on their religion”.

 “Too true, too true” confirmed the second man sadly.

 “Listen to that, the sound of their religious building calling the faithful to prayer” said the first man.

 Both men stopped to listen to the noise of the church bells tolling.  The sound, mournful and plangent, echoed from the top of the church tower.  They listened sadly, then sat in thoughtful silence as the sound of Christian worship throbbed from the church.

 “The thing is, though” said the first man quietly, “I can’t stop thinking about that Jesus of theirs.”

 Another pause, then:

 “If only they behaved more like him”.

Pakistani paint colours

January 21, 2013
Pakistan, Snippets
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We’re moving house.  In winter the gas supply on our street drops to almost nothing, meaning that last year we had three months of cold showers, cold food and constant shivering.  You wouldn’t think that being cold would be a problem in Pakistan, given the searing summer temperatures, but the lack of central heating and carpets, together with the surprisingly chilly winters, means that winter can be unpleasant too.

 One of the benefits of moving is that it enables us to paint the house however we like.  Pakistani landlords are wonderfully open to repainting, certainly compared to British ones, so the entire palette of paint colours is open to us to do as we like.

 And what marvellously daft names they have!  Acapulco Blue.  Cashmere Beige.  Antelope, Coriander, Pumice.  Wild Orchid.  Champagne – funny, that, in a dry country.  My mind boggles at the thought that someone, somewhere, is paid money to think up this kind of euphemistic nonsense.  Some poor sap is sitting in an office somewhere, desperately trying to think up new and exotic ways to describe the colour “red”.  So if you think your job is dull and unedifying, spare a thought for that guy.

 Anyway, the paint catalogues made me think about creating a palette of colours to describe some of the things we see in everyday life here in Pakistan.  So, without further ado:

Rickshaw Blue: the pale, blue-grey colour of the smoke clouds that rickshaws belch out as they clatter around the place.

Revolting Brown: the colour of the water after I wash my hands in it after a day in the bazaar.

Murree Green: the deep, lush, verdant green of the mountains of northern Pakistan in early summer.

Bougainvillea Purple: the vivid purple of the exuberant mounds of flowers which spill out of gardens all over Pakistan.

Kaghan White: the colour of the snow which clings to Pakistani mountains well into the summer.  Basically just white, but, you know, you’ve gotta make it sound fancy.

Loadshedding Black: just black.  Like when the electricity dies and all the lights go out.  For the fifth time that day.

 There must be more, but for now I need to go and choose some paint colours…

Home is…where?

January 17, 2013
God, Travel
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 A wise man once said that the whole point of travel is not to set foot on foreign land, it is to at last set foot on one’s own country as if it were foreign land.  After a couple of years of living in Pakistan, together with a couple of trips back to my home country, that feels about right.

 We enjoy being in Pakistan, but we look forward to going back to the UK for a break.  We think that it will be familiar, comprehensible, somehow easier.  We look forward to coffee shops and country pubs and not being stared at when we go outside.  And those things are nice.  But what I didn’t expect is that the UK doesn’t really feel like home any more.  Wandering around my home town it felt odd that people didn’t greet each other politely like they do in Pakistan.  They seemed too busy rushing from place to place, towing their children behind them like suitcases.  The weather felt odd, the roads felt odd, people seemed to behave oddly.  Nobody honked their horns, nobody argued, nobody waved at us across the street and shouted “salaam aleikum!”.

 Then we came back to Pakistan, and it doesn’t really feel like home either.  It’s dusty and noisy and everyone looks different from us and, despite our best efforts, our Urdu is still not good enough to make ourselves understood perfectly.  People here are friendly and polite and welcoming, but it’s still foreign.

 Everywhere’s foreign now.  If that’s the point of travelling, then we’ve achieved it.  Great.  But we still feel like aliens.  Maybe that’s a good thing for a Christian.  After all, everywhere on earth is a temporary residence for a Christian.  Perhaps we won’t ever feel truly at home until we get there.

Angry Pakistan 2: History

November 17, 2012
God, Pakistan
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The film protests seemed to make people around the world think that Pakistanis are inherently angry people.  Such a small issue, they said, and such a disproportionate response!  The days of rioting seemed to confirm their suspicions that the population of Pakistan consisted of mainly angry people and religious fundamentalists, many of whom were also pretty angry.

I disagree.  The thing which strikes me most about Pakistani people is how hospitable and friendly they are.  I was struck by this when I arrived here and it continues to have an impact on me, more or less every day: when shopkeepers offer to buy me drinks and chat, when taxi-drivers and samosa-sellers try to refuse my money, when just about every man I meet in the bazaar engages me in polite and interested conversation.

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The amazing thing about this is that Pakistanis have every reason to dislike and distrust foreigners.  The land which is now Pakistan has been invaded by just about every military conqueror that history has to show: Alexander the Great, the early armies of Islam, the Afghans, the Persians, the Moghuls, and finally my ancestors, the British.  And even after that, when Pakistan was founded and people finally achieved their independence, the influence of world powers flowed across this land: the long proxy way against the Russians in Afghanistan and then the Americans, with their counter-terrorist operations and their drone strikes.

Think about it: if your country had lived through all of that, wouldn’t you be suspicious of outsiders?  And if those same outsiders were still bombing targets within your country, free from any restraint imposed by international law, mightn’t you be a bit angry?

But no, Pakistanis are invariably polite, welcoming and hospitable, despite the fact that foreigners have been meddling in their affairs for about two thousand years.  Angry Pakistan?  Painfully Polite Pakistan, more like.

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