Re: Arabification of Pakistan and Pakistani culture:
Great question. A little hard to answer when I think about it. But here are a few examples:
- Saying sehri at home instead of suhoor. Imagine waking my husband up in the morning saying, jaan, utho, let’s have suhoor, especially when I am fixing some serious parathas and andey ki bhujia. Sehri seems so much in order then.
- Also, traditional attire, foods we eat at home primarily, our Pakistani grocery list (:D), cuts of meat we buy for our nihari and paye.
We that have lived out of our home countries for so long have surely progressed and assimilated other cultures no doubt. But if you go to a city mosque for example, one can clearly tell the Pakistanis from the Arabs from the Indonesians from the Malaysians… And so while it is perfectly alright to learn from each other and adjust our lives to what’s suitable and convenient, I think at the end of the day, our embedded culture remains within us. And as much as we may try to be like someone else, we really can’t. Most likely, those people don’t want us either :D.
But as most people have said in the thread, most of us don’t want to copy anyone. We just pick and choose things we like, add on, become richer culturally. Some folks, however, try too hard…