Dear Pak.org citizens
I´m writing to you after discussing this topic with Sabah.
I´m just going to give you a brief introduction to our “vision”. Well to begin with the begining, I´m the chairman of a Pakistani Student Organisation called OPSA. Since Denmark is a small country and the Pakistani Community is even smaller, we are the
only organisation representing Pakistani youngsters.
OPSA has existed since 1994, and we have mainly worked with activities as
celebration of special days like 14. of August, as well as helping younger
students through college life etc.
On occassions we arrange debates on
topics like Islam, Kashmir and other serious matters like “forced
marriages” and so on. On the not-so-serious side we arrange cultural stuff like a giant JUNOON concert this summer.
I´ve recently been elected as the chairman, and I bring with me some
experience from other organisations as well as from my previous work in the internet field. In OPSA it is my childish dream to create a Virtual Community for the Pakistani youngsters in Denmark, inspired by pak.org. This has become necessary due to several independent developments in our society.
Firstly, the “chatting” and surfing has become a integral part of our
younger brothers and sisters. Unfortunately, the only Danish sites offering
chat services are very liberal, even for Danes. Most of these chats and
sites for teenagers often discuss homosexuality as well as experiences with
drugs, etc. Not that people shouldn´t be allowed to discuss matters of
this nature. But I guess it´s a problem when the information is one-sided.
Secondly, the youngsters are brought up in Islamophobic as well as a xenophobic society, and the only information they get is that from the Danish Media and Danish Youth sites. The information coming from Western Media has created a group of youngsters, who feel alienated. As they find themselves living in a society that considers them as aliens, but on the other hand they lack knowledge about their roots, that be the Pakistani as well as the Islamic ones.
Thirdly, we as a Pakistani organisation would be able to create a meeting
point, where we can reach our Community much faster and easier than before.
This would enable us to motivate a significant part of our ( at times bit lazy ) people .
I´m just going to give you some examples of the topics we´ve had in the
Danish Media recently. Some muslim girls were sacked from their work place,
because they wore Hijaab. This work place happened to be a supermarket.
Believe it or not the Media took the side of the supermarket, and everybody in
Denmark agrees that Hijaab should not be aloud on public places, since that
might scare away customers.
Well, we as muslims or Pakistanis COULD have arranged a boycot of that
supermarket in question, but nobody reacted, since we do not have a formal
information infrastructure. Another similar case is that of Halal Meat.
A few months back a group of Danish right wing activists put up posters of a camel
being slaughtered. They went to schools and kindergardens and handed out postcards with the same motive on them. The aim was to forbid Halal meat in schools, because as they argued it is inhuman to animals..hmm..Now you are
going to say, what the heck right-wingers are that way every-where so what.
And I guess you are right, the only problem is that even left-wing parties
with socialist ideologies, who have been rather open-minded to minorities,
have changed their minds. As a consequence a change in the legislation is
being considered in the Danish parliament. And what have we done about
that??..Nothing significant!..
All this might sound weired to you, as I guess most of you guys are living in Canada or the US, which are considered as being very liberal and multi-cultural country. However, the problem with Danish society is that it has been homogenous for the last
many hundred years. Immigration is a very new phenomenon to Danes (the first
muslims came in 1968 ). And even today they have difficulties accepting foreigners. Because they have a village mentality, where they consider their own life style as supreme and the best. Where new trends,
(particularly from South) are considered as threats to the social and cultural balance, and not as new inputs that might improve society in general.
Perhaps this post makes me sound like a very conservative and orthodox person. The funny thing is that I´m not, ( guess pak.org members that know me could testify that..), but I do believe in expanding the horizons of our coming generations, giving them the possibility of other information channels. I
would like them to express their own thoughts and feelings somewhere, where
they can be among others in the same situation. I would be very sorry, if
the only information they would get about Pakistan is that from the
television and Danish newspapers, in which everything you see or hear is
negative. Where Pakistan is considered an agressor state run by corrupt
politicians and bureauctrats. Where children are kept as slaves, women sold
to others, and where Islam is forced upon the heretics..hmm..need I say
more??!!
I better get down to some more practical subjects and tell you bit about
the project and our financial horizon..hmm..
The organisation as such is a non-political and not-for-profit entity. However, we do recieve some public funding as well as the membership fee that we collect ( 18 USD/year ), but basically most of our budget, ( which
is less then usd 8.000 ) is spend on our “real life” activities. But it is
my intention to raise around USD 2-3000 through private sponsorship, for
the whole development of this site.
So far I’ve talked to a Pakistani internet company, who would like to
develop a site for us. They have promised us that they will do it very very
cheap, but since they still have to pay a Danish programmer, they are only
going to charge us for his pay. Apart from that the development of the
site, User interface all that will be done for free.. ( Since I´m not a
technical expert, you are more that welcome to give me some feedback).
hosting as well as the domain is free.
But I can´t tell you how thankful we would be if you guys could act as our
“gurus/mentors” on this project. That would be one of the first
transnational/transatlantic Pakistani cooperation.
Please free to contact me if any of you should have questions or comments. If you wanna mail me, than write post me a reply on this mail and I will send you my e-mail.
Looking forward to hearing from you guys
Allah hafiz
Tanveer a.k.a Ramis
[This message has been edited by Ramis (edited October 03, 2000).]