Like the others here who are regularly around non-Pakistanis I see a lot of the reactions tend to be on the negative side, even from Muslims of other nationalities..
I don’t think it’s completely down to the media either.. I know of ‘Pakistani only’ mosques set up here in the UK where women aren’t allowed to attend, we don’t tend to mingle or intermarry with Muslims from other countries (even tho we claim we’re descendents of Arabs and Turks lol) so many ppl tend to think we’re insular and overly conservative..
If some one know you as pakistani, after dealing with you for a while his opinion does not change for better for pakistan,
then problem is with you. At least a little bit.
Or the other person is extremely stuck in his tunnelvision that he can’t see that you can’t blame the entire nation because of a few people. Or you are doing something wrong. Especially when you consider yourself a better Pakistani than the according to you average pakistanis.
Kindly quote my words where I label *all *Pakistani muslims as hypocrites. I did say Pakistani muslims are the biggest hypocrites. Acknowledging you have a problem is half the battle won. Or we can continue denying any problem exists and pretend we’re guaranteed jannat bound.
Comfort zone is pretending there is nothing wrong with us. It’s this comfort zone that has kept us sedate for so long that I am constantly trying to jump out of.
**I hope I am not tarred and feathered for this but..
I think the issue of Pakistan’s image is not only an issue with other countries but within the Pakistani community as well. If I had a quid for every time I’ve heard “I’m Pakistani, but people always think I’m xyz ethnicity,” I’d be quite wealthy by now. It sounds as if some Pakistanis themselves aren’t entirely comfortable being associated with Pakistan.
Comfort zone is the area where we feel safe and are at comfort? maybe i got it wrong then.
And tell me when did i deny we have issues. And honestly i wish i had earned a free pass to jannah. would have snuck all of you in.
Anyways thanx for clarifying the misunderstood part. Lolzz.
ive been to turkey twice and china once even though china isnt a muslim country..and in both these countries, when people found out im pakistani…they showed so much love and respect!!alhamdulillah! i did not expect ordinary chinese people to be so warm to us but they were!taking our pictures…asking about pakistan in general!
This is probably true for most Pakistanis, depending on where they live and the kind of people they come across. Given the country’s geographical location, and rich and complicated history of the land, Pakistanis in general are very diverse people and it’s really not surprising that an average Pakistanis can probably pass off as member of different ethnic group or nationality.
I don’t think just merely stating the fact that you get confused for different ethnic group should mean that persons lacks self respect or feels embarrassed about his Pakistani identity. The problem is when people start taking meaningless and totally baseless pride in such petty things and exaggerate it’s importance, if there’s any to begin with.
I love it how the ABCDs are always the ones to solve half the problem by ‘admitting its a Pakistani problem’. I thank all of you for solving half our problems repeatedly.
If anything, all I’ve experienced during vacations in other muslim/non-muslim countries, is that the muslim residents of that particular country are very helpful regardless of where you are from but just because you’re muslim.
If identifying your faults and making an honest effort to work on them rather than living in past glory and pointing fingers at the rest of the world makes one an ABCD then by God i am glad to be an ABCD
^This is what I was referring to. I’m inclined to think that the type of people I’m referring to genuinely do have issues with their Pakistani identity because they view being confused for another ethnicity as compliment and seem to take pride in this. I’ve actually come across people who get irritated when (British) people correctly assume that they are Pakistani (read: Desi).
However, I’m inclined to think that the people that behave this way are usually rather insecure in general and it isn’t solely that they have a negative view of Pakistan. Interestingly, I’ve observed that this most commonly among girls as I’ve never heard guys take pride in being confused with other ethnicities.
