From
the Editor: Akhtar
Mahmud Faruqui
October
19, 2007
Pakistan Americans:
Formidable Challenges, Poor Response
Writing in these columns this week Mr. Riaz Haq,
President NED Alumni Association of Silicon Valley,
makes a candid observation: “As the Indians
take a leaf from the Jewish playbook, so should
we as Pakistani-Americans. So far Pakistanis’
focus has been on building only mosques. We should
continue building mosques but we need to expand
our focus to include building Pakistani-American
community centers and participating in the political
process as Pakistani-Americans…” His
argument reminds us of a similar plea we made in
these columns sometime back. The editorial note
is very much relevant today:
The formation of PANA - Pakistan American National
Alliance - is an event that has been welcomed by
Pakistanis of all shades and opinions. And rightly
so. The objective of forging a common front to espouse
the cause of Pakistan and its people, both within
and without, is a laudable one. Yet it is the nature
of the task, truly elephantine and Herculean, that
warrants a few suggestions.
First, the complexion of the Pakistan community
in the United States. There are those who make it
to the new world in search of a better life - those
who work in dingy factories or corporate ventures
at a low rung and are content with sputtering a
few incoherent words of American English, a sub-standard,
pedestrian form of language in such workplaces with
funny usages, and worse, funnier accents and pronunciations,
to qualify for a vehicle of scholarship of higher
learning. One must unreservedly thank the US academic
and high-tech advances and their corporate spin-offs
that make up for the misplaced stress on syllables
which is jarring and more than a trifling annoyance
on one’s ears. Such Pakistanis, or Pakistani
Americans as they pride on being called, have two
obsessions: to loathe everything that is Pakistani
and to praise anything that is American. The razzle-dazzle
of posh American malls impresses them, rather than
the inspirational vision of America’s founding
fathers that find a vivid manifestation in the dynamic
of Cornell, Yale, Princeton, Pennsylvania, Brown,
Dartmouth, Woodworth, Columbia and Harvard. They
miss the finer values and essential features of
this great country, features that accord the United
States of America the enviable status of being the
world’s only super power and deserving the
best superlatives for its strivings in challenging
fields.
Then there are those Pakistani Americans who have
obtained higher education and struck gold in an
entrepreneurial undertaking - wealth quite disproportionate
to their academic or personal attainments - and
who have generously and laudably contributed to
community causes. Yet their corporate-tinged outlook
lacks the perspicacity of the visionaries of Aligarh
where the two-nation theory was enunciated and led
to the creation of Pakistan, or the bright minds
of Hyderabad where Urdu, a cultural entity of pre-
and post-independence Muslims, was religiously accorded
the status of medium of instruction to strengthen
the Muslim identity. English did not suffer in that
great seat of culture and learning, where the quintessence
of both, testifies to the richness of the past and
a commitment to the future.
And if individual vision is to be cited, the name
of Dr. I H. Usmani spontaneously comes to mind who
as early as the 1960s drew the blueprints of a nuclear
power program for Pakistan. Thanks to his foresight
and the establishment of centers of excellence like
the Pakistan Institute of Nuclear Science and Technology
(PINSTECH) - described as ‘best of both the
worlds’ by TIME magazine - Pakistan succeeded
in joining the exclusive nuclear club, and, more
recently, in warding off Indian military adventurism.
Another visionary who deserves to be mentioned here
is Professor Abdus Salam who not only won the coveted
Nobel Prize but, more importantly, set up the UN
International Center of Theoretical Physics in Trieste,
Italy. Salam acted as a one-man multinational corporation
busily transferring intellectual technology to the
less developed countries of the world. “Salam’s
strength is that he believes that miracles are possible
provided one goes out and helps them on their way,”
Nigel Calder said of the late eminent Pakistani
in 1967. It is a pity we don’t have someone
quite like him in the community of Pakistani Americans
though there are many who are many times richer
than him. The inference is obvious: richness of
imagination and vision impacts the social scene
rather than the opulence of money.
And that explains why the singular obligation of
the affluent business class of Pakistani Americans
to the community is restricted to the construction
of buildings. But do bricks and mortar create institutes
pulsating with the creative impulse? And can schools
established by the rich for the children of the
rich be anything other than a self-defeating exercise?
How many Pakistanis can afford to send their children
to the Islamic schools set up by the community’s
philanthropists?
One may ponder the serious question: Are the more
affluent among us conscious of the obligation thrust
upon the community in the post-9/11 period? The
Muslims took, and continue to take, a terrible bashing
at the hands of the media because their own press
was too fragile, nay, almost non-existent. Has anyone
- any one - done anything to support the fledgling
Pakistani and Muslim media? Barring exceptions,
our papers continue to be mere rags and TV programs
a theatrical portrayal of our strivings. A sorry
spectacle resulting from the indifference of the
community’s well-to-do ignoramuses.
Finally, there is the younger generation - the ABCDs
(American Born Confused Desis) aping the Amisha
Patel-Hirthik Roshan duo and merrily humming
“Dil mera milnae ko beqarar hae, Kaho na piyar
hae, Kaho na …” as they dash on
the criss-crossing freeways to and fro schools.
The more extrovert among them dote on Jennifer Lopez
and Jay Leno or fancy the characters of Practice
and Charm. Earning grades and counting units, they
seem to drift listlessly while yearning for an intellectually
stimulating environment that could lend meaning
to the newly found Pakistani-American identity with
a wholesome Pakistani imprint.
Pakistan organizations have to be much more than
political associations of Pakistani-Americans. They
have to attend to the social and cultural issues
touching on the lives of the Pakistanis in the United
States. They should make an earnest effort to blend
values which could be truly representative of the
best of both the worlds. Arriving in the US is not
an achievement; successful survival is. And in the
process the ‘melting pot’ experience
does not have to be a wholly one-sided affair. -
afaruqui@pakistanlink.com
