Nationalism & Gatekeeping
we don't get to decide who owns culture because culture belongs to no one
Who gets to say what “Pakistaniness” is? How can we evolve the discourse to be more inclusive of Pakistani settlers in the West, and realize that indeed, what happens in Pakistan affects Pakistanis everywhere. Perhaps they do not live within the core of socio-political explosions, and are removed from the physical reality experienced by many — but the aftershocks are certainly felt by us all. Even by the Pakistanis who assimilate deeply into Western culture and know very little on the matter, preferring to remain ignorant.
Then there are Pakistanis in the West who are deeply ashamed by their ethnicity or citizenship marker, that they tell others they’re “Persian” or something similar to gain more respect. There is a clear stigma around being South Asian, Muslim, or both due to the duality of invisibility and hypervisibility, and so the responsibility to be inclusive falls not only on Pakistani shoulders back home, but on nation states in the West as well.
The ‘South Asian’ umbrella term is not accessible to nor desired by all from the region. While some stances may be nationalistic in nature, it is also linked to trauma, particularly Partition trauma — and it is violent for the multicultural liberal Canadian settler state to permit the erasure of our histories.
As Lalaie Ameeriar writes in her book Downwardly Global: Women, Work, and Citizenship in the Pakistani Diaspora, that focuses on Pakistani-identifying femme migrant narratives in Toronto:
“Multicultural state ideologies of citizenship try to force Pakistani women into liberal constructions of a ‘South Asia’ that they often do not identify with, both racializing them and leaving them further excluded from acceptable and knowable forms of difference. In this context, the sanitized sensorium creates a demand for recognizable difference, a radical alterity, which renders them invisible as Pakistani and hyper-visible as South Asian […] In response, Pakistani women talk back to the state, often resisting, but sometimes accepting or even subverting the category ‘South Asian.’”
❃
I’ve felt pretty triggered this past week. I receive message requests often, from people I do not know who say things to me like, “you live in Canada, don’t get involved in Pakistani matters, we are fine, thank you.” And it hurts me, because not only did I grow up in Pakistan, but I cannot safely return — and the cost was choosing the hope of revolution and contributing to radical social justice movements over privilege and the idea of a home. I sacrificed and lost the latter.
I would love to return. But the reality is, I would not be who I am nor doing the work that I do if I was in Pakistan — and none of this takes away from my Pakistaniness and what I would do for the community. I believe in the importance of resistance and talking back. And the reason I am feeling particularly triggered is because I know other Pakistani settlers in the West (there are more than 3 million of us in the West, and 4.6 million in the Gulf nation states!) are feeling the same: insignificant, excluded, and isolated from participating.
There is a specific criteria to be met, as overseas Pakistanis — if we’re too “liberal,” forget about it. If we fit the threshold for modesty, ‘purity’ and ‘womanhood,’ then we are less likely to be excluded. We have a greater chance at fitting into the image of what Pakistaniness should be. Any femme who falls outside of these margins can go to Hell. They’re better off in the West. We don’t want them interfering in our matters. But we’re also viewed as lesser than here.
This mainstream discourse excludes not only Pakistani settlers and expatriates in the West (people who have spent much of their lives in Pakistan, or people who identify as Pakistani yet have never visited — yes, they have a right to speak as well), but minorities (gender, class, ethnic, religious, disabled) within Pakistan itself, who are silenced on such matters, whose opinions are not only shut down but worse — and while Pakistanis abroad such as myself still have an identity to hold on to — for many others, it has resulted in identity disassociation or crafting a new one.
❃
As mentioned, Pakistanis — whether settlers in the West, or minorities back home — regardless of our location or class background, are affected by the globalized affects of Pakistan’s political climate. But also the racist and homogenous assumptions made about Muslims and South Asians everywhere. It affects us everywhere, in a particularly racist and isolating fashion in the West (we are the minorities here). And while I don’t mean to suggest our oppression is worse than yours (not necessarily!), but it’s important to be reflexive and focus on inclusivity.
I lived in Dubai during 9/11, so the haunting racial profiling and violence against Muslims in the West (that extends to South Asians, Indo Caribbean, Arabs and other brown and Black people in general) that followed quickly after was not felt by me.
But when I moved to Canada and heard stories of Islamophobic, racist, and arbitrary violence against brown people, especially bearded, Muslim men — I knew then that I was privileged to have missed out on it. I grew up in two Muslim majority countries where Islamophobia was unbeknownst to me. (I was however, hyper aware of South Asian racism in the Gulf states, but that’s a separate conversation).
I am guilty of expressing distaste towards Pakistanis and even Muslims in the diaspora myself. When I first moved to Canada, I would grow irritable at both their invisibilization of their Pakistaniness, and the over-indulging of Desi culture, the showing off of cultural awareness by them, and their vast enthusiasm in consuming as much as they could about the culture.
I thought, but you didn’t grow up there, you didn’t go through what I did, even though I was privileged — and most importantly, you didn’t watch suicide bombs go off in front of you or watch children die as they were killed during bombings or earthquakes. You didn’t see any of those things! Very dramatic and unfair, I now think to myself.
I wanted to justify my gatekeeping of Pakistaniness. I labelled some Pakistani-Canadians as eccentric for their “over-religiosity.” But in actuality, I grew up far more privileged than they did, even though it was in Pakistan. And I was projecting my own splitting identity.
Imagine longing for something you could not fully grasp? Migration trauma is real. Displacement trauma is real. Islamophobia is real. Whether it means hyper-fixating on culture, distancing from it completely, or simply wanting to go home.
We are not to be blamed, but I do believe as settlers we have a responsibility to be allies for Indigenous sovereignty.
❃
Being in the West is not the pipe dream many think it is. It is, in certain ways, a privilege. There is a bit more fairness in the system. An emphasis on healthcare (even though that has a myriad of cons in itself). Functional public transit. It is far easier, as a Pakistani femme, to live independently. There is freedom of movement (the fear of walking alone at night as a femme never leaves you though), and of course there are beneficial social assistance programs.
But at the cost of what? Spending months searching for minimum wage employment? Tolerating racism, sexism, and discrimination, which not only leaves one strapped for cash but possibly homeless? At the additional cost of leaving behind your family, your home, and having no choice? Not all of us choose to be in the West.
Many do, whether out of privilege or necessity — but truly, many are trying to survive. If we are not currently disabled, eventually we will be — and settling in a nation state that seems to prioritize its healthcare, is a big deal for most, especially perhaps those who lost loved ones to polio, or under-staffed/overworked government hospital care back home. We are not to blamed.
Beyond the daily, material realities, comes the ideological realities. Just yesterday, five Muslim men were killed in Toronto. It is similar to how ethno-religious minorities are attacked in their own homes back in the East, many of whom seek asylum or refugee status in the West out of desperation. We are expected to be good citizens in the West. We are excluded. We are victims and survivors of police brutality and far-right white supremacy. We experience medical racism, and are treated differently in medical spaces. And we are underpaid as brown, Indigenous and Black femmes, far lower than white and East-Asian women.
Many brown men I know have spent countless hours in isolation, without any of their belongings, while ICE officers held on to their Pakistani passports. This attitude does not change simply because we have foreign passports. As a Canadian passport holder who is visibly brown and who’s birthplace is Islamabad, I am routinely secondary screened at US airports.
Even though I code-switch so well! but I’m dressed like I’m cool and westernized?? I don’t have an accent! How dare you bomb swab me twice!! No matter what elitist private schools I had attended, no matter how westernized or even entitled I believed I was — I am, ultimately, a brown body.
❃
When the climate apocalypse arrives and people are dying, we need to stick together. This culture of exclusion is heart-breaking, it is harrowing and it is hurtful. Residing in Canada doesn’t subtract from my Pakistaniness. I am not any less Pakistani than when I lived there. No one gets a say on any of our identities. And these exclusion processes have been taking place since the 60s, at least in Canada.
We often assume the racial slur “Paki” is used primarily in the UK, but it was commonly used in Canada as well, especially throughout the 60s and 70s. My mother grew up as a Pakistani settler in Canada, and she was frequently at the receiving end of it. This is essentially how racism was birthed — through classist assumptions based on surface-level appearances. On a person’s skin colour, accent, and general appearance in the West, and on their religiosity, nationalist sensibilities and maintaining collective honour back home.
We are so quick to shut the door on those in need. Yet, it is always a pleasant surprise and reminder when people come together. The way people came together for Noor Mukadam’s justice after her brutal femicide was truly magical, but I believe such community care and solidarity needs to be a consistent effort. Otherwise it is often too late.
Lastly, we possess the right to vote from the Pakistani consulate or embassy in Canada if we have a valid Pakistani passport or NICOP card, so why shouldn’t we try to include ourselves? Similar to how the West does not have the authority to make claims about our identities, since identity is not a fixed construct but rather, a circumstantial one that is prescribed — neither do Pakistanis back home possess the right to police identity and belonging. Without overstepping (or harassing Jemima Khan and her family outside her London home, for God’s sake) we have much to contribute.
We are not to blamed for wanting freedom or survival. We live in a postcolonial world of whiteness, one in which holding onto my identity is the sole reminder I have that there is a space in which I belong. A space that I fit into, even if it is a tight squeeze and uncomfortable, but a space that welcomes me with open arms.
Pestān Stories is a weekly newsletter written with love and care for my community. As a writer and student, my financial situation is consistently precarious. Please consider becoming a paid subscriber or by donating to my mutual aid request for funds (https://gofund.me/47b6f1f2) as an act of reciprocity and thanks.