What Should I Write About Pakistan?
Posted by Ethan Casey on June 23, 2012 · 7 Comments
Ethan Casey witnessing flood damage in Swat valley, Pakistan, March 2011. Photo by Pete Sabo.
My many Pakistani friends know that I’m always ready and willing to write and speak about my love for their country, regardless of how opaque or disturbing its domestic politics might be at any given moment, or how bad its relations with America might become.
Right now, both are as bad as they’ve been in quite a while. There’s a lot to say – but a lot of it is being said, by the usual American and Pakistani commentators and reporters. The question in my mind, which I would like your help answering, is what I can or should be writing or saying.
So this post is an open letter to ask how I can help. So far this year I’ve made a few significant statements, particularly my speech at the United States Air Force Academy in February addressing a string of appalling atrocities committed by U.S. troops in Afghanistan. I also gave a talk titled “Pakistanis and Americans: We’re All in This Together” at a dinner hosted by the Milwaukee-area Pakistani community in April. Otherwise, over the past several months my time and energy have been sapped by unavoidable commitments and deadlines in my personal life (moving house) and unwelcome distractions on other work fronts.
Life is more settled now, and I’ll be spending the rest of the summer preparing the ambitious fall itinerary for my next book, Home Free: An American Road Trip. I’m very concerned these days with domestic American society and its fate, and I plan to be blogging at least weekly on American topics throughout the summer as well as while traveling, between early September and mid-December.
Muzaffar Ahmad, president of the Pakistan American Friendship Association, and Ethan Casey in a Steak 'n' Shake restaurant, Indianapolis, October 22, 2011
But I also – and always – feel a responsibility to write and speak out about Pakistan, especially now as relations between the U.S. and Pakistani governments continue to deteriorate alarmingly. Where, when and how to do this, in order to be most effective, is the question. Until a few months ago I wrote a regular column in the leading Pakistani daily Dawn, but that was cancelled because of budget constraints. I would welcome any and all opportunities to contribute to Pakistani media. But, as I say every chance I get, the real audience that needs to hear from me – from any friend of Pakistan – is the American public.
This is one purpose of my driving trip around the U.S. this autumn. Everywhere I go, I will seek and create opportunities to educate and engage Americans about Pakistan. Pakistani friends in Wisconsin are planning a full schedule of events and meetings at schools, bookstores and Rotary Clubs there in late September, and I hope Pakistani communities elsewhere will do the same. I’ll soon be publishing dates and details of my planned route, but for now these remain somewhat flexible, so if you think I can be helpful by visiting your city this fall, please contact me.
A related point that I feel compelled to emphasize constantly is that we cannot count on mainstream American media outlets to be more than fitfully hospitable. I’ll readily accept any chance to talk about the Pakistan that I know and love on national or local TV or radio in the U.S., as I did on Keith Olbermann’s show Countdown in March, but such chances tend to come only at moments when events boil over into a crisis. The public’s attention is always fickle, and Americans are especially distracted this year by the election and by ongoing personal and national economic worries.
So it’s more important than ever for us to take the initiative to meet Americans where they live: in schools and colleges, civic groups, churches and synagogues, even literally in their living rooms. This is what I’ve been doing for several years, and I’m gearing up to do it all over again, on a bigger scale, this year and beyond. I’m also considering adapting material from my two previous Pakistan books, and from my 2011 trip to flood-affected areas of Pakistan, into a short book geared toward American youth. And I intend to visit Pakistan again sometime in 2013.
If you’re Pakistani, Pakistani-American, or a friend of Pakistani people like me, then I need your help and encouragement. Please join my mailing list, like my Facebook page, support my livelihood by buying or sponsoring my books, and contact me directly. At a time when U.S.-Pakistan relations have (as an American friend who is currently in Pakistan informed me last week) “deteriorated to an all-time low,” with U.S. Embassy staff instructed to minimize all contact with Pakistanis, there’s a lot of work to be done. So let’s do it.
Seattle
June 23, 2012
ETHAN CASEY is the author of Alive and Well in Pakistan: A Human Journey in a Dangerous Time (2004), Overtaken By Events: A Pakistan Road Trip (2010), and Bearing the Bruise: A Life Graced by Haiti (2012). He is also co-author, with Michael Betzold, of Queen of Diamonds: The Tiger Stadium Story (1992). Web: www.ethancasey.com or www.facebook.com/ethancaseyfans
Hi,
I will go straight to the deck.
Please write about the strength of Pakistani diaspora in North America, Europe, Oceania, and the Middle East. Cover Pakistani professionals and businessmen (both average and successful) settled all over the world and their aspirations for their home and adopted countries. Meet Pakistanis wielding political influence and encourage them to build trust between Pakistanis and the peoples of their adopted countries. Do it in a manner that brings out the strength of the country as a whole. For example, Pakistani diaspora can help exports out of Pakistan and build a positive image of the country that in the days to come can help increase investment and tourism in that country.
Regards,
Suhail
Hello Ethan:
Thanks for your continued support for Pakistan and its people. True friends are judged when circumstances are challenging; not when they are good. You, Ethan, are a friend thru thick and thin.
I suggest you keep working on goodwill between US and Pakistan. This is the time to do it.
Good times come and go. US and Pakistan had ups and downs in their relationship. This is the time to not be discouraged and keep working. This shall pass and there shall be improvement in relations because people of both countries who are smart and can see the truth murkiness of circumstances.
Your story, your personal contact with people of Pakistan, and how you see Pakistan is what should be written about and talked about. You cannot underestimate the influence of one person.
Thanks Ethan and may God Bless you.
Your friend, Gulzar, Tualatin, Oregon
Mr Ethan, the situation in Pakistan are deliberate attempts, positively speaking, we can speak about the youngest IT professional (Late) Afra Karim, the A Levels world record holder who got 21 A’s, then recently we got Oscar for a documentary movie. The list goes on, awaiting for the next elections and for sure Imran Khan will be the leader who will show the world the real potential of Pakistan and its people. I appreciate your efforts Mr Ethan.
Dear Ethan,
I would love to see/hear you interview one of my favourite Pakistani journalists, Mr. Hasan Nisar, and write an article about it.
Regards,
Muzaffar
Dear Ethan
This is my first encounter with your blog on a friend’s recommendation. I am a Pakisani American, and I appreciate your love and concern for Pakistan. However, much of what Pakistan faces today is a direct derivation of a constant leadership vaccum, grave lapses in Pakistani leadership, callous disregard of fundamentals, and its failure to evolve a common vision for uniting its culturally diverse provinces. The present perpetual state of dysfunction is a result of six and a half decades of compelling and often crippling desire of the people at helm, military or civilian, to rule rather than serve. And that is not all! The silent majority – thousands of Pakistani elites who could have made a difference – just preferred to sit on the side lines and continue to do so. The most these intellectuals have done to date is self-promotion in the form of writing books and articles on how great they have been in service to Pakistan in whatever position they held in the past.
We believe every current crisis in Pakistan, from social and economic disparities to widespread institutional weaknesses, to major disconnect between the three branchjes of the Government and failures of foreign policies, all have to do with poor leadership and lack of vision and planning.
As Pakistani Americans we have talked and talked and talked about Pakistan. There is hardly an aspect of life that has not been discussed in the greatest of detail in our drawing rooms and coffee houses. However, we are not even contemplating of taking our concern a step further.
At NED Alumni Association of Washington DC (NEDA-DC) we have devoted the main session of our 8th annual convention to discuss as to how NEDians can help evolve the right kind of leadership through grassroots-level awareness and mobilization of Pakistan’s intellectual capital, here and in Pakistan. Project INDUS will be launched during this convention, starting with a panel discussion by a panel of renowned Pakistan scholars, followed by strategy and going forward discussions in turning INDUS into a movement to mobilize the intellectual capital of Pakistan to help people of Pakistan gain the ability to govern themselves without the threat of being thrown in a flux with every change in administration or shift in political alliances.
You make Pakistanis believe there is hope. Pakistan is going through a difficult time. You have known the Pakistan before and after 9/11 (I think). It gives us strength to know that there is hope and may be one day things will be better….. keep up the good work!
Hi Ethan,
I admire your work and your sympathies with Pakistan. I hope your work will one day help bridge the gap between the US (West) and Pakistan, if not on diplomatic terms, at least in the main-stream media so that the Pakistanis living abroad do not feel alienated and judged by their neighbors because of their looks.
You can write about the religious dimension of Pakistan and why this most misunderstood dimension was the core purpose in the making, and is the sole pillar guaranteeing the undoubtedly strong existence of Pakistan. Find out why it’s called “Madina-e-Sani” meaning The Second Madina.
Thanks in advance.
Aqeel