When I
attempt to fathom what happened in Peshawar, I imagine a room full of 141
bright flickering candles being extinguished in one single blow. Why isn’t
there more love in the world? The kind of love that can end this madness is the
same love that allows us to forgive and understand those who stand behind these
atrocities.
To love is
to understand, and to understand is to seek truth beyond the single story. Yet,
the single story is more often than not how we see the world… Asian students
are always good at math. Men are pigs. Colombia is full of drug lords. Indians
can only work in IT. IT professionals are socially awkward (see where racism
stems from now). Everybody in the “country” of Africa is starving. Corporations
are evil. Governments are lazy.
During my career
in management consulting, I was told over and over again that I needed to build
my brand in one specific area. It’s as though it’s impossible to comprehend
that someone can execute effectively across multiple disciplines, so we get
pigeon holed because that makes our expertise easier to sell and explain to
people. And that is the appeal of the single story - it is easier for us to take
in.
When I found
out I was Pakistan-bound for my Acumen fellowship, the responses I received from friends were either of genuine concern for my safety or of tasteless jokes about
suicide bombers. I’ll admit to sharing a few offside jokes myself. After all,
Pakistan is perceived by the West as so backwards and hopeless that
inappropriate jokes about the country are made acceptable in our society. The reality is that much of the world thinks
of Pakistan as the prolific breeding ground of modern-day terrorism, as though there is some sort of sick incubator that places a terrorist on every street corner of the country.
Here is my real
account of living in Pakistan.
I arrived at
the Lahore international airport on November 22 with no idea what to expect for
my year ahead. I slightly panicked when I couldn’t find my colleague who was
supposed to pick me up. Frantic and out of ideas, I entered a hotel booking office
to see if there was a way I could get onto my email. Without any strings
attached the man at the agency invited me inside his office, provided his
personal Blackberry to check my email, let me use his phone to call my
colleague and graciously offered me part of his delicious chicken biryani
dinner while I waited.
I had a
similar experience during my first fruit shopping experience. Working within
the confines of a complete language barrier, I handed a 100 rupee note to my
neighbourhood fruit vendor and pointed at his bananas and oranges knowing fully
that I was putting myself in a position to get ripped off. I was shocked when my
neighbor verified that that I got local pricing on my bag of fruits. I have
happily given this fruit vendor 100% of my business since then.
In fact,
after three weeks of living in Pakistan I finally got to treat my friends to
dinner and even then it was one of the biggest uphill battles of my life. Every
single person I have met in Pakistan has been overwhelmingly warm and kind. The
worst that I have experienced is paying a rickshaw driver 50 cents above market
rate for a lift. This is hardly the culture of a people you would affiliate
with terror. I would go as far as to say that Pakistan is the most hospitable
country I have ever been to and I am slowly falling in love with it. The rugged
nature of Pakistan brings out the warmest humanity in the toughest people I may
ever meet.
Terrorism is
a brutal reality in Pakistan that paints ugliness on what is otherwise beautiful. What happened in
Peshawar was tragic and heartbreaking. 141 innocent people, mostly children, died and those who
should be held to justice also perished as part of their plan. In November a
suicide bomber at the India-Pakistan Wagah Border killed 55 innocents. I am
left emotionally exhausted and saddened when fathoming the hatred behind these
actions. In these attacks, the people of Pakistan lost their friends. Sons.
Daughters. Fathers. Mothers. Sisters. Brothers.
My
brief time living in Pakistan has brought me closer to empathizing with the people of
this country. I feel deeply saddened, angry, frustrated and confused about the attack. When I
look at my Facebook newsfeed, now filled with updates from my newfound Pakistani
friends, I see remarkable solidarity for the victims of those impacted by the
most recent attack. I can’t help but look back in shame at my own past
perceptions of Pakistan.
As my
coworker aptly put it “The US hasn’t had a significant attack since 2001, yet
they’re seen as the freedom fighters in the world against terrorism. We are
constantly under attack and then we are labelled the terrorists. No, we are
fighting the terrorists and we have been fighting them since the beginning.”
December 16 will forever be etched in Pakistan's history as Black Day. It has been remarkable to see the wave of profile photos on Facebook from my new Pakistani friends change to a flat black in memory of those who passed away on this day.
My heart bleeds
for the people of Pakistan. Every single day they live with the threat of
another attack. They are the victims of terrorism, not the creators of it. What
is the price we pay when we look at the surface of things rather than the depth
of things? And what other single stories do we have in our heads which preclude
us from truly understanding each other? I hope that as the world watches the
people of Pakistan stand in unison to mourn for their country, we can all start
finding the courage within ourselves to change our single story of Pakistan and
to appreciate the courage of each Pakistani child that continues showing up every day for class.
And what
about the single story of a terrorist? He’s a lunatic. A murderer. The cancer
of society… But at one point, he was just like you and me. He was once an
innocent child of the world gazing outward with curiosity and love. Then
something deplorable happened that convinced him the only way forward is to
murder innocent people. We want to bomb him out of his hole but the much harder
answer to seek is to truly understand him. Is he actually just like you and me?
Is it possible that if we went through the same experiences in life we would turn
out just like him… and does that end up making him a victim too?
I wish it
were as easy as replacing all the hatred and misunderstanding in the world with
love. The cycle of change starts with each and every individual. As for me, I
have to find the courage to ask myself the hard questions and stop accepting my own single stories of how I see the world.
Let’s start
with this story of Aitezaz Hasan, a brave 15 year old boy who gave his life in
January to stop a suicide bomber from attacking a school:
Here is the
TED talk that talks about the danger of a single story and inspired my thoughts
for this blog:
May the
victims of Black Day rest in peace.
