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Identity crisis - how do we fix this?

Is this important? Yes very much so. Why? Well think about it this way. Think of a ledger account with positive and negative.

  • Positive - all things that instil or give a positive image/perception to Pakistan. The aggregate of this is called "soft power"
  • Negative - all things that give or create a negative image/perception of Pakistan.

All countries have both. UK has teenage pregancies, drugs, drink problem, domestic violence, chavs but all that is eclipsed by queen, royalty, British history, London, British education and administrative excellence etc etc. What I mean is it is terribly important for any country to create as much positive narrative or image as possible and try to reduce the negatives as much as possible.

Pakistans tragedy is the negative list is filled up with terrorism, misogyny, extremism, poverty, chaos but as far as postive attributes there is nothing. Zilch. Zero. Because our people do not sell any attributes as under the tag 'Pakistan'. And if we keep using 'India' or other synonyms we will never get of this vicious cycle in a 100 years.

If a bomb went off I would rather tag that as 'Asian terrorist' but a restaurent as 'Pakistani'. Not the other way around.

Pakistanis need to learn their civilisational history a lot more to have solid identity grounding. Right now too many are just

a) religious created identity only

b) only pakistan post 1947 (and only whatever in previous history can be connected to that) matters

It is why I wish you the best Atanz in your promotion of indus valley civilisation connection to Pakistani community wherever they are.
 
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Pakistanis need to learn their civilisational history a lot more to have solid identity grounding. Right now too many are just

a) religious created identity only

b) only pakistan post 1947 (and only whatever in previous history can be connected to that) matters

It is why I wish you the best Atanz in your promotion of indus valley civilisation connection to Pakistani community wherever they are.
Bingo. I think you hit it hammer on the head there. The idea of Pakistan as has been taught and recieved is one dimentional, diffuse, lacks clarity, is not cogent or coherant, full of contradictions and falls apart at the slightest intellectual scrutiny.

And you see the result. Identity crisis. And thanks.
 
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@Indus Pakistan
First I don't agree with "after-thought" thing unless the guy himself mentioned explicitly which does not seem to be the case here.
Basically Pakistani/Indian cuisine has been branded like that and India's large population and its large diaspora makes it a bigger brand. Furthermore, these guys are often not the highest educated people to understand such distinctions and they are economic immigrants and do whatever it takes to sell the product and pay the bills.
 
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Bingo. I think you hit it hammer on the head there. The idea of Pakistan as has been taught and recieved is one dimentional, diffuse, lacks clarity, is not cogent or coherant, full of contradictions and falls apart at the slightest intellectual scrutiny.

Bingo. I think you hit it hammer on the head there. The idea of Pakistan as has been taught and recieved is one dimentional, diffuse, lacks clarity, is not cogent or coherant, full of contradictions and falls apart at the slightest intellectual scrutiny.

And you see the result. Identity crisus.

If you've read the history of the region, then you know we're just very mixed people. From the Sakas, Kamboj, Greeks, Kushans, Parthians, Medes, and countless others. We are very unique in that sense. There is no way to put a single label on us.
 
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@Indus Pakistan
First I don't agree with "after-thought" thing unless the guy himself mentioned explicitly which does not seem to be the case here.
Basically Pakistani/Indian cuisine has been branded like that and India's large population and its large diaspora makes it a bigger brand. Furthermore, these guys are often not the highest educated people to understand such distinctions and they are economic immigrants and do whatever it takes to sell the product and pay the bills.
Read @Nilgiri post. Sometimes it takes a outsider to see the problem that you can't see from the inside. I can see it because having been educated in Britain it affords me a unique outlook on the country of my origin. My ideas slowly evolved from when I was young. My dad is and was a man who loved debating about everything but mostly Pakistan. This whole idea of Muslim nation and Pakistan not mashing together came out of a fierce debate I had in my teens with my dad who I stumped because he could not reply to my reasoning - just to clarify my dad was a lawyer and not to get easily cornered but I cornered him on this to the point where he changed the subject.

Pakistan is not a nation based on religion. That is a fallacy and cheat that has been peddled so much everybody accepts it as fact. Israel is the only country based on religion. And this argumant can be 'field tested' easily. If Pakistan was based on the idea of religion - in this case Islam and Muslim nationhood it would accept any person who is a believer of Islam. That as we know is not the case. A follower of Islam can land at Islamabad Airport and declare he is a Muslim but that does not mean he will be accorded entry or citizenship.

Israel however has law that states any Jew from anywhere on earth can move to Israel and get Israeli citizenship. This weak sense of national identity that is contradictory has prevented a formation of a consolidated and solid sense of 'Pakistan' and this mainfests itself in a milllion places where Pakistani brand their businesses or products as "Indian, Apna, Asian, Desi, Musim" bit conveniently avoid using 'Pakistan' as if it was a swear word.

If you've read
At least most of us have lived on the Indus together for thousands of years or more. But 99% of Americans are migrants from dozen, after dozen countries and most only moved there in last 200 years. Yet the identity of Americans is rock solid. Despite the fact that nothing really in America is indigenous to the land. The people are not, the language is not, the culture is not, the food mistly is not, the architecvture is mostly not. But the idea of America even if it is so ridicalous like "freedom" imputing that rest of the world is in prison is strong. ditto Canada. What a fcukin maple leaf is their identity. A leaf for gawds sakes. Oh and a line as straight as ruler as a border between them and USA. And Queen as head of state.
 
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Lol, it's just marketing.

Ask that guy if he considers himself indian...he'll puke.
Its depends on who is asking. If it is any Pakistani or Indian, he will pose himself as patriotic Pakistani.
But it is any white , he will pose himself as an Indian.
 
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Its simple

To entire world, tandoori chicken, chicken butter masala, chicken kadhai, chikan tikka, naan, parantha, lassi is Indian food, now if you want to sell these you have to have Indian branding
 
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You summed the cause of this malaise in one meme. However I must add there is a identity crisis also playing out because this problem pre dates the extremism issue which only began to gain wide perception post 2000 but the branding problem I felt it back in 1980s when I was a young man.
Quite simply, nobody knew who Pakistan was. At best it was another eastern mudhole or ally against the commies. In the 80’s you had the despicable era of Zai ul haq whose images of men being whipped publicity and the Afghan Jihad further solidified the first meme.

India on the other hand has been a constant, snake charmers, curry,color and dance. Add to that people like the various opportunistic “gurus” of the weed stoned hippie culture and you have a known curiosity and acceptance.

At the end, still branding; Pakistan could have gone the way of Turkey but the same pigs who cried Kafiristan came over in the late 40’s and early 50’s to ruin it.

Karachi had open doors, open the way Islamabad used to have at some point until Ayub Khan manipulated the local vote by shoving in the criminal class of the northwest into Karachi to change it.

The first immigrants to the UK from Pakistan were either educated or diplomats who stuck around; the economic runners did not land there till the late 60’s.

Remember East is East? It was a pretty good result of who and what immigrated; until even the beatles(yes those lovely ones including “love for all” Lennon) sang “we dun want no fukin pakis”(although in fairness they grouped Indians with us as well).

In summation, being Indian in the west has less to do with patriotism and more to do with survivors instinct.
Where the actual issue arises in identity is with ethnic divide and pan islamic delusions. In addition there is a strong criminal element in the UK that has taken a bad precedent with the pedophilia and their need to get “white meat”. This isn’t uncommon for a larger percentage of criminal element in any immigrant community based on economic immigrants since they do bring crime(add Trumps rant here).

But what you see in identifying as Indian is rather low on Maslow’s pyramid of needs.
 
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So my family have come back from holiday in Rome, Italy. I could not go because of some business demands. In Rome after few days they yearned for Pakistani food. So they found a nice place which served good, simple Pakistani food. The restaurent owner was incredibly nice and gave personal service once he found out they were of Pakistani origin. So no complaints there.

The guy was about mid 40s and had migrated from Eminabad, Pakistan about 5 years before. So he had done good for himself. From nothing he had worked hard and now ran a small restaurent eve if the inside decor was gaudy and heap. The food though was good.

To recap this he was over the moon to see fellow Pakistanis even if they were from UK. He asked them where they were from in Pakistan etc. Being in his mid 40s he was born at least 25 years after Pakistan became independant from British rule. To sum up he was a full product of Pakistan and had only left as migrant 5 years before. He had never been anywhere else then his native Pakistan and Italy. Below is his card for his restaurent.


SMGV18D.jpg



Notice he has decided to brand and sell his restaurent as "Indian" and just as after thought added "Pakistan". No Indian ever on mother earth would add "Pakistan" on anything. Yet a 'pucca' Pakistani is branding himself as Indian. This is sad and tragic. Pakistan now is a elderly country and one of senior members at UN. Most UN countries came about in 1950s, 1060s, 1970s. UAE is from 1970s. Singapore is from 1960s. Yet after 70 years this guy has a weak sense of identity or conflicted indentity that he needs to prefix his identity with "Indian". This exposes something terrible and deep malaise in the very notion of being Pakistan and identity as a nation.

Is there any hope for us out of this befuddled idea off who we are?
You need to see a shrink because you are thinking too much.
Indian pakistani foods are same so he used both countries name and thats it.We are from the indian subcontinent so we are indian by race but pakistani by citizenship.The same can be said about bengalis,nepalis etc.Pakistan is our identity.
 
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You need to see a shrink because you are thinking too much.
Indian pakistani foods are same so he used both countries name and thats it.We are from the indian subcontinent so we are indian by race but pakistani by citizenship.The same can be said about bengalis,nepalis etc.Pakistan is our identity.
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You need to see a shrink because you are thinking too much.
Indian pakistani foods are same so he used both countries name and thats it.We are from the indian subcontinent so we are indian by race but pakistani by citizenship.The same can be said about bengalis,nepalis etc.Pakistan is our identity.

There is no such thing as an Indian race. Not even in India.
 
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Bingo. I think you hit it hammer on the head there. The idea of Pakistan as has been taught and recieved is one dimentional, diffuse, lacks clarity, is not cogent or coherant, full of contradictions and falls apart at the slightest intellectual scrutiny.

And you see the result. Identity crisis. And thanks.

To me, identity of a people is equivalent to their inherent strength as a people.

When only one facet is invested into an identity (esp over long enough time), it is a weakness...because you have not properly hedged and grounded enough. Of course there are similar issues when there are too many facets to the identity because that creates avenues to splinter too over time. Thus there is a sweet spot in it that varies from place to place in the world...but it is never just one or two in my experience given human nature....and to make it just one or two promotes a long term artificial brittleness and frailty.

Take the story of Antaeus...the source of his immense strength was just one thing: contact with the ground (his mother as the myth goes). Thus he gave Hercules quite the fight, until Hercules figured the one source of his strength...and promptly lifted him up from the ground to defeat him. There are similar stories around the world in many cultures, but the poignant message is the same...having only one source of strength/sustenance is ultimately a weakness.

ditto Canada. What a fcukin maple leaf is their identity. A leaf for gawds sakes. Oh and a line as straight as ruler as a border between them and USA. And Queen as head of state.

How dare you forget our beloved Hockey and Maple syrup! :P

@Gomig-21 @Hamartia Antidote
 
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Some Pakistani places like this exist in NYC, but a lot of them don't. Funny story, I once went to a taco place being run by Chinese people. :lol:
Tell further what you ate there, why are you reluctant telling about eggs of Brazilian frogs fired in fat of tortoises
 
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Tell further what you ate there, why are you reluctant telling about eggs of Brazilian frogs fired in fat of tortoises

I didn't eat anything there. I was with friends? I only eat halal, and mostly Pakistani food.
 
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He might be trying to attract Indian customers, whats the big deal guy is just trying to run his business and business has no identity except for profits off-course:enjoy:
 
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