By Faisal Subhani | November 11, 2011
I’ve visited Canada and the US three times: in 1997, 2000 and 2003; twice before the 9/11 epoch and once afterwards. I think that sets the tone for this article quite nicely.
1997: I’m a 5 year old blue-eyed boy who thinks America is the source of all good, because it’s the land of the White Man (I was very self-conscious and even ashamed of my dark skin as a boy) and Disneyland (I truly believed America was all Disneyland. Hey, I was only five!). At the risk of sounding overly-academic, this is probably because I was born into a world that had just emerged from the Cold War. America was the world’s Knight in Shining Armour as it had destroyed the ‘Evil’ Soviet Empire, that ‘morally corrupt, Godless’ bastion of all that is unholy.
So I’m at Disneyland and it’s Asr Salah time. I haven’t started praying yet, so I wait while my dad, uncles, aunts and grandparents (mum was in Karachi) find a place to pray. The only relatively empty place in Disneyland we can find is an unused Aladdin exhibit, smack in the middle of a busy area. So everyone’s praying while my cousin and I watch. We notice local ‘Amreekan’ log stopping and staring. My family finishes their prayers and if I’m not mistaken, a few people in the crowd start clapping. It is a while later that I realize that those poor souls had probably never seen any Muslim pray before and had thought this was part of an Aladdin act! They probably didn’t know of the existence of a place called Pakistan and thought that all Muslims tend to dress straight out of the Arabian Nights and ride camels to work every day.
The West is quite clueless.
2000: I’m 8 years old and have marginally more sense than I did in 1997. I’m in Mississauga, Canada playing basketball with my aunt’s neighbourhood kids. Most of them are Catholic Portuguese Canadian, with one Vietnamese and one Sikh kid. They ask me where I’m from. I say,
“Pakistan”.
“Where the heck is that?”
Didn’t see that one coming. It’s not like we’re from Guinea-Bissau or something (No disrespect meant to Guinea-Bissau-ians. Or is it Bissau-ites? Bissau-ers?).
“Seen India?”
“Ummm…think so”
“It’s on its left.”
“Oh.” (Fortunately, at least the Sikh knew the whereabouts of Pakistan)
On the plus side, these Portuguese aren’t as far off as Christopher Columbus was.
“I’m also a Muslim. Know what that is?”
“Yeah, it’s a religion right?”
Alhamdulillah, at least Islam is on the map.
2003: I’m 12 years old. 9/11 has happened. We’re at Amsterdam’s Schipol Airport on our way to Toronto. The lady at the gate stops my dad (who has a full-fledged Dumbledore beard going for him by now). She asks for his Canadian passport which he promptly hands over. The photo in it was taken in 2000 when my dad had a Frenchie. The lady calls two male security staff over and the three of them peer at my dad’s passport. Then they peer at my dad, then back at the passport. All the while they’re having a hushed, intense conversation in what I presume is Dutch. Then the lady frowns at my dad and lets him through.
We land in Toronto. We’re at customs again. The nice, pretty lady (I’m 12 so I don’t believe that girls have cooties anymore. Quite the contrary, actually) at customs tells my dad that since many people ‘from your part of the world’ are known to smuggle kids out, it would be prudent to have a signed affidavit from the other parent giving the minor permission to travel with one parent the next time we two were travelling together (My mother was in Karachi at the time).
A week later, we’re flying out of Toronto to my cousin’s wedding in San Francisco, California, USA. No problems at customs here but I see people being told to take their shoes off at security. On the way back to Toronto, dad and I are singled out for scrutiny. We are asked to step to a counter on the side where a gruff man questions us. He asks us personal questions which bear no relevance to anything.
“Which school do you go to?”
“St. Pats”
“Pats?”
“Oh sorry, St. Patrick’s.” He must be a very religious Irishman, I think.
Some more questions to dad and I. Finally, we’re allowed to leave.
Well, at least Pakistan’s on the map now too.
However, a while later, back in Karachi, I’m playing Scrabble online with a woman from New Zealand. In the course of our conversation (the type that humans probably have when they encounter the third kind for the first time), she asks me what it’s like over there in Pakistan.
“Oh, it’s alright,” I reply.
“No, I mean isn’t it tough living there?”
“No, why would it be?”
“Don’t you guys have food rationing?”
I’m speechless. “Hahaha, and you probably think most of us ride on donkey carts.”
“You don’t?”
Good grief.
I miss the days when Pakistan wasn’t on the map. Maybe we need to send some of our people Down Under and set our record straight there.