"Most Dangerous Country" cultural event

            The Understanding Pakistan lecture could not have been a more appropriate venue for a twenty-year-old college student to find herself, especially considering she knows no distinction between Pakistan, Afghanistan and the Middle East. Chico States’ Religious Studies professor Mahan Mirza covered the demographics, geography, history, politics and current events of this supposedly Middle Eastern state that actually turns out to be South Asian. He started off his speech by posing the question: “What do we know?” In general, Americans get vague stereotypes they identify with Pakistan from the news and the news, for the most part, names Pakistan as the most dangerous country. His goal is to give a different perspective. Mirza’s informative overview of Pakistan as a whole on April 29, 2008 was enlightening.

            Beginning with geography, the speaker discussed the neighboring countries of Pakistan. Apparently, the country run North and South between Iran, Afghanistan, China and India, and is guarded in the South by the sea. Much of the conflict arises from the disputable borders in the Northern areas. As a side-note, Mirza noted that within the Northern boundaries of the country the climate ranges all the way to one that supports snow, which is surprising to those that imagine it as one huge desert. He then went on to diagram the layout of the country’s population. Pakistan, although only two-times the size of California houses nearly half the amount of the United States’ population totaling about 170 million people. This large populace was broken down into four major ethnicities including: Punjabis, Pathans, Sindhis, and Baluchis. Between this diverse combination of people, the shared national languages are Urdu and English. Over half the population is under thirty and the literacy of the general public is approximately fifty percent. Mirza attributed these statistics to the easily influenced and passion by and large of the Pakistani people.

            Transitioning into the religiosity of the state, Mirza discussed Pakistan’s ties to Indian traditions. He explained that boundaries there are not well defined; one tradition moves into another, “we are all one.” Background history of the country includes Muslims presence in India since the year 711, and the eventual British presence in India that inspired the eventual independence in 1947. The Independence movement resulted in two countries: India and Pakistan. The Independence movement came with the “two-nation” theory. Muslims needed their own homeland and Hindus and Muslims cannot live together. Refuting this theory, Mirza simply pointed out that the two and been intermingled for decades. The zealous actionist Gandhi rallied that the two could co-exist while the leader Muhammad Ali Jinnah affirmed that idea was not a possibility. The founders gave the new state a name which significance is: Land of the Pure and made Pakistan official on August 14, 1947. Jinnah had intended it to be secular state while religious scholars and Islamists called for it to be a modern Islamic state. With the mentality that sovereignty belongs to God, the country went through a series of constitutions. Its leadership has bounced back and forth from civil to militant over the last sixty years and is currently in the civil state it was when it began. Due to its great turbulence during its short history and heavy American involvement, the country as a whole shares a strong anti-American sentiment. This is easy to understand considering I recently knew next to nothing about this complex state.