Pakistan 101

The Middle East is currently a hot spot in the world for conflict in all aspects weather it be political, religious, or territorial reasons. Unfortunately I, along with many Americans in college, don’t have a very broad knowledge of these areas other than the times we hear their country names in news papers or on the news. It’s sad to say but I couldn’t tell you the difference between Iran and Iraq other than their both in the Middle East. I feel this is a product of laziness in my generation because we have a hard time seeing how my knowledge about these countries could ever directly affect my life. Since we live in an era of instant gratification due to modern technology, anything that I don’t need to know to pass a test or to maintain my daily life is ignored or forgotten. CSU Chico seems to understand this trend for current generations and has implemented general education requirements to try and stimulate its students to become aware of other cultures and pressing issues in the world around us, and also pressing issues around us on campus and in Chico. Due to this general education requirement, for one of my five required cultural events this semester, I attended a lecture/presentation about Pakistan on Tuesday April 29, 2008.

The presentation was only an hour long and the presenter seemed well aware that most attendees probably didn’t know much about Pakistan before walking through the doors. Because of this the presentation lacked substance or any theme to truly grab the attention of an American College student and show me why I need to be aware of Pakistan. I’m not saying I didn’t learn anything during the presentation. I left the lecture with a much greater knowledge about Pakistan than I had before I entered. Unfortunately as I said before due to the one hour time limit and no prior knowledge, I learned pretty much exactly what I might have if I were to pick up an encyclopedia for an hour. Looking at my notes I feel like I’m actually looking at an encyclopedia as the lecture had no central theme or ideas to tie the onslaught of facts together. I feel these cultural events are not meant to stimulate a student to regurgitate 6 pages of facts about Pakistan so here is what I feel I left the presentation with and will not just forget a week, month, or year from now.

The first negative image about Pakistan that the presenter removed from my mind was thinking of it as “one of those Middle East desert countries”. Pakistan is not dissimilar to California with Ocean and Mountain climates, and the country is only about half the size of California. I found it amazing that Pakistan held about half the population of the USA in such a small region. Looking at Pakistan’s current population one will notice that over half the population is under the age of 30. Young populations such as this one are ready for change and are very malleable in the hands of influential leaders. This is very advantageous for current leaders as Pakistan is a Country with two very large fronts with neighboring countries. Pakistan does what it can to keep good relations with its neighbors or else it could easily be invaded due to its geographic location. Because of this Pakistan has the 7^th largest military in the world while many of its citizens starve.

Another interesting situation involving the Pakistan population is the mix of cultures/religions. There are 4 main regions of different ethnicities and the dividing lines between these regions have almost no correlation to the countries drawn boarders. You can find Baluchi’s in the South West part of Pakistan and their region of inhabitance spilling far into Iran and Afghanistan. In the North East one can find a high concentration of Punjabe that spills far into India. In the North West flowing into Afghanistan one would find a majority of Pathans. The only ethnicity that seems to be bound by the actual Country boarders are the Sindie in the South East region of Pakistan.

I found it interesting to find out about the origins of Pakistan and was surprised to learn that it’s a relatively young country, gaining independence in 1947; however the Country is constantly cycling between a military and civilian governed state. Also what is now called Pakistan was once know as West Pakistan and East Pakistan was not adjacent, located on the opposite side of India. Pakistan was not the only country to gain independence in 1947; India became its own country at this time as well. Both regions were actually considered the same state before this time and controlled by the British. When the independence came about Muslims demanded they have their own homeland and many proclaimed that Muslims and Hindus could not live together, this is why two Countries were formed. The ironic thing is that Muslims and Hindus had already been living together for over a millennia and to add to that the largest block of Muslims in the current world is in South Asia not in Pakistan.

So I know a little about Pakistan now and that’s great. However I don’t feel that this event accomplished in anyway what the goals for cultural events should be. In the future I feel these events would be better used to focus on much smaller topic areas and not such a broad encyclopedia sweeps. One thing I found interesting that the presenter touched on was the type of things he was required to learn in grade school. I would be much more interested in learning about the differences in Americas and Pakistan’s educational upbringing. I hope to find events in the future that may be a bit more focused, but as I stated before most students don’t even have a general knowledge of Pakistan or most countries in the world; so in a sense these events create a foundation for gaining future knowledge.