Where We Are

Karachi is the capital of the province of Sindh. It is the largest city in Pakistan and a major center for cultural, economic, philanthropic, educational, and political activity. It is the largest port in Pakistan and, most notably, the birth and death place of Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan. This (above) is the view from our hotel window.

The Teen Talwar (the Three Swords) monument was commissioned by the former President and Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto (Quaid-e-Awam). The swords represent Unity, Faith, and Discipline, three of the principles that Jinnah said were essential to the success of Pakistan's future. These themes phrased many of the conversations we had this week, perhaps because the conference was designed around the theme of planning a better future and/or perhaps because Brian and I had so many questions about the history of Pakistan and Muslim culture (thank you to everyone we met for patiently and thoughtfully responding to each one--we are more informed global citizens because of it!).

Over the past decade, Karachi has been plagued with violent clashes along ethnic, religious, political, and linguistic lines. After several natural disasters in the northern regions of the country, many people moved to the city, bringing the population from 12 million to approximately 20 million in a relatively short amount of time.  One of the students at Indus Valley School of the Arts is currently working on a senior thesis project about violence in Karachi. During a studio visit, she told me about a project where she took a map of Karachi and then burned tiny holes it it that represented the sites of bomb blasts since 2001. By the end of the project, she said, only a very small part of the map survived. 

After meeting soooooooooo many extraordinary people during our trip and after making so many new friends, the descriptions of the city's struggles were all the more heartbreaking. As the week went on, it became increasingly obvious that both of our countries have suffered and continue to suffer greatly as a result of the terrorist attacks on 9/11. The idea that this international conflict is a "United States vs. ______" thing is no longer accurate or acceptable in my view. Rather, I now understand this decade as a struggle between the vast majority of all citizens on both sides who only want for peace vs. the vast minority on both sides who are perpetuating this violence for personal agendas. The rest is the result of miscommunication based on a lack of opportunities for interpersonal contact. 

Words (either in Urdu or English) can't describe the extent to which we were welcomed with warmth, curiosity, and unparalleled hospitality. When I now think of Pakistan, I first think of the loving people, the transcending music, the homemade spicy food, the fresh brewed tea, the vibrantly colored clothing, the families riding on motorcycles, the patterned carpets in the markets, the guys climbing to the top of the "truck art" vehicles, the public monuments, the tops of the mosques, the gracious humor, the insightful talks given at the conference, the attention of the students at all three universities, the full moon while sailing, the smell of the shisha smoke, the decorated camels on the beach, and the pleasant weather before I think of anything else.