A girl started taking pictures of my Australian friend as if he was some kind of exotic animal.
ISLAMABAD: I’m interning with a charitable organisation based in Bani Gala and it has several foreign volunteers. One of these, from Australia, has a son who came to Pakistan recently. I got to know him, and he was enthusiastic to learn about Islam. He was curious to know about prayers and expressed an interest its observance. We decided to go to Faisal Mosque this past Friday. I thought the visit would be educational for him given that he was from Australia. He dressed in a shalwar kameez and off we went.
When we arrived at the mosque, I experienced what I will call ‘reverse racism’ — ‘reverse’ since normally when we think of racism we think of it as done by white people against non-whites. My friend was stopped from going into the prayer hall and asked to produce a photo ID. And then he was told that he couldn’t go inside since the guard came to the conclusion on his own that since the boy was white he couldn’t be a Muslim. After much pleading, he was let in but only after I told the guard that he was my cousin. As we were leaving, a girl took out her camera and started taking pictures of my friend, as if he was some kind of exotic animal.
And to think that we Pakistanis complain of racism in western societies, of how white people treat Pakistanis in particular and South Asians in general. The behaviour of my compatriots that day left a lot to be desired.
Shehryar Bilal Sheikh
Published in The Express Tribune, July 3rd, 2011.
