NIDDERAU, GERMANY: This is with reference to Heike Vowinkel’s article of October 23 titled “Pakistan — not so ‘dangerous’ after all”.
I live in Germany and know how the image of Pakistan has suffered after 9/11 and terrorism in general. However, it is not all lost. Pakistan has a democratic government and there are women in senior positions so its image overseas is not all that negative. And, if you compare how overseas Pakistanis are with each other, compared to, say, Indians, it is better.
In the case of the latter, I have found that there seem to be quite a few caste and geographical divisions. By this I mean North versus South, and this comes up even when they discuss Indian politics. Even in Europe when a new ambassador takes over, I have seen the Indians comment on whether he is from North India or South India. Thankfully, I have not seen Pakistanis talk this way.
The one major difference which goes in favour of the Indians is that they have faith in democracy because most Pakistanis I know would like to get rid of elected governments as soon as they can.
Sharif Lone
Published in The Express Tribune, October 25th, 2011.
