YOU ARE NOT A PAKISTANI 

By Javariah Javaid March. 01, 2018

When you introduce yourself to a stranger, what is the first thing that pops up in your head?
Would that be your name or your age? What identity would you choose to express? Are you a
Pakistani? A male? A lesbian? A doctor?

On that note, at that particular moment, our brain to mouth filter may have capacity to work or
may choose to completely abandon us. So at that point, would there be a phrase that describes
who you are? Or would there be a perfectly balanced inflection in the tone of your voice, that,
through your ​name ​alone, be enough to let that stranger get the intended glimpse of your
identity (and by extension your personality)?

Fortunately or unfortunately, (depending on whichever lens you choose to see this through),
human beings have a natural tendency to automatically put a name and definition to existing
visualizations. For without the existence of these definitions, communication itself wouldn't be
possible and so, sometimes, these beings are forced (subconsciously or consciously) to put a
name to an identity. You go a step further and you realize that you then naturally put
definitions to who you are as an individual. Identity as a concept is what makes an individual
unique, and it is also one that becomes an integral part of one's personality.

Let us suppose that you were to take your nationalistic identity as being the most important
feature of your personality. It would be reasonable to guess that you would introduce yourself
as a Pakistani just by virtue of the fact that you were born in Pakistan. By that definition, would
you still call yourself a Pakistani if you were born in Pakistan but raised in another country? It
might even be reasonable to believe that your argument for being a Pakistani would hold true
even when you are not one by birth. You could be guaranteed in your knowledge of Pakistani
politics, the Pakistani entertainment industry, and the Pakistani culture which by default would
make you a Pakistani.
Obviously, if you live in Pakistan, this Pakistani identity will not be the first one you choose to
represent yourself with (unless your physical appearance is atypical but that is a whole different
argument that will not surface here). The further you are geographically from your
“nation-state” the more obviously you might feel it represent your identity. You might be
saying, wait a minute! What if I were a seventy two year old individual? I’m not a Pakistani!
Pakistan didn't even exist back then; a nationalistic identity is just a modern political construct
that didn’t exist before the fifteenth century which makes this definition of an identity
completely uncategorizable. A national identity would definitely not be part of my identity, so
how would you define me?

So, let us assume that you don't care much for those modern pesky definitions of a national
identity. After all, if we take into account the ideologies of major political scientists, a nation
state is a very modern ideology and so cannot be regarded as a category for individuals that
don’t believe in the modern construct in relation to their identity. In this case, let’s talk about
inherited identity as being the basis for your identity.

Taking the aforementioned Pakistani example, if you and your parents live abroad and your
parents have always identified as Pakistanis, it won’t be a reach to surmise that you will have
subconsciously internalized your identity as at least being that of a half-Pakistani, if not a full
Pakistani. The ‘Pakistani’ definition here represents the culture associated with Pakistan (or if
you want to be more ambiguous, a subcontinental culture). This culture would be an umbrella
term that would define Pakistani culture as including listening to those beautiful melodies
churned out by coke studio, or passionately watching those Pakistan VS India cricket matches
and even wearing shalwar kameez with Khussas.

Hereditary identity will here be the foundation for an individual's identity; and it is one that will
be hard for an individual to reconcile with personal identity if one is not a strong proponent of
a nation-state identity. How would one go about removing that part of the identity? Although it
isn’t an impossible task by any means, a hereditary identity, one that can be exemplified
through other forms of identity, it is one that is probably the hardest to separate from an
individualistic identity, but through strong self-reflection one can eventually arrive at a distinct
identity.
Now that we’ve defined a small part of our semi-permanent identity, let us finally take into
account the fact that particular individualistic features change with time. How we choose to
define our identity will change according to our experiences as time passes. It may be
unthinkable for you to be able to harmonize the fact that even though you are not a Pakistani
now, you may identify as a Pakistani if you live in Pakistan for a long enough period of time and
vice versa. Do you then go through the process of reflecting on your identity again just to
re-define that major aspect of your personality that defines you?

Well, dear reader, I leave this part up to you. You can be whoever you want to be whenever you
want to be, but if you allow me to, let me impart the little wisdom I have accrued so far. It is
imperative that you think carefully about how you choose to represent your identity. This is
particularly crucial for the development of your personality. How you choose to identify
yourself is how you introduce yourself and that automatically changes how you are perceived
by others. After all, isn't that what most of us prefer? To be known by the best versions of
ourselves? If that is true, we must be able reflect upon our identity so that when the time comes
we are able to set our goals accordingly.

But thank heavens for small mercies for those phases between temporal moments, right? We
may go by set definitions of our identity that we feel represent us best at moments but the
beautiful thing is, that they keep changing to keep up with our changing personality and so will
forever be evolving. Isn’t that just a lovely comforting thought?

So let me ask you again, my dear reader, who are you? What is your identity?
Word Count - 1061
Javariah Javaid
2018-02-0473
Media Writing – SS 233
Professor Syed Javed Nazir