With their American accents and attitudes, you will not be able to single out these three guys from the rest if they were sitting in a coffee shop in California (an airport queue is a different matter though). They have spent a significant part of their lives in the US or the UK, and probably came back to Pakistan to attend medical school – a cheap and logical option for many. The low tuition fees means that don’t need to take out student loans, and affiliations of the Pakistani medical schools with American and British medical schools means these students can usually get a transfer in the last few semesters – or, leave for specialization elsewhere. They are just three of the many regular patrons of Coffity (or ‘the coffee shop’ as I tend to call it), the small coffee shop that I started in Abbottabad after craving for a few months for real espresso shots. Every few days, I am pleasantly surprised to see the diversity of the people that live in Abbottabad and visit the coffee shop.
Five days after the Operation Geronimo, I had a little chat with these students and asked them about the impact that the OBL incident has had on their lives. The response was the ‘nobody really cares’ that I already expected, but when I asked if any of the dozens of international journalists had approached them and covered their campus life (colleges and universities cover a significant portion of the Abbottabad real estate), the answer was a surprising ‘No’. To loosely quote them, the journalists were more interested in getting to the 600 odd anti-American protestors that gathered after the friday prayers to chant and shout their hearts out against the American invasions, than they were to cover the everyday life that was barely disrupted by this incident. These students also wanted to share their opinion about OBL and how their lives have (not) changed at all, but they were never given a chance to do that, despite being part of an important segment of the Abbottabad population – students. People may not know this, but Abbottabad is more an academic town than it is a military town – even the PMA is an ‘Academy’.
I do understand that menacing shots (from a few inches below their chins, just to get as much of the beards as possible) of open-mouthed, bearded protestors wearing caps is always good raw material for interesting news, but our media should realize that they usually also have Arab (yes, you heard me right, Arab!) students studying in these medical colleges, along with dozens, if not hundreds, of Afghan students.
So if you are an international journalist who is still in Abbottabad and waiting for the demolition of ‘the compound’, do try to go and visit AMC, FMC and any other *MC in Abbottabad and talk to a few students. Their worldview might be slightly different from that of an average Pakistani stereo-type, and their accents may be too American (or British) to mark them as a Pakistani when they open their mouths, but who knows, what they have to say might actually be newsworthy to some people – people who are tired of watching beards and banners all the time.
I think most people are probably like me and followed you on Twitter because it’s nice to get a view of a ‘normal’ Pakistani. We were charmed by your nonchalant attitude throughout the whole thing, by your desire to just get away from it all, something we can relate to much better than the extremists and the victims who make the news. And all of this is of course made possible by your expert grasp of the English language, which we probably all figured was pretty uncommon in Pakistan. (I noticed you got many comments to that effect, and that you were amused by them.)
One question that has come up in the debates since the incident is the ethics of the American celebrations over the death of OBL. Honestly, I think that the celebration would have been much the same if he had been merely apprehended, but assuming otherwise, what would you say the ‘normal’ reaction was to those celebrations? The same ‘don’t care’ type of reaction? I am normally on the more liberal side of US politics, but our liberal European and Canadian and Australian etc. friends seem to think that these celebrations were disrespectful, that they might be held against us (wars aside). I get the impression that most people even in the Islam-dominated regions of the world could not care less about OBL, because he was never representative of them. Obviously there are exceptions, but…
Would love to hear your opinion on that. I wasn’t among those celebrating, but I still have a tendency to sympathize with those who did. Many people have compared the celebrations to the anti-American protests, particularly those celebrating 9/11 itself. My tendency is to think that the celebrations aren’t precisely comparable, even though I have an awareness of the faults of the US on the global stage.
Thanks again for being willing to take advantage of the opportunity to open up a conversation. Also, it’s good to know that I can get real espresso if I ever decide to visit Abbottabad. 🙂
Always enjoy reading your tweets. How have your wife and son survived the chaos? Namaste.
I was denizen of Abbot’s land back in the late nighties. On one random trip i counted the no of schools on the main road that runs through the city.I counted about 27 schools and i’m pretty much sure i missed quite a few of them.BTW I used to go to Army burn hall. There is so much to Pakistan then what you get to see in the media.
Nice post. Thanks
:):):)
I love getting up everymorning just to read your tweets. It’s good to see a different side than that the media tries to portray. I love your laid back attitude about things going on over there. Keep tweeting and blogging cause you make my day with them. Thank you!!!
All too often the humanity of situations is lost when the media chooses ‘narrow vision’ over ‘the big picture’. Moreover, when political or nationalistic grandstanding constitutes the basis of the 6 o’clock news, and news gatherers become new producers, it really begs the question as to what extent the ‘powers that be’ or whoever is pulling the media’s purse strings consider us dupes or dopes … or both. Thanks for sharing your view through the wide angle lens. Nice post.
The Media made it look like everyone in US was outside celebrating the UBL killing.This was far from the case.Most of the conversations I have had since then UBL has not came up.Most people I know would not celebrate a death even if they are pleased.
Does the Media help create misunderstanding and hate or are they showing what most of us want to see?
Really interesting blog post, thanks very much ,always suspected we only heard half the story from the media .
I’d like to visit Pakistan some day. I’ve been to India many times – mostly in Rajasthan, but that is as close as I’ve gotten to Pakistan!
I have a good friend from Abbotsford, B.C. in Canada. Every time I see “Abbottabad” I think of Abbotsford and wonder if Abbottabad is as beautiful. 🙂
Maybe I’ll show up in your coffee shop one day and meet “the guy who liveblogged the Osama raid without knowing it” in person – long after all the excitement is over.
Most of my time in India has not been spent at tourist sites but in people’s homes and with churches and sometimes even in villages, so I know how different the “real” character of a place can be vs. the stereotype.
God Bless!
Good to know this, brother. Keep up the good work!
I beg to differ. I am an American College student and many of my fellow student’s do care that Osama is dead. Osama attacked our nation and now justice has been brought back to America. These guy’s do not know anything if they think college students dont care about Osama. We care. We are happy the man is dead.
nice write up!!:)
I would callled Abbotabad , a truly multicutural city with lush greenery, huge mountains and modern people , even modern than Islamabad. they have good institutes , medical colleges and historical places to see.
I so appreciate your blog! We KNOW there is more to “news” than what we are seeing on our television screen, and to have you confirm that the people in Abbottabad are pretty much like the people in any town is reassuring. I hope that one day I can visit the Middle East and see this for myself.
The media does this here in my town outside of Columbus, Ohio. For example, a very small protest of about 3 people took place outside my son’s school yesterday. The protesters attend military funerals around the US to protest against homosexuality and they claim they’re devout Christians. They are very hateful in their protests. So the media loves this and covers this small group of weirdos wherever they go. Never mind the thousands of devout Christians who think this small group of kooks should just be ignored.
Thanks for the post! I appreciate it!
Thanks for this interesting post and congrats. If you join EmpireAvenue, will you give me a heads up? I’d love to have @reallyvirtual in my portfolio 🙂 Cheers/Terri
I love being in an international campus, or atmosphere, … its so fun to be in a mixed setting of students, and increases one’s understanding of what we all, as human beings, have in common.
I have been to abbottabad once and I stayed at AMC hostel for a couple of days. nice place, great weather and nice people.
My brother went to medical school in Abottabad, too. But that’s kind of irrelevant, I suppose. But yeah, the main reason I dropped by on your page is to tell you that I’m glad theres someone out there stepping out and portraying a whole different image of Pakistan. One that doesn’t necessarily involve the crack heads who like to blow themselves up in public and the politicians who can’t run a country to save their lives. Power to you, mate. =] – Sincerely, A High Schooler and Proud Pakistani. x