not comfortable with the geographical space of Pakistan. I’m more inclined towards thinking what is Pakistan beyond the nation state, beyond the geographical. There’s linguistics. There’s so much else that marks it. These are the kind of questions I’m coming back to. I want to air that and want to acknowledge that the West is not the center. Akram Soomro: I am from the second layer, the people who have spent four months here. We are fortunate that we have spent four months here and that we have got some experience, as well. We have been discussing this issue of nationalism and Pakistan studies in our reading groups, as well. In the last four months there’s a question in my mind. I am not from history, so it might be the way I am going to describe this problem that is not exactly in the discipline of history. Being a common Pakistani and being a person from the university, academia, basically, as we said, as Sobia was saying, that West is the center. As you said, that there is a lack of intellectual depth in the knowledge which has been created on the name of Pakistan study in Pakistan. Yasmin has said that this is not easy, to address these things in Pakistan, as well. Considering all these points, I believe that we need to understand the complexity in Pakistan. That the Pakistani academia, whatever knowledge they are producing, whatever research they are doing, they are doing in a certain context. They have their own problems. They have their own limitations. They have their own things. The concept of nation, the concept of history, the concept of origin is being discussed in American academia. That is in the result of the last 50 years or 200 years of struggle, whatever that is, the knowledge creation or the way they have been trained. There could be a best way in the middle of that. For example, initially we could build or strengthen
the Pakistani academia. That they should be a depth in the knowledge when they are addressing the question of nation, and they are, or course, addressing the question of religion. When they are addressing the question of nationalism, or nation state, or sovereignty, they should engage the depth. Because what I feel, that when we listen to all these discussions, apparently the message goes to, for example, if some Pakistani is listening to this debate, he will get an impression, “Oh my god, this is a funded research where they are against the Pakistanis?”, and that’s all, full stop. They are not going to listen to us. That is the impression, not from a historical or a discipline from history. That is from the media side, as well. There could be a middle way. For example, still Pakistani people are unable to understand the concept of nation. That’s why Baluchi people are going to face all these atrocities. That’s why South Punjab, the area that I’m from, they are still not, we will say, considering themselves as a real part of Pakistan. They always demand that we should be a separate province because, still, the Pakistani military, the Pakistani bureaucrats, the Pakistani politicians, they are exploiting this concept. In that situation, when a Pakistani is not understanding the concept of nation, even there that is unable to understand that in all this geography there should be equality of basic human rights, we are going to give them a new concept that our nation state is something. We should address that. “Oh my god, this nation state that is built on a power structure and that is going to exploit the human beings.” Pakistani, young scholars or people...I am not young, but I can say that. My suggestion is that Farina’s point is wonderful, and all other points, as well. We need to engage the work of other people. We need to create the in‑depth knowledge. A suggestion is that this should be two‑step process.
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