Pakistan

            On Tuesday evening my boyfriend and I attended a talk about Pakistan which was a part of the International Forum at Chico State.  It was presented by Mahan Mirza, from the Department of Religious Studies.  He was very knowledgeable and actually quite comical as well, when he made some jokes about himself and about Pakistan.

            Mirza gave a lot of facts about Pakistan including the climate: Monsoon rainfall from July-August, about 38” of rain total in a year and the temps are around 50 degrees in January and around 90 degrees in July.  The population currently is 170 million with most of those people being under that age of 30.  The two main languages spoken are Urdu and English.  Pakistan is comprised of many different tribes of people from surrounding countries as well as just Pakistan; 45% Punjabi, 13% Pathens, 17% Sindhis, 5% Baluchis, 5% Muhajirs, along with several others.  Religion is fairly diverse but the 3 major ones are Muslim, Sunni, and Shiite.  The land is split up into FATA(Federally Administrated Tribal Areas).  There is some speculation that the Taliban resides in Waziristan.

            He told us a little about the History of the country and how it came into development.  Muslims have been living in India since 711 but for some reason it was decided that Hindus and Muslims could not reside in the same country. They decided that Muslims needed their own homeland and thus Pakistan was born!  The name Pakistan literally means “The Land of the Pure” and it was made a country in 1947, founded by Muhammad Ali Jinnah, among others.

            Pakistan has gone through a number of constitutions and constitutional amendments.  They did decide in their Objectives Resolution that sovereignty belongs to God and it is just delegated to the people.  Currently they are under the Islamic Republic constitution.  Leadership has been tossed back and forth from civilian to military from 1947 until present.

            Currently Pakistan has one of the strongest militaries in the world; they spend a lot of money buying new things for their military because it is their top priority.  Also, there is a strong Anti-American sentiment held by most.

            I found this lecture to be very interesting and informative.  It was helpful to know exactly how this country was born and what it is really comprised of.  The only thing I would have liked more of is stories of the country, maybe some information that would make it easier to connect with.  There were a lot of good facts but I would have been happy with half the amount.