Koonj: the crane

Happy birthday, Pakistan.

Congratulations. We’ve come a long way in spite of our politicians.  And we’ll keep pushing forward!

My latest blog post at Religion Dispatches: “The deadly burqini.”

I bet people get tired of hearing about veils and clothing from me. but what am I to do? Yet again, the issue has arisen.

A swimming pool in the Paris suburb of Emerainville has refused entry to a young Muslim woman wearing a burqini. The woman came swimming in July, but when she returned in August, they were ready with a ban and an argument to buttress the ban. They claimed it was because her burqini was everyday clothing rather than swim attire.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/08/12/2654153.htm

The rules to public pools usually don’t permit everyday clothing in the pool. Presumably this is because of safety and hygiene issues, both of which are important ones, given the risk of drowning and of exposure to nasty germs in a public pool.

Is a burqini unsafe? There are no issues with floatation, since the fabric is the same as a regular swimsuit. It’s not an abayah that will get in the way of your limbs, or a dress that will fill up with water and drag you down. It’s simply a swimsuit that covers more of your body. Why is that even an issue of note? If scuba divers wear wetsuits, why is the burqini a problem?

Come to think of it – French authorities may want to question scuba divers as to their reasons for wearing full-body wetsuits. You never know who might be doing it simply to cover their Muslim body underneath.

In fact, one wonders how far Muslims have penetrated the Australian swimwear market … http://shop.mooloolabaus.com/index.php?cPath=11&osCsid=l8m02chcb2sfhua0qcnn7b87i2

As for hygiene, wouldn’t it be better to cover up more of the body so people could keep their germs to themselves and not bring others’ with them?

If a woman is willing to brave the gaze that is sure to turn upon her when she walks into the pool area in a burqini, why, let her swim, I say. It’s quite an exercise in character, and she will probably enjoy her laps a lot less than her observers.

I’ll confess that I’m one of the people who avoid stares. My lack of physical fitness is evidence of my fear.

I’m willing to bet that this is only one case of many that haven’t made it even close to the news. And many more are the women who encounter hostility, or ridicule, or intimidating stares, or outright questioning – everything short of prohibition to enter – and avoid the pool (I can cite one friend’s experience right here in Oklahoma). Women stay home and forget about getting their exercise. Was that what y’all wanted? Stay away from the good Christian-secular pools? The woman prevented from swimming may have an argument when she argues that this is simply segregation.

Strictly speaking, the liberators of Muslim women ought to jump up and down in joy if these oppressed women make it as far as a co-ed public pool. They’ll get some exercise; they’ll spend some time developing physical strength away from their dark-browed swarthy bad-tempered fathers and husbands. The endorphins and resulting euphoria might result in a sense of physical and emotional freedom. What could be better? Hell, they might make it as far as throwing off their yoke and joining the ranks of the liberated.

Swimming is probably the best form of cardiovascular exercise for almost everyone, including individuals with depression, obesity, arthritis, diabetes, and various age-related ailments. Unlike jogging, it does not cause strain to your joints. Water calms you. Swimming makes you happy. Come, now, don’t those poor backward Muslim women need some health and happiness?

I know I won’t find universal agreement on this point, but I find conventional swimsuits to be inherently eroticized attire. Ask any guy perusing a swimsuit edition. Of course you are free to consider me silly, irrational, Victorian, uptight, narrow-minded, or culturally alien. But this is how I feel. Phobias, feelings, hang-ups – however you want to define my opinions – are difficult to shake. And, with my hang-ups, I would like to go swimming but not in a one-piece from Wal-Mart. You are free to disagree with me, but I am also free to feel the way I do. There are people who feel free to go to work without deodorant, or underwear, or appropriate coiffure, with worse consequences than a burqini might have on others. I wish people would take up arms against those offences.

In my opinion, given how I perceive swimsuits, it’s extremely unfair and sexist to require women to dress in such attire. The choice to wear a burqini, or long swim shorts, or such swim attire should be equal rather than either banned or inferior among choices in a pluralistic society. The only conditions should be floatability, safety and hygiene. Aesthetic considerations for women’s swimsuits are anti-feminist and Muslim women shouldn’t be the only ones in this fight. In my personal experience, Muslim women are not the only people who would like some latitude, please, in their choices of swim, evening, work, and casual attire. Not all people like to share the shape or sight of their bodies with others, particularly strangers, and certainly in this age of freaks, psychopaths and weirdos. Many women would like the freedom to not shave their legs or to go bald. You may not like it, but you can’t pass laws or rules against bodies’ use of public spaces.

This is what Western democracy and pluralism is all about. There are choices you can make about who to be, and how. As long as those choices do not harm others around you, one choice should be equal to another. Your personal likes or dislikes are your business. Whether I keep my maiden name or change it, whether I wear pants or a skirt, whether I live with my parents or by myself, whether I ride a motorcycle or drive a car, whether I wear my hair gray or blonde, I should not have to suffer consequences that affect my health and liberty. There are a range of choices we may have in every area of life, and all of the choices that cause no social damage should be equally available to us.

Modesty is not the only reason to want to wear a different kind of swimsuit. A friend who is undergoing chemotherapy for breast cancer recently went for a dip in a hotel pool in a – well, not so cosmopolitan area in the US. Her near-baldness attracted so many shocked and disgusted stares from people of various ages that it quite distracted her from her exercise. The psychological damage was not worth it. She longed for the days of the bathing cap – or for a burqini.

But keep the burqini out. The burqini is dangerous. It is a germ. It might spread. It is a visual sign of the disease – Islam – that right-wingers wish to eliminate from the bodypolitic. It symbolizes a form of minority religion that does not keep its head down, quietly fit in, and try to look nonchalant. It is a little too loud-mouthed in its visual message here we are and we’re gonna take a dip in your pools now! Yah! Whatcha gonna do about it, eh?

As the local expert on Islam, of course, the local mayor Alain Kelyor sagely reminded thousands of giddy Muslim women who have only been doing Islam for decades that the burqini was not “an Islamic swimsuit.” As he points out, “that type of suit does not exist in the Koran.” Of course it would be quibbling to ask whether bikinis were mentioned in the New Testament and if saris were explicitly required in the Bhagvad Gita. Or one might legitimately ask whether swimming was mentioned in the Qur’an: that way we could keep the Muslim men and women out of our pools.

The mayor concluded that “all this” – as in the hoopla, the humiliation, the restrictions upon Muslim women’s physical exercise and use of public space – “has nothing to do with Islam.” Indeed.

You’ve seen her – the uncaring, almost cold individual you work or live with. But then one day, when you pull up in the park, you see her buckling her child into his car-seat, smiling tenderly, talking gently to him. You don’t really want to look at that persona: it’s confusing. Who is she? Is she the kind, tender, considerate person in this moment, or is she the unpleasant, harsh person she is to almost everyone else?

We’d rather deal with the simple, one-dimensional estimation of the nasty person, because otherwise, how do I conceptualize the world, if it is all uncertain, if it is all still in process, or indeed, perishing and coming into being every moment?

You’ve read about criminals, murderers even, who will turn into blubbering sentimental idiots when they speak of their mothers, or their children, or their beloved. They exhibit great self-sacrifice, almost self-forgetfulness, vis-a-vis these loved ones. So who are they, really? Is the real self manifested in those moments that they connect with or speak or think of their loved one/s? Or is the real self really manifested in those other, many moments of cruelty and selfishness? Or is the real self the good, self-sacrificing one, and it is blocked from growing – like a stunted vine – over into other connections?

Who are YOU, really? Are you the charming, sweet, kindly person who helps little old ladies cross the street? Or are you the cold, selfish person who wouldn’t let the other car pass just because? Are you the generous, giving soul or are you the envious, angry heart? Are you both? Which are you more? Which one tips the scale? Why doesn’t the kindly person grow through like a vine into the selfish driver? What are you in your everyday persona, and what are you in bud, or in potential and promise?

As one of my long-time blog readers, Adnan, commented, the shadow of silence stretches long upon this blog. The truth is, teaching qualitative research methods to graduate students in an intensive course leaves me very little time. Any little extra pockets of time must be claimed by my daughter, who is becoming acutely aware of her mother’s absences.

The list of friends and relatives who wonder why I don’t call is becoming long. The list of errands and absolutely-must-do’s is also lengthening daily. The list of “wish-I-coulds” rots in the back room. THAT list now includes a day dream: merely sitting in the sun and dozing. The bigger daydreams – vacations, road trips, beaches and bed-and-breakfast getaways – are a laughing matter. What used to be necessities – 3 full meals, good sleep, and occasional naps – are now becoming irregular events.

But an income is a good thing. It is good to know, when the bills roll in, that they will be paid, inshaallah. It’s good to know when you’re hungry, that you don’t have to think too much about grabbing a meal on the go (you can’t make a habit of it though). And as many of my readers know, it is nice to have health coverage. It’s nice to have transportation. And yet I am always aware of having been the person who could not count on all these things so blithely. I am aware, too, of the vagaries of the job market, and of the uncertainty of the economy. Times have changed. Futures are much more uncertain. We work hard, and we remain on edge.

Sometimes it seems as if our incomes pay to enable us to do our jobs and pay our taxes, and not too much else. As the mother of a young child, as a daughter and a sibling and a friend, I find that I don’t have the freedom or the time to connect adequately with the things in life that – well, give me life. Such as chatting with loved ones, visiting friends, playing with the toddler, and, – breathing freely and reflectively. I work, I remain dissatisfied with my efforts, there is always more I should have done, and there is always more to do YESTERDAY.

Imam Warith Deen Muhammad returned to his Creator on September 9, 2008. May Allah bless his soul and reward him for his untiring work for God and humanity.

I just got this sad parody of the Pakistani national anthem (video) in my inbox.

Zardari ki zamin shad bad
Bijli aay 8 ghantay baad
Tu nishanay corruption aalishan

Arz e zardaristan, shaad baad … [I censored this bit because it fosters inter-province animosity]

Zardari ki zamin ka nizam
Aaatay, gas, bijli ka bohran
Quam mulk sub-gharak Nawaz, wakil paainda bad
Bainazir dunya say faraar
Parchamay sitara-o-Hilal
Khoon main ranga sara saal

Bhool apna maazi shan-e-haal, jaan ne istaqbal
Saya-e-Amrika sar pe sawaar

Translation:

Long live (Asif) Zardari’s land
Where power outages last eight hours straight.
Thou art a great symbol of glorious corruption
Land of Zardari live forever

The order of Zardari’s land is such -
perpetual shortages of flour, gas, power.
The nation, country all destroyed – Nawaz (Sharif) live on forever.
Benazir escaped from the world.

The flag of the crescent and the star
coloured red with blood year round.
Forget your past, present, future -

Crushed beneath the shadow of America.

I’d like to make a prediction, and then hedge my claim with conditional statements.

Today I was working on course prep in a cafe. A pile of boring-looking books on the chair beside me, my laptop, a cup of coffee in front of me (I have recently graduated to medium cups, which says something about my new work schedule). Next to me, two women chatted about their children for a couple of hours. Their voices were modulated to a low pitch, so it didn’t disturb me much. Then, as I was approaching the third hour of work and my strength was flagging, a man entered with a laptop. He settled on the couch, opened the laptop, and then started making a phone call to an obviously dear friend, because he talked for about an hour. A second man entered, sat down on the couch closer to me, and took out his cellphone too.

I predict that the market for cafes will become more specific soon. Cafes will divide into nerdy and sociable. When friends need to meet, they will meet in the sociable cafes. When grad students need to hunker down over the footnotes, they’ll scurry over to the nerdy cafes.

This will happen because unless it does, we’re going to have some cafe rage soon.

But what of the messy interstices between the types?

What of the young student who THINKS she belongs in the nerdy cafe because she SHOULD be working on her midterms, but she is too popular to turn off her cellphone – ever? What of the self-employed businessman who thinks he belongs in the nerdy cafe simply because he is “working,” but work means making endless calls in a loud, reassuring booming voice as he goes down a list in Excel? What of the non-nerdy individual who just wants to relax over a cup of herbal tea and can’t relax because of the chatter? What of the tutor who meets up with his middle school tutees in a nerdy cafe and explains the ins and outs of the SATS in his strong baritone (this is from real life)?

Confusion between the types is not the only reason for this prediction to be proved false. The other reason is desire for the other.

Maybe the mixed cafe exists because nerdy people want to approximate social butterflies. They are not social butterflies, they cannot be them, they have no life to speak of perhaps – but they want to bask in their space. It’s the reason why people who are not young and beautiful like to watch beautiful young people. It’s the reason why the unknown like to watch the famous. We yearn. It’s not quite aspiring. Just yearning and watching.

And what of the social butterflies? Surely they have thoughts in their heads too? While it is difficult for me to empathize with social butterflies, I would venture that they too wish to share space with nerds. The sight of
bespectacled nerds tapping away at keyboards makes them feel productive and busy. And smart. Since they are in the same space, they consume some of their aura.

And so, this post ends with a prediction that cafes will not divide into types, but that the nerdy will continue to wish that they could own their cafes. They will scurry into the cafe, glare at the mommies occupying THEIR seat and table NEXT TO THE OUTLET, and pile their laptop, backpack, notebook and books onto the table next to the amorous couple with the frothy beverage, and inwardly wish they could kick everyone out that wasn’t sitting ALONE, interacting with nothing but a keyboard.

The following is the complete article on which “It’s not raining eligible Muslim men” is based. It is rather long, which is probably why Religion Dispatches blog cut it to a more reasonable length. But if you’re a sucker for punishment, enjoy. For further discussion on the subject, please see my friend Javed’s post on the subject.
In traditional faith communities, single women are usually looked upon with fear and desire. They are objects of desire because they hold out the promise of a traditional religious home complete with traditional wife and progeny to perpetuate the lineage and community. The unfulfilled promise they seem to hold out is ripe for the plucking. But they are also feared, and as objects of fear, they inspire often intense monitoring behaviors. In traditional communities, single women are watched and judged far more intensely than are single men. Single women’s main marketable commodity – virginity – is guarded and desired – and feared because it is capable of being spent – and with this spending, the honor of the collective may also be metaphorically dissipated. Men’s honor does not have far-reaching implications for the community; men are the community and the arbiters of its honor. Women’s honor is guarded and watched as well as cherished and honored.
When single women become numerous in a faith community, leaders and gatekeepers worry. Or should worry. First, because single women, unlike men, may not seek sexual fulfillment (legitimately) outside of wedlock. Second, because they, in fact, can.

Muslims in the diaspora often claim, as does this article that Islam does not allow dating or even that “Muslims don’t date.” This is an interesting claim, and one that merits extensive scholarly examination. Briefly and simplistically, from the perspective of the hadith that discourages one-on-one encounters between men and women because the third of the two is satan, this indeed seems to be the case. In many ways, intimate social engagement between men and women is pregnant, if I may put it thus, with sexual potential. As even popular culture puts it, they’re never really “just friends.”

Many liberal Muslims would argue that the case is not so simple, and they may cite cases from the Prophet’s life and his Companions. Or they may argue that times have changed; that marriage, divorce and indeed gender are no longer what they were, and that it is the spirit of the law rather than the letter in its entirety that must be fervently preserved. Well then, return the conservatives, what is that spirit if it is not include the practice of chastity? And how may chastity be preserved if the floodgates are opened to the Muslim masses by putting single men and women in continuous, risky contact with each other?

And then there are the Muslims who are in-between, neither absolutely conservative nor very liberal. The writer occurs somewhere in that mid-way space. I am committed to the ideal of religious chastity. I am also very aware of the human condition, and the Muslim diasporic condition.

Many traditional, conservative Muslims (I use both so you can take your pick, really) seek arranged and semi-arranged marriages. Community leaders, parents, relatives, friends and acquaintances set them up with potential mates after the desired characteristics have been explained in full. The couple then meets: this may be anything from a glance at a social event (my brother married an amazing woman in this way, and hit gold), to a meeting between the two while Mom watches over them. At times, the couple may even meet at a restaurant and chat at length, as long as they’re not in a private booth. The purpose in all these arrangements is to prevent the nature of courtship from becoming unduly sexualized. All that  comes after marriage.

But not all Muslims marry in this way. Many acidly argue that they don’t have access to the networks that would help set them up with the right person. (And that’s not just converts, by the way, though converts suffer this situation the most). Many would sneer at the past attempts at being set up, and steer away from them. Many, really, do date-date. All the way.

What dating means for individual couples varies a great deal. For some, they may socialize one-on-one extensively, hang out for long periods, and watch movies. Some may even engage in some physical contact without going too far. And of course, some will have sex. And yes, some sleep around. But because the meaning of the term can vary contextually, many Muslims say, to keep it safe and simple, as does the article cited above, “Muslims don’t date.”

The Quran forbids fornication and adultery and describes it as lewdness and a bad path to take. This does not mean that Muslims do not commit fornication, whether in the diaspora or in the Muslim homelands. But from observation, I would argue that, whether because of their recent immigrant origins, their cultural characteristics, global religio-political trends or, as some would claim, something about Islam itself, Muslim women in the US are *relatively* less likely, *overall,” than indigenous faith groups, to have premarital or extramarital sex.

As I have watched the community over the past decade, I feel that while religiosity is on the rise, so is something else.

When, in New York, Daisy Khan arranged a Valentine’s Day event for Muslim singles, 15 men and 63 women showed up. The “surplus” of single women in the community is being identified as an issue. Many Muslim women would say, sarcastically, that the surplus is more specific – of smart, mature, beautiful, professional women and no one to match them up with.

For years now, I have agonized, along with my friends, about the disproportionately large numbers of such women and the much lower numbers of truly eligible Muslim men. Many friends have questioned if “he” is out there at all. Many friends have asked me if I can introduce them to someone, and friends have asked me if I can introduce their  friends to someone. I pull out my pockets helplessly. Few that I’d introduce to them with confidence, I say. The “good ones” are married, engaged, or, mysteriously, perpetually single. In a community that is dispersed heavily over a geographically extensive area, there are so many single American Muslim women that the mind boggles at the future that awaits the community.

When I was single in my 30s, my parents and community were horrified at the future that awaited me. What would I do? Would I lose my mind? Would I lose my virginity? Would I fall into penury? What does a single woman do when she lives on her own? There were few precedents to guide their wonderment about my future.

Marriage is important to Muslims. Chastity is important. Celibacy is frowned upon. Marriage is the Prophet’s way. It is “half of your religion.” It’s not mandatory, but it’s pretty close.

But a strongly recommended religious practice – one that requires a whole other individual for the practice to be performed – can change, under the pressure of circumstance, from “strongly recommended” to “challenging,” and even optional. Sociologically, religious practice is contained within and shaped by the vessel of culture and cultural change. That which today appears to be of momentous consequence to one’s faith may not always have been so.

So what is a woman to do if she can’t find someone to marry? In the ‘80s and ‘90s – that’s how long I was single! – I could be bullied to hurry up and “marry someone” (read “anyone”). Precedence could be cited: all of my peers were married and most of them had teenage children by the time I got married. Many of those peers had married not Mr Right but Anyone, and had thereby made good time.

Today, a 30-year old woman, if harassed by community elders, can turn around and ask exactly whom she is supposed to marry. She can wait longer for the right person. She can also argue that a large number of her peers are still single. Numbers cannot be used against her. And numbers – “everyone’s doing it” – is a nest of immense security.

Traditional Muslims hold that Muslim women may not marry outside the faith and that Muslim men may marry Muslims, Christians or Jews, but there the choices end. So is there a smaller pool of Muslim men available for Muslim women because some of them are marrying non-Muslims? There is little by way of lifestyle-related statistics for American Muslims, so it is hard to tell whether there are just more Muslim women than men, whether Muslim men’s marriages outside the faith impacts numbers significantly, or because some men do marry abroad, traveling abroad to their parents’ birthplaces to enter arranged marriages. The last-mentioned is neither here nor there because some Muslim women also marry abroad. However, since cultural patterns of gender norms affect women intimately, Muslim women are often heard loudly protesting against the idea of marrying a man from the motherland. For many Muslim men, on the other hand, marrying a woman from the motherland means marrying a momma-replica who looks pretty and is “sweet.” (The reality may or may not be so).

What we do know is that there are large numbers of single American Muslim women today – in their 40s, 30s, and 20s, and that the community will have to deal with the consequences of this phenomenon. These women aren’t your spinster Aunties who spent their autumn years tending to their brothers’ families. Many of them are bright, independent, extremely articulate, professionally successful, and quite unlikely to take the single status lying down, so to speak. They will not suffer in silence, as the community pities their single plight. They will see that certain norms and practices render their lives difficult, and they will speak out.

In the Muslim homelands, Muslim women were usually “protected” (in good ways and bad) within the homes of fathers, brothers, husbands, in-laws, and sons. Single women who remained independent were not unknown, but were not large in number and remained an anomaly. The protection of a man was essential to a woman’s fulfillment. Wealthy and middle class or educated single women could hold their own, but most single women had to rely on the largesse of relatives. Economic dependence was part of the ugliness of spinsterhood. In the diaspora, a single American woman still has much to fear when by herself in an apartment or on the street, but independent single women, living and flourishing outside of a traditional Muslim context, will inevitably change the face of the community. Traditional, conservative Muslims may have much to fear from these changes.

For instance, growing numbers of Muslim women are marrying outside the faith. Until now, they could be disowned by their families, unless the families came to terms with the situation. Or their husbands could fake conversions and no one would ask him too many questions. Now, as Muslim women marry Jews, Christians, Hindus, atheists and beyond, it will be interesting to see how their children are raised, and how this will affect their children’s identities. It will be interesting to see how this changes the face of the American Muslim community.

For the record, I do not feel that marriage outside the faith is an ideal solution for most religious individuals. In my humble belief and limited experience, faith is a discipline and tradition that requires total living and immersion and not a cafeteria that allows one to wander in and out as one pleases. Marriage is also a discipline and a process that requires the totality of one’s engagement. In other words, neither is a picnic. At least in my observation, I have not encountered many cases of successful service to the two masters of God and marriage. Then there is the issue of raising children. Intensely ecumenical couples have raised children in two or more faiths, but I do not feel that this does justice to any one faith – or even to faith, period.

At the same time, I have also observed that there is a genuine lack of eligible men, and I am no believer in subjection to prolonged suffering. The single life is difficult and lonely, especially for religious people who practice chastity.

The dearth of eligible men is not the only reason for marriage outside the faith. Part of the problem is what I discussed earlier in this article, modes of courtship or the lack thereof. Traditional Muslim organizations and contexts have often insisted on forms of gender segregation that sometimes make it extremely difficult to meet and identify spouses. Under the motto “God will provide,” conservative Muslims have frowned upon single men and women talking to each other. Much “talking,” I found in my research on college campuses, therefore takes place on the internet and the phone, because it is less visible and, in fact, not really happening.

“Courting” is rejected by the more traditional circles, though many have come to realize that they have to give way. But this grudging “look-away” acceptance will have to develop into something more concrete and theorized if Muslim men and women are to find mates within the community.

Svend once spoke of an Islamic Society of North America convention matrimonial event that took place about a decade ago. Single men and women were chatting with each other, under the eye of organizers. Suddenly an elderly gentleman entered, observed, and reprimanded them, “Brothers, this is not permissible. You should not be doing this.” Svend says, “I wanted to tell him, ‘Uncle, you should be grateful they’re here, and not at the bar across the street from the convention center.’” Because the bar is indeed there, and if Uncle doesn’t go there, many of the kids do.

Many uncles, who had no clue that young people had such choices, have helped young people to silently and without protest drift away from the mosque and the community center. Feeling detached from community contexts, these young people will often behave with perfect reserve from the opposite sex when in Muslim settings (ironically, the safest contexts for courtship to take place), and moved on to dominant majority spaces where they meet and date non-Muslim women.

Inevitably, single status will also change some Muslim women’s approaches toward chastity and sexuality. Boys have always been boys, but American Muslim women have been relatively sexually chaste, if anecdotal evidence and observation is to count. (I am not claiming that “Muslim women don’t sleep around.” I’m making a claim, on the strength of qualitative and not quantitative research, about relative levels of sexual promiscuity.) Recently I have heard of a Muslim group I will not name that has permitted single women to sleep with men (under the category of dire sexual need). My friends have been shocked by the phenomenon.
Like the organization I mentioned, I predict that others will smell the coffee brewing under their noses (responding in perhaps less dramatic ways). Notions of religiosity, chastity, gender, and identity in the Muslim community will change under pressure of these circumstances. Notions of difference, notions of self and notions of the other will also change. Muslims, when they socialize with Muslims in mosques and Islamic centers, watched over by aunties and uncles from the homeland, may advance claims about what Muslims are and what Muslims do. When more and more Muslims in mixed marriages socialize with mixed-faith/culture groups and raise mixed-faith children, it becomes harder to claim that “Muslims don’t date/drink” or “Muslims eat biryani” or “Muslims don’t sleep around like White folks do.”

I predict that American Muslim identity under such pressures will probably become a much more fluid notion. I do not say this with eagerness. The coziness of a discrete and – well, even slightly insular, contained cultural-religious identity is a comforting thing to come home to. These are the ways in which minoritized and marginalized groups preserve identities that are precious to them, in the midst of pressures to assimilate. Homogamy is one of the main means of maintaining communities and identities. Exogamy is one of the main means that minority faith and cultural groups in the US have dissolved a little (or a lot). And while it’s not all going away, I think it will be a little less possible to bank on it in the future. For this, if nothing else, we will all have to think hard about our futures and our options.

When I first traveled abroad as an adult (to Cambridge, U.K.), I was shocked by the nightlife. Not the bars, which I didn’t frequent – by the fact that shopping and restaurants closed so very early! I continue to be disappointed by the early closing of shopping and restaurants – except MacDonald’s and bars/clubs – and continue to miss the nightlife of Lahore.

Last summer, though, the general caused me some serious disappointment when he issued orders for the closing of business at 9pm! 9pm! in the summer months too! No one wants to set foot outside their home until 6pm unless absolutely forced to, and to shut down stores at 9pm must have killed business. I hope that better sense prevails.

Another thing I’d recommend, as Gulberg – especially the Hussain Chowk area and Main Boulevard – continues to become more exciting: expand parking and improve the smooth running of traffic. A visit to Liberty market in the evening can be a nightmare because it takes far too long getting in and out of the area.