A Taste of Western Hegemony…and a word about the floods

My sincere apologies for the long delay between posts. Internet connections are not easy to come by here, as it turns out. There are only a handful of internet cafes, most of which are closed for part of the day during Ramadan. Most of the cafes open during the early evening when we are scheduled to be home to break our fast.


Suhail and I have wondered how the country sustains its economy during Ramadan. Most people only work from 9-1 or 2 throughout the month. Retail shops stay open during the late hours for those who want to buy goods for the post-Ramadan Eid festival, but as for professional businesses, it seems everything is pretty much at a standstill. Unlike much of the Arab Muslim world which houses foreigners and ex-pats to continue working while the Muslim shop-owners take a break, Pakistan has a very small percentage of foreigners and a negligible Christian population. Because of this the economy probably suffers quite a bit during this month.


A word about the flooding. It is so disheartening and sad to watch the news and know that we are so close to it all and unable to do much. Suhail is planning a trip out there next week, in order to drop off a few truckloads of food supplies and meds. The word from his crew in the northern regions is that scabies, dysentery, and hepatitis have become commonplace. A cholera outbreak is inevitable. Dead carcasses are floating amongst both dead bodies and live ones who are trying to survive and find shelter. Millions have been displaced and people are drinking the same water that they are floating in, by simply boiling it. Children are dying in droves by the minute. International aide is slowly seeping through but not nearly fast enough. People are becoming more and more hopeless as their loved ones are dying amongst them. The locals in Pakistan are reluctant to give their donations to the government-run organizations because they are mistrusting of their own government (via DAWN), and the UN has declared this disaster to be greater and far more devastating than the 2010 Haiti earthquake and 2005 Pakistan Earthquake. The most unfortunate news though, is that Asif Ali Zardari, Mr. Puppet President 30%, is attending galas throughout the world and promoting his own political agendas while the people in his country are dying by the millions. That guy in England should have thrown more than just his shoe at him…


Oh, and…we experienced a taste of Western Hegemony the other day. Suhail and I were having lunch at Nandos, a Portuguese chain which, known for its clean edible food, attracts somewhat of an elite and/or foreign crowd. There were a couple of women sitting at the table next to us, one of whom was very light skinned and wearing a head-scarf and burqa. At first we thought she was Arab, but after we heard her speak; we realized she was in fact American. She then proceeded to display some very American behavior. After she finished her meal, she called the waiter and started to complain to the waiter about her salad. She said there were too many cucumbers in her Mediterranean salad, and that she didn’t want it. The waiter, with his limited understanding of the English language, took the salad back and brought her a new one. She started speaking to him pejoratively and started on with, “now you decide to bring me a decent salad, with more lettuce, now that I’m finished with my meal”. The waiter humbly replied that he didn’t understand what was wrong with it, and she said, “I’m not paying 230 rupees ($2.70) for all these cucumbers…take it back, I don’t want it”. The waiter took the salad back and the manager came to inquire what the problem was. By now, a scene had been created and everyone surrounding this particular table was awestruck by the sheer rudeness with which the woman was speaking to the staff. Her tone was dehumanizing and carried an air of colonialist power to it. Without giving any further details, the woman basically went off on another rant as to how her salad had better be taken off the bill, and how it was sub-par according to American standards.


I have traveled throughout much of the Arab and South Asian Muslim world and based on my experience the local interpretation of a salad is never what one would expect to eat in America. To give you an example, I consider myself a connoisseur of Caesar salads and whenever I travel anywhere, I start to crave a classic Caesar salad. I cannot begin to tell you how many interpretations of the Caesar salad I have tried, all of which were sub-par compared to a simple American version of a classic Caesar with chilled Romaine lettuce, Caesar dressing, croutons and shaved parmesan cheese. Back in 2006/2007 during my time spent in Cairo, I ordered one such version. What I received was indeed a work of art: pieces of iceberg lettuce topped with hard-boiled eggs, canned olives, peppers, and a dollop each of mayonnaise and cheap yellow mustard. Still, I politely thanked the waiter and ate whatever I could stomach. I relentlessly continued my search for the perfect Caesar salad at every restaurant throughout my travels during my year long stay everywhere in the Middle East and although I found some very interesting and creative interpretations, nothing came remotely close to what I was used to getting in the States. Imagine how many waiters and restaurant owners I could have insulted and belittled for not being able to create the American version which to me, seemed simple enough. The point, however, and one that I wanted so badly to turn and explain to my fellow American at the table next to us at Nandos (though Suhail stopped me) is that I wasn’t in America, and neither was she. I will never understand why Westerners come to third world countries and expect everything to be at the same standards that they are used to. Here’s a very simple concept: if everything in the developing world was at the standard the Western world is accustomed to, it wouldn’t be the “developing world” now, would it?


I remember traveling to Syria in 2000 and getting off a bus when I saw a British man with a map opened up, pointing to a local where he needed to be. The local, unable to understand him, stared blankly, to which the Brit shouted angrily, “why don’t you people speak any English??” I imagine if the poor local could have spoken any English he would probably have told the guy to fuck off. I would hope so at least.


So to those Westerners who are too impatient to see the developing world actually develop, I urge you to please be patient. Yes of course there are problems with the developing world. They can’t get their salads right. It’s a known fact, but why not let it all be part of the experience? The Pakistanis really love their cucumbers, and they view the lettuce as those ‘unnecessary leaves that take ridiculously long to chew’ so really they’re doing you a favor by giving you more cucumbers. It’s just a cultural thing. Just grin and bear it.

The Road Not Taken

“Two roads diverged in a wood and I, I took the one less traveled by…and that has made all the difference”

--Robert Frost

Although one of the most frequently quoted, the Frost quote had me somewhat puzzled for most of my life. I used to think it simply meant that the road that one chose would make the difference in the type of life one led, but just recently I started to ponder upon another, perhaps hidden meaning. I started to think that maybe Frost is sneakily suggesting that there is, in fact, something special about that “road less traveled” itself. Perhaps he is suggesting that we take those risks that we are all so afraid to take and to live our lives in a way that, albeit different from the norm, is one that we can wholeheartedly call our own. Don’t be a DRONE…TAKE the road less traveled and see where it takes you. JUMP into the abyss if not only to see where you land. It may turn out to be a better place than you have ever been…

So, I decided to do just that. Thus begin the magnificent mal-adventures of Anisa and Suhail. On July 31, 2010, my husband, Suhail Butt and I embarked on “the road less traveled” – we decided to live and work in Pakistan for a year amidst the growing Taliban attacks, intense heat, load-shedding, and incredibly precarious political conditions. Well, if the destination weren’t so ‘interesting’, it wouldn’t be an adventure, would it?

Why, you may be wondering?

Here was our line of reasoning and why we chose Pakistan: Development in Chicago was slow due to the “Great Recession”, which directly affected Suhail’s line of work (check out his website at www.suhaildesign.com). Suhail had been getting calls from his uncle in Pakistan, who owns a full service design and build firm, telling him of numerous projects in Pakistan and the Middle East for which he needed an architectural/interior design component. The gears started shifting in my head toward the fashion industry in Pakistan and the vast variety of fabrics, trims, and notions I would be able to work with to produce a new line out there for my own venture, NISI (www.nisichicago.com). I had always wanted to start a small fair-trade facility for women to produce my clothing in Pakistan, offering not only fair wages, but opportunities for underprivileged women to gain skills and training that would empower them to support themselves and their families. The facility could be affiliated with the school projects that Suhail has been working on in the northern areas (www.actualsizeglobal.org). In addition, having lived in the West for most of our lives, we wanted to experience our own country as adults and as anthropologists. The possibilities seemed endless…

I have called this blog feminEASTa – a cross between fashionista and feminist, because it is not only how I view myself but also what I believe to be the inspiration for the NISI women’s empowerment project. The EAST simply refers to my experiences in the EAST -- how they continue to mold and affect me, how I perceive feminism in the East in contrast to the West, and my experiences with women of all levels of society.

Although this blog will focus primarily on fashion and feminism related to my experiences throughout the course of my travels, I will most likely also talk about various random stuff that interests me such as food, politics, and other social and cultural issues.

Stay tuned and please feel free to leave your comments.