Understanding Pakistan

Culture Event

          What do you think about Pakistan? Mostly, people describe Pakistan as a dangerous, violence, and mysterious country. Actually, if people asked me the same question, I would possibly answer the same answer because I really had no idea what Pakistan is like beside those words. On Tuesday April 29^th, I attended an international forum in Chico State University. The topic of the forum was “Understanding Pakistan”. The forum was held in Holt room 170 and it was from 5 pm to 6 pm. During the hour, Professor Mirza briefly talked about Pakistan, such as its politic, population, and geography. 

At the beginning of the forum, Professor Mirza introduced himself. His full name is Mahan Mirza. He was born in 1972 in Karachi and was raised in Pakistan. After he grew up, he spent a year in England and then two years in Southern California. He came to the United States in 1991 and graduated from the University of Texas at Austin in 1995 with a degree in mechanical engineering.

First of all, Professor Mirza asked us what we thought about Pakistan. The answer was expected. Almost everyone gave the similar answer as what I said on my first paragraph and this was what Professor Mirza expected. And then, he gave us a brief introduction about the country. Actually, Pakistan is not a desert like what most of us thought. It’s a diverse country with many high mountains and most of the area of the country is surrounded by ocean, so it has subtropical climate.

After talking the introduction, Professor Mirza talked about the religion and the races. In Pakistan, Punjabis is the largest race and Buluchis is the smallest. There are approximately 95% people that believe in Muslim. The average age of the population is 30 years old. He told us that the population is very young and influential, so almost every young people in the country are looking for change. And then, Professor Mirza brought us to its history. There was a “two nation theory” idea. That means Muslims need their own lands. Hindus and Muslim should not be living together. Islamic Republic was established in 1973. The Pakistani government is complicated, according to Professor Mirza. He tried to explain it easily so that we would be easier to understand its structure. Their government can be divided into three powers: The Pakistan Muslim League, The Pakistanis People Party, and the Alliance of Islamist parties. And then the last part of the forum was the women right. Even though Pakistan has been described as a violence and dangerous country, it does not mean women are treated worse there. He told us there are approximately 1/3 college girls are raped in the United States and Pakistan has the same rate.

After attending this forum, I’ve more understood Pakistan. Pakistan always gives people feeling of violence, dangerous, and mysterious. Recently, Time magazine has released an article that describes Pakistan as the most dangerous and violence country in the world. Therefore, Pakistan is always mysterious to outsiders. However, by understanding more, we should learn more about it. I really enjoyed this forum because it told me something that I did not know.