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Letter for
our Indian-American Community Friends: A Pakistani American
Perspective
Dear fellow
friends of Indian-American Community,
The Pakistani-American Community members join in to strongly
condemn the terrorist actions and the coordinated murderous
attacks toward the innocent people of the city of Mumbai, India.
These outrageous and cowardly actions reaffirm our belief that
all peace loving people need to join hands to work together to
make violent extremism irrelevant to any and all societies.
Both the
Pakistani-American and the Indian-American community share a
common heritage and similar background with very similar values
based on strengthening of individuals and families. We also
share similar challenges in the United States, with respect to
the post 9/11 era when the people of South-Asian heritage have
unfortunately been bearing the brunt of the anti-immigrant
sentiment and anger towards anyone and everyone who looks to the
ignorant eyes as Arabs, are treated wrongfully and opportunities
are taken away from them. We also have had opportunity to work
together in some of the challenging environments and have served
in the same industries within the United States working side by
side in harmony and mutual respect for each other.
At times,
some of us have brought “baggage” back from our home countries
and resulted in us working with that baggage in our hearts and
minds.
The
situation in the world and the ground realities in our lives
require that we work together to undo this baggage and move
towards identifying common grounds.
These recent events in Mumbai, India should be another wakeup
call for us as a community of immigrants of South-Asian heritage
to identify common ground and work together to identify ways of
strengthening our presence in United States, but more
importantly learning from our capacities to work together with
mutual respect and transfer some of these interactions back to
our respective counties of origin.
The
instability in Pakistan and the challenges with extremism that
are being felt in Pakistan are clearly a destabilizing factor in
the region. In 2002, there were two suicide attacks in
Pakistan. In 2006, there were seven suicide attacks against
Pakistan and in 2007 alone there was a significant upsurge to 56
suicide attacks against the people of Pakistan. As of early
November of 2008, there have been 38 suicide bombings this year
alone leading to over 670 civilians of Pakistan dying and over a
thousand being wounded in 2008 alone. By comparison Iraq had 42
such attacks and 463 deaths, Afghanistan 36 incidents and 436
casualties as of October 2008.
Pakistani military has lost over 1400 soldiers fighting the
Taliban and Al-Qaeda. It is because of the resolve of the
Pakistani military and the establishment that more and more of
the terrorists groups are making the people of Pakistan and the
Pakistani military as a primary target. As of November 28th
2008, the US forces who have died in the region have been 556.
We do also
recognize that these extremists have one thing in common. They
identify Pakistan and Pakistani people as a primary target and
they also believe India and Indian people as a primary target.
We the Pakistani-American Community strongly feel that this
threat is a common threat to all people in South Asia. We also
believe that Pakistan is going through some very significant
unprecedented challenges with their economic and human
development status. The story from the Indian end is that of
success and we do recognize that the Indian-American community
has played a vital role in this success.
While we congratulate you, we also want to reach out to you to
share the importance of identifying ways to work with us for a
stable and internally strong Pakistan with improvement in the
education, healthcare, infrastructure and investment to the
human capital of that region. Stability of Pakistan would lead
to stability of the region and help India move towards her
ongoing success.
At these times, when emotions are high, it is a natural reaction
to try and identify a common denominator and try and use that
emotion to solve that situation. We believe that the needs of
the current situation demand that we move together in a
different direction. We need to work together to help promote
Pakistan’s stability. If we can work towards this goal, we
would be able to ensure a common stability in that region.
We hope that the Indian Americans encourage the Indian
authorities to work for the safety of all its citizens and
ensure that such terrorists’ attacks do not lead to any ethnic
backlash in an emotionally charged environment.
We are with you to not only mourn the deaths of these innocent
people of Mumbai, but we want us to stay together to develop a
plan that such a calamitous event never happens again.
Please visit
our
website for further details and updates
Respectfully,
Board of Pakistani American Public Affairs Committee.
PAKPAC
President@pakpac.net
202 558 6404
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