For the vast majority of westerners, the main things that come to my mind when thinking about Pakistan are most likely islam radicalism, terrorism, and oppression of women. The 2023 military « coup » and imprisonment of hugely popular and progressive former cricket player President Imran Khan added a most recent layer to this dark image. So it took a lot of research and discussion for me to feel safe and convinced about going through Pakistan, attracted as we were by the promise of breathtaking landscapes in the North of the country where three great mountain ranges meet: the Himalayas, the Karakoram and the Hindu Kush. We spent three weeks travelling through the North East of the country, and on the way fell in love with Pakistan and its people.
As soon as we entered Pakistan, we sensed that it would defy stereotypes. The road leading to Lahore was good, lined with huge trees and the traffic was civilised – no incessant and aggressive honking like in India! We were hosted by Shahid, a British-Pakistani lawyer, at his mansion in a leafy upper-class suburb of Lahore. Houses were classy and huge – even by Australian standards! – with gardens well tended by house staff, and big SUVs driving through the leafy streets. On our very first night we were invited to Iftar (breaking the day’s fast during Ramadan) with 50 of Shahid’s relatives. We mingled amongst upper class Pakistanis elegantly dressed, most women wearing their head scarf casually only on their shoulders or not at all. We talked about the world’s view of Pakistan, their hopes (or hopelessness) for the future, world politics and more. We met Sarim, a mollah (muslim religious leader). Dressed in a long black robe, muslim hat and long beard, he was the visual incarnation of « islam » (as if a uniform thing) and of western stereotypes that go with it. As soon as he approached us, a big friendly smile broke on his face and in a matter of minutes, we clicked. Sarim founded a for-purpose company to improve corporate responsibility, fighting for worker’s rights (notably women), monitoring and reducing of environmental impacts, and advocating for better policies. That night, we felt that we met people intellectually very aligned with us, striving to improve their lives, their country and its image on the world stage. But, we wondered, are they mainly representative of their upper-class education and worldliness?
We spent these two days in Lahore dressed in our local Salwar-Kameez, marveling at the Mughal architecture, intricate mosaics and ornate minarets, roaming the busy labyrynthe of the bazaar and experiencing the kindness and cheerful curiosity of Pakistanis – certainly not used to seeing many foreigners. A city of 28 million, Lahore still felt much cleaner than India, but at peak hour the air pollution caused by the millions of tuktuks, old Honda 125cc motorbikes and trucks was hardly tolerable. Its very efficient and massively used bus rapid transit system has a long way to go to significantly reduce pollution.
After an enjoyable train ride in our oldest train carriage thus far, we arrived in Islamabad, the planned capital built after Pakistan and India became independent from the British and were partitioned in 1947. There we were hosted by a family of one sister and three brothers living with their wives, a toddler and the grandparents in a 3-storey comfortable house in a new middle-class housing estate. This time we got to observe how the middle-class lives and again experience incredible hospitality. I couldn’t help but think that marriage in this context is akin to recruiting maids without having to pay them: the three wives were doing all the housework for their husbands and in-laws. But that was done in a happy chatter full of sorority and I thought that they looked rather happy. We cooked a Tarte Tatin for them, and shared Iftar with them each night, enjoying excellent conversation about Pakistan politics and global politics. We were starting to think that the extreme generosity, progressive views and opinionated worldliness we were encountering was not just the product of the wealthy upper-class we encountered in Lahore. Beyond our interactions with our hosts, the multiple daily encounters with passers-by and shop owners left us with a strong feeling of the genuine and friendly curiosity people had for us. We were never feeling like commercial targets, which has so often been the case elsewhere.
Islamabad definitely had the characteristics of a new stately city designed to represent power and order: wide straight avenues, symbolic nation-building edificies, clean public transport and no old charm. We left on an uncomfortable bus to finally make our way on the mythical Karakoram highway towards the mountains and China. What was meant to be a 13-hour ride turned into a 23-hour ride, but we finally arrived in Gilgit, the regional capital of Gilgit-Baltistan, a semi-autonomous territory in north-east Pakistan claimed by India. There, we were about to add another layer to our experience of Pakistani hospitality and understanding of its social fabric.
One of our fellow bus passengers, Rabit, returning home after 4 months away in Islamabad selling precious stones from his home valley, invited us to stay with his family. We accepted and soon met his wife, Rizwana, a teacher with a master degree in economics, their two super smart kids Muqaddas (11) and Mohammed (12) speaking perfect English, and the grandparents. We came as guests and left as friends after staying with them twice, including for Eid (the end of Ramadan celebration) with their extended family. We went hiking with them and spent many hours chatting, me in the kitchen with Rizwana and the aunties, and Tim in the living room with Rabit and the uncles. Theirs was a family emerging into the middle class, with hard working parents investing all their money in the education of their kids and a new family home in the countryside. Though highly educated and not at all oppressed, Rizwana and the other women in the family have a really tough life, in this sticky point of « women empowerment » where women start being more educated and working full time, but they still do almost 100% of the housework. This is made even more difficult and time consuming by the absence of modern amenities and the weight of tradition. Oh how their lives could be made easier by a washing machine and eating muesli instead of homemade bread every morning (among other things)!
We said our heartfelt goodbyes and « we will be back » to the family, and started our exploration of the superb valley of Hunza. Picture this: a turquoise river edged by steep eroded cliffs, with fertile terraced slopes rising to snow-capped rocky mountains on each side. Thousands of apricot trees were starting to bloom everywhere, colouring the valley with pink and white. At lower altitudes fields and popplers were starting to wear their green robes, but higher up it was still very dry and winter-like, brown dominated. We spent two weeks hitchhiking up the valley, visiting thousand year old forts, mosques and settlements, learning about the ancient tribes that have travelled through and lived on this branch of the silk road, and hiking through breathtaking landscapes, notably the awe-inspiring Passu Cones.
But the most striking feature of Hunza was certainly its people. The dominant community here is Ismaili, a subsect of shia muslims, known for being very progressive. This is the fruit of the guidance of their spiritual leader – the Aga Khan (equivalent of the Pope for catholics), and the work of the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN), which financially supports education, health, women empowerment, environmental protection and socially-just development activities. As a result, the literacy rate in Hunza is above 95%, which is 40 to 30 points higher than the national average and comparable to western countries – impressive for a remote mountainous area. The cultural emphasis on education and equal status of boys and girls, men and women is very strong and locals are very proud of this. We could really feel that women were considered in a different, more equal way here, but there is still a strong gender bias to the distribution of labour. I was reflecting on this as I was bathing in the natural hot springs of Hussaini at the time reserved for women. I was surrounded by women doing their daily laundry and laughing at the constant cheerful chatter of Bibi, a muscular tiny old woman with a toothless smile, scrubbing her dark silky hair with a mixture of apricot kernels and honey.
We were also impressed to learn about the community organisation of Ismailis: villages have organising committees that oversee cooperative work on shared infrastructure such as water channels, collect donations to fund projects of strategic importance for the village or support the establishment of local business with micro-credit. Overall, Ismailis gave us the impression of a highly educated, socially progressive, tight-knit and very cooperative community. Their kindness and hospitality continued to humble us, and we were coming to understand this is a fundamental feature of islam.
Physically, the people also impressed us, with a dominance of strong lean physiques, and a humble confidence in the way they carried themselves. The genetics in this part of the world are also fascinating, with the ebbs and flows of history creating a melting pot of faciestes. Many Pathans and Hunziites have white skin, blonde or reddish beards and blue eyes, and we heard plenty of stories of locals being mistaken for european tourists, while I (Tim) was often mistaken for a local. Many men sport their beige shalwar kameez with a smart tweed jacket, a beige woolen shawl draped around their shoulders, and a woolen beret-like hat capping it off. Rarely have I seen such elegantly dressed farmers (no offence to my dear uncles…). Further north, the Wakhi speaking people live across Tajikistan, the Wakhan corridor of Afghanistan, northern Pakistan and far west Xinjiang, their faces reflect their straddling of south asia, China and central asia. The character of the people, the aesthetics of the agricultural and social environment they’ve created over millennia, and the grandiose mountain scenery, had me questioning reality. How can such a place be real? At times I felt I was bursting with awe, elation and wonder at being here, exactly the feelings I was hoping to experience during this trip.
But this is a fragile Shangri-La, almost everyone we spoke to had a chilling testimony about the impacts of the climate crisis. Here, no one would think of questioning whether the planet is really heating and it is already affecting their lives in significant and frightening ways. A retired school principal told us that, since the 80s, 50% of the volume and length of the many glaciers that feed into this area have melted, and as they are now well below the moraine walls, many areas of agricultural land have had to be abandoned because the channels that irrigated them are now too high and dry. Some land has also been destroyed by glacier lake outburst floods. Elsewhere, landslides caused by increasingly heavy monsoon are destroying roads and irrigation channels. Snow and frost come later, when fruit trees have already bloomed, threatening the precious fruit crops. This is an area where Gilgit Baltistan is probably most similar to the rest of Pakistan: the climate crisis is in the present tense and dangerously affecting the lives of millions of people, be it through floods, water scarcity, unbearable heat, etc. These people who, even at national level, contribute so little to global heating, are left with little choice but to count on the resilience and support of their community.
Another point in common with all the people we talked to is their total lack of hope for the future. They despise the army, who have imprisoned their elected President to maintain their control and power. No one sees how the control of the army can be reversed and democracy returned. We couldn’t help but wonder what the international community is doing, surely it should have a lot of political leverage with the amount of international aid given to Pakistan – but the West is probably looking elsewhere, as well as directly supporting the Pakistani military, somehow an “ally” against the Talibans in neighbouring Afghanistan.
As I am reminded reading the biography of Malala Yousafzai – the teenage girl who survived being shot in the face by talibans for campaigning for girls education, mainstream western views of Pakistan and information in the media are certainly grounded in the reality of some parts of the country. But we discovered a completely different facet of Pakistan. This facet is one of educated and socially progressive people, empowered women, and moderate islam. We spent our last day hiking 30km up and down a dry canyon-like valley to a glacier half the size of what our friend Riaz (roughly our age) remembers it being in his teenage years. Along the way we shared many cups of delicious chai with local shepherds and villagers, chatting about education, community, the role of women and politics. On our way down, a sandstorm hit and we hurried along the vast landslide area left by monsoons of recent years. As I was reflecting on this last day, I couldn’t help but think it was a perfect summary of our time in Pakistan, its people and its beautiful but threatened landscapes. More than with any other country we’ve visited so far, we’ve developed an attachment to this part of Pakistan, and a determination to come back and contribute however we can to a safer future for its people.
