A Community of Outsiders and Misfits
When I first moved to Australia, my parents made a conscientious effort for us to not socialize with the Pakistani community. Reflecting on this objectively, this could be seen as an exclusionary and conservative approach, especially in relationship to our land of origin. The reality was more nuanced. Firstly, we had just left Pakistan, and being young children, it was beneficial for us to get a more diverse worldview. There was no better education than life experience, no matter how good literature or cinema was. Secondly, there is a tendency in migrant communities, to not push outside their comfort zones. Birds of a feather flock together, and Pakistanis have an unbridled history of flocking, wherever we may be. My father noticed this in the 70s and 80s, when he was studying in England. Pakistanis from Punjab province came in droves to England for blue collar work, and set up their own enclaves around the country. As good as that was for creating a preliminary social safety net, it stunted cross-communal interaction.
My interaction with the Pakistani community in Australia was therefore piecemeal. We knew one Pakistani family when we arrived, and they were the ones who recommended the school into which my sister and I got admission. When I moved into a private school a few years later, there was only one Pakistani in the entire school from Peshawar (Northern Pakistan, miles apart in distance and culture from my native city of Karachi). Even though our language, previous education, and perception of Pakistan and Australia varied greatly, we bonded over the usual topics which one could never not have an opinion on as a Pakistani; food and sports. I was quick to claim that Karachi, the most cosmopolitan and diverse city in the country had the best food. Years later, when I finally visited Peshawar, I had to swallow my pride and admit Peshawar had the best food I had eaten.
When I entered university, the quantum of Pakistani students started to increase. I had been introduced to a few through mutual friends in the last year of high school, and as many of us shared classes, we started to transition from acquaintances to friends. There were multiple permutations of Pakistanis; those born in Pakistan and now living in Australia, those born in Pakistan and having lived outside of Australia and Pakistan their whole life, those born and who had lived outside of Australia and Pakistan their whole lives and who still considered themselves Pakistani, and those born and bred in Australia but who also considered themselves Pakistani. Even though they all were part of the Pakistani community, their perception of community deferred. Some swore allegiance to Pakistan, others to Australia, others were in an existential crisis, whilst others just couldn’t care less and enjoyed the biryani and chai you would get at Pakistani events. Whatever it may be, there was a strange sense of community, which was dynamic and syncretic.
When I moved back to Pakistan many years later, I missed being an outsider who had a sense of community more potent and different to the masses. In Australia, being Pakistani was a lubricating factor, which cut seamlessly across boundaries and formalities whether at university, in public or at a party. What was there for me here? With time, some of my friends from Australia moved back to Pakistan. Some out of choice, others out of compulsion, but whoever did always had fond memories of their time there. Much of our reflection and reminiscing about Australia, came from a cultured lens of being Pakistanis in Australia. How we navigated a foreign culture, and how our community facilitated (or many times curtailed) our ability to prosper. We missed being outsiders, misfits, and the black sheep wherever we went. We now didn’t stick out as much as we did when we were in Australia. We started attending Australian alumni events in Pakistan, reading books about the historic linkages between Pakistan and Australia, and never missed a chance to show gratitude for the experiences we were blessed to have had.
My interaction with the Australian community in Pakistan, even though regular, have been for short stints. Most native Australians who came to Pakistan, come as diplomats or development sector professionals. I met my fair share in Islamabad (the federal capital, where all the diplomats were based) at conferences, meetings and socially. Very few of them spent more than 2 years in the country. Their understanding of Pakistan, and their sense of being an Australian here, was quite nascent. I did my best to instill a sense of similarity through our natural beauty, indigenous cultures, and love for sports. We reminisced about Australia, though many of them were more interested in knowing about Pakistan, given their short stint here. The Australian community was therefore small and fleeting, and there were fresh faces I had to try and indoctrinate every time I saw them.
My sense of community was greatly influenced by the length of stay I had in Australia. Having spent 12 years there, and that too at a formative stage of my life, I was open to new cultures and experiences, and my sense of community wasn’t limited to just Australia or Pakistan. It was a sense of belonging, whether it be through sports, academics, or any other medium, which also influenced my sense of community. Culture was the one which was the most potent though, as a shared sense of origin and a shared sense of being outsiders brought others together, galvanizing strong sentiments of acceptance. More than being from the Pakistani community in Australia, I was from the migrant community, and the lion’s share of my friends were also migrants, but from non-Pakistan backgrounds.
One doesn’t have to live in a country or culture for a certain amount of time to be part of a certain community. As the various permutations of Pakistani/Australians I mentioned earlier show, communities are based on diversity, and a sense of longing, whatever that may be. My sense of longing will always oscillate between Australia and Pakistan.