Toronto-based Taimoor Farouk shares tales from the Pakistani diaspora. As soon as one starts to wonder how far the current Pakistani regime will go with its begging bowl and what allowances it will extend to the bearded militia - currently keeping the entire nation at a gunpoint –  the question that comes to mind is whether Pakistan’s political leaders are willing to take the nation a step forward.

As the situation at home worsens, there seems to be a growing urge among the Pakistani-Canadian community to act on behalf of their bleeding homeland. Call it the rise of nationalism, but if that sounds too romantic, feel free to refer to it as a last shot at survival.

During the past three years, I’ve observed that to live away from home for a Pakistani has become increasingly difficult. Scores of people managing the task of convincing westerners that not all of us are involved in the spread of militancy are becoming fatigued. Their work is made even harder because most North Americans have every reason to believe the worst after only skimming through the first few pages of any newspaper.

Even though the trend of looking at Muslims in the West with suspicion has existed since the collapse of the World Trade Centre, the situation has recently worsened. In fact, Indian expatriates are now also speculating whether Pakistanis, like the Taliban, are guilty of plotting something hideous in their backyards.

At a dinner party held the other day by a Pakistani friend of mine, a well-informed girl from Calcutta conveniently asked me whether I was in favour of the imposition of the Nizam-i-Adl regulation in Swat. Just when I was about to answer, a fellow Pakistani, on overhearing the question, blatantly replied, ‘Which sane person would support a brutal regulation such as this?’ We laughed off the matter by referring to President Zardari as ‘Zor-dari’ and dismissing the parliamentarians as goons (of course, with the exception of the few brave ones who voted against the regulation).

The evening turned out to be a pleasant one.

It was only later that night, however, that I realised that the question asked by our Indian friend was an alarming one. After all, why on earth would someone inquire from a group of university students if they are in favour of a law that will permit the flogging of helpless women? But then, the Pakistani government is an elected and supposedly representative one so it would be unfair to assume that the majority of Pakistanis do not want such a law to be passed in the National Assembly.

Thank you parliamentarians for representing us, once again!