Life after geronimo

That night,I called up a Pakistani friend and begged him to have a drink with me. The irony of me showing my Pakistani passport as age-proof at the bar was not lost on us. Four days later,I went to another bar. The woman at the door checked my passport and visa thoroughly,throwing doubtful looks my way,as she read the four magic words on it: “Islamic Republic of Pakistan.”

Since bin Laden’s death,a debate has been raging in think-tank and policy circles in DC. “Are they incompetent,or just complicit?” asked a former US ambassador. And,as a Pakistani,there I was,with a sense of anger that I have never felt before. “How could they (the military) do this to us?” asked a friend.

That sense of anger is heightened when one is asked about the mood back home,or one’s assessment of the situation. There is no escaping Pakistan — at parties,you tell people you’re from there and they ask for your opinion on the situation. Your friends call you from across the United States to rant against the military. Yet there are perhaps no words to describe one’s anger,or embarrassment.

Looking at the headlines of major newspapers,I have begun every day on a sombre note this past week. How do you justify,or begin to explain what happened? And why has the Pakistan Army put us in this position? A senior US journalist complained to me that many Pakistanis who she has met since bin Laden died have tried rationalising his presence in the country.

Mahawish Rezvi,a freelance multimedia journalist based in New York ,who has spent six years in the US,says she has never felt unwelcome in the country. “There is no way I can defend my country from the argument that elements within the Pakistani government had to know he was living in Abbottabad. For this I have no answer. We have been caught as liars and have proven to be unworthy of trust. Makes me wonder who is living next door to my house in Karachi as well.”