Pakistan

Facebook is amazing. During my travels to Japan, I met many people. One of the great things about "backpack" traveling is that you get to meet people from all sorts of different countries.  The hostels act as small international hubs where people (including people from the host country) can easily get together and chat over a few beers. One person I met was Hammad, from Pakistan, who was staying in Japan for several months to study Japanese architecture and attend some architecture conferences. For whatever reason, our e-mails didn't seem to reach each other and we didn't communicate for some time...until Facebook!

So with all the commotion going on in Pakistan, Hammad made a little post on his Facebook account about the current situation in Islamabad, where he lives, and Pakistan in general. However, I don't take the article he posts as completely authoritative (in the concluding paragraphs, it has some hints of being pro-Mussharraf), but it does provide an interesting counterpoint to the popular media views. Whatever the situation really is, I hope they get things sorted out soon.

The first few paragraphs of his post:
"I have received many emails and phone calls from friends and family abroad to enquire about our safety and the conditions in the country. Apparently the Pakistani and foreign media have been creating a doomsday scenario and portraying a picture very different from reality, resulting in people thinking Pakistan is a war-zone and all order has broken down. I’m writing this email to give you a true picture. I’m attaching an article by a foreign journalist who’s given her views on the media’s reporting and the prevailing conditions in Pakistan .

Life here in Islamabad , Lahore and Karachi is very normal. It is the overactive and biased media that is distorting facts. Nothing extraordinary is happening except in certain areas. Life is going on as usual, shops are open, business is normal, restaurants are open, even parties are going on here in Islamabad – I went to a dance party on the night Emergency was announced. One can’t see a single soldier in the streets.

There is NO martial law and no army anywhere in the streets. It is just a state of Emergency arising out of successive suicide blasts in some parts of the country, which is the real cause to worry, not the Emergency Rule itself.
"


Oh, another perk of connecting on Facebook: I finally got the pictures he promised me 3 years ago.


Hammad on the far right. Yoshi to the left of me, in the orange.



Nabe dinner with Aki-san.