Thursday, 14 January 2010

  • Which faces do you know Pakistan by?


    'Moslem girl of Pakistan', May 9, 1955, 20 cents




    It's alright to be honest. Do let me know, and suggest any other people you think I should add. Categories:
    - Prodigies
    - Models
    - Sports personalities
    - Musicians
    - Fiction writers
    - Poet philosophers
    - Public intellectuals
    - Entrepreneurs
    - Activists
    - Actors
    - Dancers
    - Painters
    - Soldiers
    - Politicos
    - Terrorists

    NB: none of these faces died before the 1930s, when the Pakistan movement began

    Its prodigies?

    Arfa Karim Randhawa became the youngest Microsoft Certified Professional at age 9


    Babar Iqbal, who broke Arfa's record to become the youngest Microsoft Certified Professional at age 9 less days


    Sufiah Yusof gained admission to Oxford at age 13 to study mathematics


    Ali Moeen Nawazish broke the previous record of taking 13 A-levels in a year by taking 23 (and getting 21 As)


    Hanif J, who quadruple majored at college, graduated with a CGPA of 3.997 and joined McKinsey at age 19, now runs a fund of socially responsible investments

    Its models?

    Yasmeen Ghauri

    Mariyah Moten

     

    Its sports personalities?

    Jahangir Khan, won 555 consecutive matches, the longest winning streak recorded in squash. He won the World Open six times and British Open a record 10 times.

    Jansher Khan won the World Open a record 8 times and the British Open six times. Six years Jahangir's junior, he won 19/37 of his encounters in tournaments with Jahangir Khan (not related, but also from Peshawar)

    Pakistan's field hockey team, the most successful hockey team in the world, having won the world cup four times (1971, 1978, 1982, 1994) and the Olympics three times (1960, 1968, 1984)

     


    Hassan Sardar, scored 11 goals in his first Word Cup in Mumbai, 1982 (a world record). Crushed India with a hat-trick, in the 1982 Asia Games to win the game 7-1. Instrumental in Pakistan's Gold medal victory in the 1984 Olympics 


    Imran Khan, captained Pakistan's first ever world-cup victory in cricket, ranked as the best post World War I test cricket bowler and considered one of the game's best all-rounders of all time.

    Also known for his off-field sport of bedding English aristocracy and involvement in national politics. Of Imran Khan, novelist Zadie Smith remarks,

    'There have always been and always will be people who simply exude sex (who breathe it, who sweat it.) A few examples from thin air: the young Brando, Madonna, Cleopatra, Pam Grier, Valentino, a girl called Tamara who lives opposite the London Hippodrome, right slap in the middle of town; Imran Khan, Michaelangelo's David. You can't fight that kind of marvellous indiscriminate power, for it is not always symmetry or beauty per se that does it [ . . . ] and there are no means by which you can gain it.'

    Fazal Mahmood, Pakistan's first fast bowler, and the inspiration who made Pakistan a cricketing nation. Took 12 test wickets in 1952 against India, to secure a victory by an innings in Pakistan's second ever international match. Also won Pakistan a test match on its first tour of England, the only time a nation has ever done this, by taking 12 wickets in the fourth and final test match to square the series 1-1.


    Diabetic Wasim Akram, the most talented fast bowler in cricket. Possessed a different delivery for each ball of the over and a master of reverse swing. Formidable slogger as well. Strike bowler for the '92 team that won Pakistan its first World Cup. Together with speedster Waqar Younis, made one of the game's best bowling partnerships and made Pakistan a leading test cricket nation in the early '90s


    Shoaib Akhtar, the only bowler to have officially bowled a legal ball faster than 100mph (Brett Lee did not).

    Perhaps the third higest strike rate for a bowler with more than 170 test wickets after Pakistani great Waqar Younis and West Indian legend Malcolm Marshall

    Javed Miandad, colourful character of cricket known for his temper and bat-wielding at fast bowler Dennis Lilee, key batsman in the world cup '92 winning game. Also won a legendary ODI against India in Sharjah 1986 with four runs needed to win off the last ball - shot a six

     


    Amir Khan, British Pakistani who became world light welterweight boxing champion in 2009

     

    Inzamam ul Haq, the teddy bear of cricket for much of the '90s and 2000s. Key batsman in the '92 squad that won Pakistan's first world cup


    Hanif Mohammed


    Shahid Afridi, set a world record (still unbeaten) by scoring 100 runs off of 37 balls on his batting debut against Sri Lanka at the tender (and disputed) age of 16. Played a key-role with his lethal spin and his big hitting in Pakistan's 2009 Twenty20 World Cup victory. Holds the highest career strike rate for batting in the history of the game

    Aisam ul Haq Qureshi, one half of the 'Indo-Pak Express' with Rohan Bopara, made the grand-slam men's doubles' final in the US Open, 2010, as well as the mixed doubles' final with Kveta Peschke



    Its musicians?

    Noor Jehan


    Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan




    Abida Parveen


    Iqbal Bano


    Ali Zafar


    Atif Aslam


    Shahram Azhar and Taimur Rahman with Laal
     


    Zeb and Haniya
     
     


    Pappu Sain


    Salman Ahmad with Junoon


    Junaid Jamshed with Vital Signs


    Nazia and Zoheb Khan



    Nadia Ali, an American Pakistani who made number 2 on the UK singles chart with Rapture as the front-woman and songwriter for iiO at the age of 21




    Basim Usmani with The Kominas


    Daniyal Noorani



    Its fiction writers?

    Hanif Muhammad, author of A Case of Exploding Mangoes

    '[General Zia] underlined the words barbaric, wily dictator, our government's fundamentalist friend who is relentlessly marching his country back in time. With every line he underlined, his blood pressure went up. His left eye twitched. He picked up the phone and called his information minister [ . . . ], "What kind of name is Sulzberger? [ . . . ] Is it Christian, Jewish or Hindu?"


    Hanif Kureishi

    British Pakistani novelist and screenplay writer. Author of The Buddha of Suburbia, The Black Album, Intimacy, The Body, Something to Tell You. Short story collections: Love in a Blue Time, Midnight All Day. Screenplays: Sammy and Rosie Get Laid, London Kills Me, My Beautiful Laudrette, My Son the Fanatic, Hanif Kureishi Plays One, Sleep With Me, The 'Mother', Venus

    'Shahid was reminded of his uncle Asif, a journalist in Pakistan, who liked to assert that the only people who spoke good English now were subcontinentals. "They gave us the language but it is only we who know how to use it."

    Uncle Asif, in whose house he and Chilli used to stay every winter, lying in hammocks beneath the mango trees in the courtyard and discussing which parties to attend, liked to entertain his nephews with his satirical views. He'd say that the Pakistanis in England now had to do everything; win the sports, present the news and run the shops and businesses as well as having to fuck the women. "Your country's gone to the wogs!" He labelled this "the brown man's burden."'

    Sara Suleri, author of Meatless Days; and Boys will be Boys: A Daughter's Elegy. Professor of English at Yale

    Mohsin Hamid, author of Mothsmoke and The Reluctant Fundamentalist

    'I was reminded of Lahore and of that saying, so evocative in our language: the ruins proclaim the building was beautiful.'


    Saadat Hasan Manto


    Bapsi Sidhwa - Novels include Water, An American Brat, Ice Candy Man, The Bride, The Crow Eaters

    Daniyal Mueenuddin, short stories published in The New Yorker


    Ali Sethi author of The Wish Maker

    Kamila Shamsie

    Wajahat Ali, author of the play Domestic Crusaders
     

    Its poet philosophers?

    Muhammed Iqbal

    Faiz Ahmad Faiz


    Its public intellectuals?

    Aitzaz Ahsan, voted fifth on Foreign Policy's list of top public intellectuals. Lead counsel for ousted Supreme Court justice Iftikhar Chaudhry. Formerly president of the Pakistani supreme court bar association, minister for law, chair of the Pakistan People's Party, a senator, and a founder and vice-president of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan

     

    Iftikhar Chaudhry, supreme court chief justice of Pakistan who said no to President General Musharraf, was sacked, sparked a lawyer's movement against a military regime and was reinstated under a democratic government. Awarded the Harvard Law School's highest honour, the Medal of Freedom and named one of the 27 bravest thinkers by Atlantic Monthly

     

    Muhammed Ali Jinnah - one of the few people on Earth to have carved out their own state 


    Rahmat Ali - While a student at Cambridge in 1933, coined the name 'Pakistan' for an Indian Muslim homeland: an acronym (Punjab, Afghania, Kashmir, Sindh and Balochistan) as well as meaning 'Land of the Pure'


    Mahbub ul Haq - economist who pioneered the field of human development theory and founded the Human Development Report, used by UNDP. Died before he could receive the Nobel prize, Amartya Sen, his life-long colleague, received it   




    Abdus Salam - awarded the physics Nobel for his work in electroweak theory


    Ayesha Jalal, author of the thesis that Jaswant Singh famously upheld and was expelled from the BJP for by blaming partition on Nehru, rather than on Jinnah. Jalal is a Professor of History at Tufts University and a MacArthur (genius) Fellow.

    Books include: The Sole Spokesman: Jinnah, the Muslim League and the Demand for Pakistan; Partisans of Allah: Jihad in South Asia; Self and Sovereignty: Individual and Community in South Asian Islam since 1850; The State of Martial Rule: the Origins of Pakistan's Military Economy of Defence; Democracy and Authoritarianism in South Asia: a comparative and historical perspective  

    Sued Columbia University for not giving her tenure because they had received corporate Indian funding


    Tariq Ali Former Oxford student union president and current editor of the New Left Review. Prolific fiction and non-fiction writer. Some books: Clash of fundamentalisms: crusades, jihads and modernity (2002), Bush in Babylon (2003), Street-fighting years: an autobiography of the sixties (2005), Rough music, Blair, Bombs, Baghdad, London, Terror (2005), The Leopard and the Fox; The Duel: Pakistan on the Flight Path of American Power (2008)

    tariq ali


    Ahmed Rashid - Central Asia expert, author of Taliban; Jihad; Descent into Chaos


    Adil Najam, blogs at pakistaniat.com Professor of International Relations and Director fo the Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future at Boston University. Books co-edited/co-authored include Envisioning a Sustainable Development Agenda for Trade and Environment (2007); Portrait of a Giving Community (2007); Environment, Development and Human Security (2003); Civic Entrepreneurship (2002); and was one of 450 lead authors of the Third and Fourth Assessment Reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) for which the IPCC shared the 2007 Nobel peace prize with Al Gore


    Asim Khwaja, Associate Professor of Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School

     

    Khaled Ahmed, contributing editor at The Friday Times, author of Pakistan: behind the ideological mask (2000) and Sectarian War in Pakistan



    Ayesha Siddiqa - author of Military Inc: Inside Pakistan's Military Economy

    Ziauddin Sardar, journalist and author of many books, including Desparate Seeking Paradise: Journeys of a Sceptical Muslim

    '"Do I look like a deranged dictator to you," he demanded. The whole table was stunned and immediately everyone seemed to find their food fascinating. I was conscious of turmoil in my inner self. Diplomacy is not my strong suit; tact, caution and a prudential turn of phrase have long been strangers to my nature. My instant reaction was to shout out: "YES!" I wrestled spontaneity to a draw and merely sat still and quiet. There is a famous Latin epithet to the effect that silence is assent; this would have to do.'


    Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy - Produced and reported on 13 films for major networks in the US and UK. Winner of the duPont Columbia University award, first non-American journalist to be awarded the Livingston Award, youngest recipient of the One World Media broadcast journalist of the year award in the UK, Overseas Press Club Award, The American women and Radio and Television award, The Cine Golden Eagle Award, The Banff TV Rockie award and the South Asian Journalist Award

    Responsible for this piece of brilliance: PAKISTAN: Children of the Taliban


    Eqbal Ahmad Books: Terrorism, theirs and ours; Confronting empire

     

    Akbar S Ahmed

    Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi - Founder of the Jamaat e Islami party in Pakistan and a major Islamist thinker of the 20th century


    Fazlur Rehman Malik - Described by M. Yahya Birt of the Association of Islam Researchers as "probably the most learned of the major Muslim thinkers in the second-half of the twentieth century, in terms of both classical Islam and Western philosophical and theological discourse"

    Farhat Hashmi - Founder of Al Huda International, a chain of centres that teaches helps common women acquire Quranic knowledge

    Husain Haqqani, former Boston University associate professor of international relations, current Pakistan ambassador to the USA 



    Its entrepreneurs?

    Mir Shakil-ur-Rahman, owner of the Independent Media Corporation which includes the most popularly read Urdu newspaper Jang and the English newspaper The News  as well as Geo TV, launched in 2002.  This channel's broadcast of Zara Sochiye, which discussed the legitimacy of Gen Zia ul Haq's ridiculous rape and witness laws between civil society leaders and Muslim scholars. The programme facilitated the laws' reforms.

    Geo TV broadcast critical reportage of the Musharraf's handling of protesters when the lawyers movement to restore the chief justice began. It continues to broadcast critical reporting of the government



    Syed Babar Ali founded what is now Pakistan's premier social sciences university, LUMS, in 1984, and which sent a team which won the world Model UN competition in China in 2006 against competition from Harvard, Berkeley, Cambridge etc and which won one of only two 'Outstanding Delegation' awards at the Harvard World Model UN conference in Belgium 2009. Syed Babar Ali set up a number of companies, including Pakistan's largest paper and board mill. Was president of WWF International and finance minister of Pakistan in 1993. Is a member of the Council of Foreign Relations

     

    Arif Naqvi, founder and CEO of Abraaj Capital, the largest private equity firm in the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia, with $6.6B under management. Naqvi is a member of the World Economic Forum and is rumoured to have donated $100m of his personal fortune to the Aman Foundation


    Asad Jamal, founder and Chairman of ePlanet Ventures, ranked number 8 on Forbes' Midas List of top 100 venture capital firms



    Zain Latif, closed a deal worth $125 million before age 23, made VP at Merrill Lynch by 23, Executive Director at Goldman Sachs at 24 and started up his own private equity venture, TLG Capital, by 25. TLG Capital invests in high-return socially beneficial projects, such as a pharmaceutical factory in Uganda which creates affordable AIDS and malaria drugs



    Azeem Ibrahim, from a council estate in Glasgow to one of Scotland's richest men by age 33, and with a PhD from Cambridge on the way



    Mian Muhammad Munsha, of the Nishat Group, the first Pakistani to make the Forbes list of billionaires in 2010.


    Agha Hasan Abedi founded the BCCI bank in 1972, which, within a decade, became the 7th largest bank in the world (worth over $20 B), with operations in 78 countries.



    Its activists?

    Abdul Sattar Edhi - Founder of the Edhi Foundation, which has the largest private ambulance service network in the world. Also holds the record for the longest time worked without having taken a holiday. Aims to have a hospital in Pakistan every 5km. Recipient of the Ramon Magsaysay public service award, Lenin Peace Prize and Balzan Prize. Refuses donations from governments and religious organisations because of attached conditions

    Bilquis Edhi - Recipient of the same prizes as her husband and founder of the Bilquis Edhi foundation, the nurse lives with her medical doctor husband in a two room apartment attached with one of their orphanages. Born in the same year as Pakistan, is referred to by some as the 'Mother of Pakistan'

    Mukhtaran Mai - Survivor of gang rape, a punishment meted out to her because of her brother's involvement with another woman. She used government compensation money awarded to her to build a girl's school and a boy's school near her village to educate her community so that future honour punishments of the kind that she experienced would never happen again.

    Her case gained much publicity and she has been flooded with support and grant money, which she has put to charitable use. Named Glamour Woman of the Year in 2005 and recipient of the North-South Prize from the Council of Europe in 2007 for her courageous work

    Asma Jahangir, human rights lawyer who risks her life for her work for clients who are victims of domestic violence. Won a seminal case in Asma Jilani v Government of Punjab (1972) as Supreme Court Chief Justice Yakub Ali declared General Yahya Khan an illegal usurper and all the actions of his martial government as illegal. Winner of the Ramon Magsaysay public service award and UNIFEM's Millenium Prize together with her sister Hina Jilani. 

    Co-author with Hina Jilani of Divine Sanction? The Hudood Ordinance (1988, 2003) and also author of "Children of a Lesser God: Child Prisoners of Pakistan" (1992)



    Hina Jilani, human rights lawyer who risks her life for her work


    Dr Pervez Hoodhboy


    Ardeshir Cowasjee

    Samira Munir

    Rushy Rashid Hojbjerg

    Tehmina Durrani

    Its actors?

    Ali Saleem, popularly known as his alias Begum Nawazish Ali. Cross dresses as a woman, interviews his guests on Pakistani TV with banter and innuendo  



    Riz Ahmed, British Pakistani who has starred in Rage (with Judy Dench and Jude Law); Shifty; Baghdad Express; The Path to 9/11; Banglatown Banquet; The Road to Guantanamo; Britz; and Taqwacore: The Birth of Punk Islam




    Zia Moheyuddin
     

    Faran Tahir, who has acted in Star Trek, 24, Charlie Wilson's War, Sleeper Cell, Grey's Anatomy, Alias, Lost and Disney's non-animated The Jungle Book


    Its dancers?

    Nahid Siddiqui

    Its painters?

    Abdur Rahman Chughtai


    Ismail Guljee known for his modern calligraphy


    Sadequain

    Iqbal Hussain portrays the women around him, his mother, grandmother, sisters, aunts - prostitutes


     

    Shazia Sikander



    Its soldiers?

    Muhammad Mahmood Alam, claimed to have shot down 9 Indian fighters in air-to-air combat, 5 of them in less than a minute, during the 1965 Indo-Pak war

     

    AQ Khan, architect of Pakistan's military nuclear programme as well as suspected disseminator of nuclear technology to North Korea and possibly Iran


    Its politicos?

    Sultan Mohammed Shah Aga Khan III - One of the founders and the first president of the All-India Muslim League which advocated for the creation of Pakistan and served as President of the League of Nations from 1937-38. Imam of the Shia Ismaili Muslims from age 7 till death. Founder of the Aga Khan Development Network, one of the largest private development networks in the world.

    Race horse lover: owned a record equalling five winners of the Epsom Derby, 16 winners of British Classic Races. Gifted Queen Elizabeth II Astrakhan who won at Hurst Park Racecourse in 1950 


    Benazir Bhutto - charismatic kleptocrat who edged out her siblings to inherit leadership of her father's Pakistan People's Party, her prior experience being that she had been president of the Oxford student union. Twice elected prime minister. Promised much, yet passed not one piece of legislation in her first term. Notoriously corrupt. Assassinated after she returned to Pakistan riding on the wave of the movement for a restored judiciary, a movement she was going to undermine with a deal Musharraf (forced upon him by US Secretary of State Condolezza Rice) which would have kept the deposed Chief Justice Ifitkhar Chaudhry deposed
     

    Asif Ali Zardari, beneficiary of Benazir Bhutto's assassination and the murder of her brother, committed by policemen under her prime ministership. Currently the president of Pakistan, 'Mr 10%' has a rating of less than 18% (he was indirectly voted in by the National Assembly)

     

    Zia ul Haq, architect of the USSR's demise with US financing. Also helped found the Taliban, brought in foolish rape laws into Pakistan and walked Pakistan back through several centuries of social progress. Fundamentalist icon 


    Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, eloquent Pakistani foreign minister under Ayub Khan, as well as a populist demagogue. Founded the Pakistan People's Party. Responsible for the secession of Bangladesh from Pakistan. Nationalised ten categories of industries and set Pakistan back decades in terms of economic development. First Asian Senator of Berkeley's student government

    To Bhutto as foreign minister, President John F Kennedy said, "If you were an American, you'd be in my cabinet." Zulfi retorted: "Be careful, Mr. President. If I were American, I'd be in your place." They laughed



    Pervez Musharraf brought India and Pakistan on the verge of war with his failed adventure at Kargil, for which he was to be fired by Nawaz Sharif, but instead launched a bloodless coup. The public, tired of betrayal by two democratically elected prime ministers (Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif) who had looted the country of its resources, were apathetic to Musharraf's initial claim to power.

    Allowed for the proliferation of satellite and cable TV, a force, it is argued, he could not have fought. Ultimately it was to be this force which was to be his undoing, capturing and propagating images of how TV stations that aired anti-Musharraf protests during the lawyer's movement were ransacked by the police 


    Ayub Khan

    Nawaz Sharif - a steal mill industrialist, twice elected as prime minister when Benazir Bhutto's terms were ended prematurely, and approximately as corrupt. Sharif did not complete either of his terms either (see Musharraf for how his second ended). Product of military backing against the PPP and espoused illiberal, regressive 'Islamic' values, and jailed The Friday Times editor Najam Sethi on charges of sedition for a speech given in India. Has more recently  come off as a reformed politician with liberal principles as he supported the restoration of Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry till the CJ was indeed reinstated, but this may also be because the reinstatement invalidates Musharraf's rule and jeopardises Musharraf's amnesty of charges of corruption against Zardari 

    Shaukat Aziz, a former top four exec at Citi turned finance minister under Musharraf, turned prime minister who ushered in a wave of foreign direct investment

    Nawab Akbar Bugti


    Fazl ul-Rahman



    Sherry Rehman


    Its terrorists?

    Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, leader of Lashkar e Taiba, held responsible for the Mumbai attacks of 2008

     

    Altaf Hussain, founder and leader of the MQM thug party with its roots in Karachi. Co-founded with the help of Gen Zia ul Haq to counter the PPP's strength in Sindh. Hussain is responsible for inciting mass murder in the city of Karachi. The British government has turned down multiple extradition requests



    Khalid Shaikh Mohammed


    Mohammed Sidique Khan


    Rashid Rauf

     

    Baitullah Mehsud, head of the umbrella Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, c. 12-20k fighters in South Waziristan/FATA

     

    Hakimullah Mehsud

    Hakimullah Mehsud

    Maulana Sufi Mohammad

    Maulana Sufi Mohammad

    Mangal Bagh, leader of Lashkar-e-Islami, perhaps 10,000 fighters

    Mangal Bagh

Comments (34)

  • oceanstarr

    The bulk of what I learned about Pakistan when I was younger, I learned from Salman Rushdie and because of Salman Rushdie... but I never thought of him as belonging to Pakistan... He introduced me to the history, but I always thought of him as almost a man without a country like Milan Kundera...

    Aside from that, the top 4 or 5 politicos on your list are the most familiar figures to me.  I ignore the coverage on terrorism from American media because I don't trust American reporting at all anymore. 

  • crimsonrosa

    So the only person that is familiar to me is Dr Har Gobind Khorana. I recognized his photo right away from my biology and genetics textbooks.

    As to American reporting... I'm an American, and know for SURE that our reporting is BS. I can handle NPR, but even the more liberal TV news stations don't even cover issues I consider important.

  • melbel219

    As an American, I'm pretty embarassed that the only people who I'm remotely familiar with (i.e. have even heard of) are Asma Jahangir, Tariq Ali, Pervez Musharraf, and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. 

    One reason (although I hate to make excuses) is that the American media doesn't do jack when it comes to reporting about countries that aren't the United States.  I'm fairly certain this stems from the way that our economy interacts with our first amendment to produce a "free press."  I'd be happy to elaborate on this if you'd like.. since it's a pretty fundemental component of the way I view the information that I get.   

  • lederniercoup

    you really do a disservice by missing legendary fast bowler fazal mahmood who was almost soley responsible for giving pakistan its test victories in the early days ie the 50s and transforming the sport to give it mass appeal in pakistan which it lacked prior to him (and the oval test, first win against england in 1954). the first in a long line of pakistani quickies. he was also an extremley handsome tall green eyed punjabi and brylcreem boy. without him we would have been like bangladesh when they got test status ie reasonable bastmen, toothtless attack, no test victories.

    http://content-usa.cricinfo.com/ci/content/player/40092.html

    nazia and zoheb hussain, along with junaid and the vital signs were really the founders of pakistani pop in the 80s and their influences still distinguish contemporary pakistani music from the bollywood counterparts today. ask most pop or rock stars today in pakistan and they will name those guys as major influences. surely they deserve pride of place ahead of the likes of ali zafar. even abrar-ul-haq for that matter has far more influence.

    Zara Sheikh and Mahnoor Baloch are bigger figures on the acting scene.

    Apart from that, good.

  • anonymous
    Unfortunatly I know nothing of anyone on your list. You have included links about each one,which will give me a chance to learn about them.. Thank you for sharring....
  • anonymous

    I have alot of comments to make about thing post, but I'll do that later because its late and I have alot of work to do.

    I love it - great idea. This should be an article in the NY Times.

    But I just realized who Asma Jahangir is, it my head I always thought she was Hina Jilani who came and talked at my school twice. I've met Asma Jahangir through my mom - they know each other.

    I should ask my mom to make 100% sure.

    this is so exciting.

    also, A.Q. Khan was my neighbor, and the grandfather of my sister's best friend. I've been to his house. My sister raced him in his pool and beat him. He used to come and watch us ride every weekend - the 3 of us went riding together.

    You should definitly take up Kathak - DO IT.

  • imthemad1
    issam - i thought i'd include fazl mahmood, but i don't think anyone will know of him.

    i also thought of the vital signs people but i think they'll have vanished from people's memories. there are a lot of people who are well known in pakistan who i haven't included.
  • lederniercoup
    but imad, amir khan, ziauddin sardar, hanif kureshi are all british, according to themselves. and calling yasmeen ghauri a pakistani cos of her father's birth is like calling shakira an arab cos her dad is lebanese, tho she has no connection to the region. by these standards, nadia ali, of the NY based dance/electronica band IIO (famous for 'rapture' etc)  should be in it. vaneeza ahmed and zara sheikh should def be there. abrar should be there, he's been big across both sides of the punjab for more than a decade. fazal mahmood has had far more impact on the cricketing world than say inzamam. mohammed siddiq khan is a caliphist and wouldn't support the ideals of the nation state!
  • lederniercoup
    also general niazi who was responsible for the hindu pogroms in bangladesh...
  • anonymous

    alright,

    I know Pakistan by Noor Jehan, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Nahid Siddiqui, M. Iqbal, Bapsi Sidhwa, Tariq Ali, Tehmina Durani (her ex-husbands nephew asked me out in highschool....lol), Mukhtar Mai, Hina Jilani, Asma Jahangir, Imran Khan, Shoaib Akhtar, Jinnah, the Bhuttos, Musharraf, Zia Ul Haq, Nawaz Sharif.

    does Hanif Kureishi consider himself Pakistani? I doubt it.

    How could you not mention Junoon?

    I've seen Nahid Saddiqui perform.

    I've always thought of Salman Rushdie as Indian, more than Pakistani.

    I'd put Jemima Khan (who I've met) in there because she's done her fair share to put Pakistan on the map, definitly for alot of English folks who otherwise would have no idea about Pakistan.

  • moshdeh
    noor jehan, nusrat, the junoon guys, iqbal, bapsi sidhwa, mohsin hamid, tariq ali, mukhtar mai, asma jahangir, all the cricketers you mentioned, janshir khan, jinna, the bhuttos, nawaz sharif, zia al-haq, mush...
    another person who is appearing in current news is the first pakistani "miss bikini of the universe"
  • furikakefreak
    thanks to the internet, libraries, book stores, etc., we do not have to rely on the mainstream media, or NPR, to learn about any person you have posted, or for that matter, any subject from any country on earth,...unless of course, one lives in a country where one's access to internet sites, news reports, libraries, book stores, etc, are censored by their own government.

    nothing but unadulterated freedom where i live. how about you?
  • furikakefreak
    on a second note, where i live, everyone has the freedom to believe what ever they want, whether it's truth or not, and everyone has the right and opportunity to be a dumb or as smart as they care be. the choice is their's for the taking.

    even the most common among us, from Abraham Lincoln to Bill Clinton, Warren Buffet to Andy Grove, has the potential and the chance to become the President or as succesful as they choose.
  • imthemad1
    hey,
    thanks for your input.


    what you said isn't entirely true.

    "on a second note, where i live, everyone has the freedom to believe what ever they want, whether it's truth or not, and everyone has the right and opportunity to be a dumb or as smart as they care be. the choice is their's for the taking." "nothing but unadulterated freedom where i live. how about you?"


    - in the wake of 9/11, a number of Sikhs and Muslims were shot.
    - prisoners were taken from afghanistan and jailed and tortured before given a trial in guantanamo. none of the laws that apply to USA applied to them because they were different. is that freedom?

    - the NSEERS programme was exclusively aimed at weeding out immigrants from Muslim majority countries. Azerbeijan, for example, was taken off the initial list because it was argued that it was a majority Christian country. there was a huge uproar in the media because it turned out that a lot of Iranians who were detained were actually Jews.
    illegal immigrants from Mexico weren't targeted by NSEERS, so it wasn't equal opportunity weeding, and a number of the immigrants who were detained were detained b/c INS had their green cards and these people didn't have their green cards to show the bureaucracy, or they had minor infractions, like speeding tickets.
    a number of Muslims were unconstitutionally detained - without warrants or bails being issued or without being given phone calls. their families didn't know where they'd been imprisoned and for how long as they were taken across the country.

    it's precisely because of this lack of freedom that a number of people were accepted for political asylum in Canada and a number of highly successful Pakistanis repatriated themselves in Pakistan.

    i believe america's only ever had one president who's not been a protestant: kennedy, who was a catholic. america hasn't even yet had its first muslim politician.

    i don't know about other instances of bridled freedom on people with beliefs not agreeable to the state, but i'm sure howard zinn would help you find more.

    as for pakistan, religious minorities don't do well here either. i wouldn't have returned to pakistan had i been born an ahmadi, christian or hindu and perhaps if i was born a shia. the idea of pakistan was to be a sanctuary to the religious minorities of india. instead, it's created another religious majority that oppresses minorities. ahmadis were declared non muslims by one of our most progressive governments. our military dictator zia - reagan's third largest recipient of US foreign aid at the time - introduced the blasphemy laws. zia promulgated islamisation in pakistan - a concept hitherto foreign to this land. the USA never has had a bald president; pakistan never had had bearded politicians.

    on that last point, the USA has done a lot and is doing a lot to undermine the democratic institutions and just laws in pakistan.

    the thing is to not become complacent. most world societies have problems with ceding 'freedom' to people of all beliefs. if they ever are successful, it's usually only for a short time.



    "thanks to the internet, libraries, book stores, etc., we do not have to rely on the mainstream media, or NPR, to learn about any person you have posted, or for that matter, any subject from any country on earth,...unless of course, one lives in a country where one's access to internet sites, news reports, libraries, book stores, etc, are censored by their own government. nothing but unadulterated freedom where i live. how about you?"



    yes, people can find if they seek information, and there are institutions committed to outing the truth in spite of what the mainstream media churns out. i think that's true for many societies.

    the problem is most people are pretty lazy and won't seek. they'll take the information provided to them by news media companies owned by shareholders wanting to maximise their profits and protect their interests. that the cost of a share is so damn expensive precludes the body of shareholders from having diverse interests. that interests take precedence over truth lends itself to a failure of democracy.

    i don't know about the US, but in the UK moderate muslims were denied editorial space in the mainstream media after Satanic Verses was published and racist commentators were extolling the book and denigrating the muslim community. (this was 1989, before the internet.) the only muslim voice to get media play was Khomeini and his fatwa. not only does this marginalise a community, it shows the youth of the marginalised community that democratic institutions are only democratic so long as you're of the right faith.

    and i'm pretty sure that there are some things which one just can't say, else she'll be arrested for treason in your country.

    again, these aren't problems that only your country suffers from. many countries do, including pakistan.

     
    "even the most common among us, from Abraham Lincoln to Bill Clinton, Warren Buffet to Andy Grove, has the potential and the chance to become the President or as succesful as they choose."

    if you want to use four people to be representative of US society, that's your choice. you're showing people the positive side of America - what can be done. that's what i aimed to do with my journal entry as well. the problem with inner city african americans, as it is with the christian children of servants that i taught english in pakistan, is that they don't have idols to look up to and emulate.

    i've read studies that there is very little fluidity between the classes in the USA. if i remember correctly, only 2% of the population moves from one class to another.

    pakistan may not have the richest men on earth, but there is some mobility. if a lower middle class or middle class person joins the army or civil service, they can make it all the way to the top on merit, like my own grandfather and several other people i know. musharraf himself, zia ul haq, ayub khan, yahya khan - all of them came from middle or lower middle classes.

    i also know of business tycoons who made it from middle class backgrounds, like an uncle. pakistan's middle class urbanites do very well if they avail the education opportunities to them. education is cheap here.

    the disadvantaged are those whose parents are illiterate or who don't value education, as in america (you also have the problem of functional illiteracy). the disadvantaged are also those who don't live in urban centres, but then some of them perhaps prefer their rural lifestyle.
  • alltough

    Imad: Great effort put into compiling this and uploading it here. Lots of hard work. Hats off to you.

    We, in the media, are very quick to appropriate those of the sub-continent who have left the country to make a name for themselves abroad. I for one, don't think they really revel in the glory of their heritage-nationality, rather than the acquired one. So I seriously think you should only look at those, who basked in the glory of their national identity, apart from the celebrity status- they gained in their area of expertise.

    Nusrat - I was in Pakistan, the day he was buried. And till date, he is my favourite singer.
    Hanif   - Is my favourite fiction writer. I like his style. He doesn't delve too much into adjectives in his stories.
    Tariq   - He is also one of my favourite activist - writer and his world view is very close to mine, except he is an atheist.

    Think about my earlier point, before you make this list official.

  • ricksha

    Woohoo! I knew all all but one of the musicians. And you should pick up Sarah Suleri's Boys Will Be Boys! And Moth Smoke was amazing! Especially Professor Julius Superb's monologue about the difference between the two classes of Pakistan and the air conditoners! And Murad Badshah. Hahah, lazy pores. Okay, I think I'm becoming incoherent because I'm excited someone actually knows about Mohsin Hamid!
    AND Zeb and Haniya! You should also listen to chal diyai and aitebaar!
    Well, I'm glad I'm not totally ignorant. Just partially!

    But yeah then again I was born in Pakistan and have a very Pakistani upbringing. I don't know if you'd be shocked to know but a lot of people don't exactly know where Pakistan is. I think Jon Stewart said it best "getting attacked is the only way we Americans learn about geography."

    Excellent entry. The genius is in the simplicity!

  • asphyxiated66

    -Jinnah for obvious reasons + he's a Lohana like me and my family, a fact I've been reminded of at every single Lohana community event I've ever been to

    -Imran Khan, because my male cousins in England are obsessed w/cricket and have bored me to death talking about him and other cricket stars a lot in the past...

    -Mukhtaran Mai, read about her awhile back and found her very inspirational

    -Finally, coz I'm an art fanatic to the max, there are these three female artists whose work I always think of whenever somebody mentions Pakistan who aren't in your list but I thought I'd mention anyways: Laila Shahzada, Shahzia Sikander and Saira Wasim. Dunno if you've heard of 'em, but I like their stuff a lot...

    I know some of the others on the list, but they don't really come to mind immediately when I think of Pakistan for some reason, just the above...

    kay, I'm out =]

    -sheena

  • anonymous

    imad that is not a picture of prince aly khan, that is sultan mohammed shah aga khan III, prince aly khan never had imamat. you could also mention how sultan mohammed shah aga khan III was essential and instrumental in the formation of pakistan and about his involvement with the early all india muslim league

    rameez

  • thosebrightcitylights

    Brilliantly informative article (and spot on description of Benazir Bhutto). I'm half Pakistani so I'm familiar with quite a few of these people. I was really interested to learn about Hina Jilani, Asma Jahangir and Mukhtaran Mai who I hadn't heard of before though.

    -Aliyah

    P.S. And you made my day by drawing my attention to Ali Saleem who I hadn't heard of before. Definitely Youtubing.

  • imthemad1

    @rameez - Thanks for the correction and info Ramzu. Have amended the post accordingly. 

  • imthemad1

    @asphyxiated66 - Thanks for the recommendations Sheena. Will update soon . . . 

  • rzizi
  • anonymous

    My favorite Pakistani is definitely the terrorist who looks exactly like Captain Hook. 

  • anonymous

    where's the picture of waqar younis?

  • anonymous

    great post

  • Sign in to Comment

  • Give eProps (?)

Who recommended?