Unraveling the East-West Myth

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I arrive in Peshawar, Pakistan, on a day in mid-October, one month after the tragedy the Western world remembers as September 11. The Americans are bombing Afghanistan. I am here on a human rights mission, meeting with recently arrived Afghan refugees. When I get to the hotel, I register as a Canadian woman. However, I am wearing shalwar qamise and speaking Urdu. The man behind the counter wants to know where I am “really” from. The place of birth listed in my Canadian passport is Nairobi, Kenya.

“East Africa,” I say. He chuckles to himself. There are no local women in sight. As I go up to my room, I hear a doorman say that I am no lawyer, but a local whore for the foreign men. It seems I cannot fool him with my English and my foreign ways.

The next day, I meet with a group of Afghan women who have recently crossed the mountain pass into Peshawar. We wear the same clothes, but mine are new, bright, and color-coordinated, just bought a couple of days ago in Islamabad, and theirs are dusty, tattered, randomly matched.

I don’t officially “interview” them because I know they will put on a performance for me; instead, I invite them to tea and we chat, sharing confidences.

Sometimes, just to win their trust, I tell them lies. I tell them that I am married and have two children—that, yes, I am just like them. When I am really feeling brave, not the case on this visit to Pakistan, I tell the truth: that I am 30 years old and unmarried. This confession is often met by silence. Occasionally, a pitying look or knowing laugh breaks the silence. It is always followed by a question. “Why not?”

Indeed, why not? Why have I chosen this lifestyle? Who would I be if I had been born here and if my ancestors had not been shipped across the Indian Ocean to East Africa?

The question of identity is one that has plagued me now for decades. I was born in Africa, to Indian parents who practice an Islam that merges itself with aspects of Hindu and Buddhist mysticism. I hold a Canadian passport. I have been educated and cultivated as an individual by the Western world; but with my head turned back, looking toward the East, particularly toward the Islam that has formed and nourishes my spirit. I carry in one hand a book on contemporary Web culture and clutch in the other hand a bundle formed by the Holy Koran, the poetry of Moulana Al-din Rumi and my meditation beads.

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