Unraveling the East-West Myth

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On the plane from Pakistan, back to London and then Canada, I am now a South Asian woman, Muslim, and probably Pakistani. Yet inside, my thoughts, my private sphere, are my own. I am thinking about my apartment in Montréal, my favorite café, the ring I have bought for my mother. . . . No one can see these thoughts. The outer world is confined, prescribed even, but my inner world is free for me to invent as I wish.

I’ve tried again and again to fit myself into a construct. Either East or West, you must choose. Perhaps each of us embodies both East and West. Perhaps each world lives inside of us, and we draw it out according to our nature, our affinity, our constitution. I have tried the East on for size, but it did not fit; it left me confined. I returned to the West and tried to become Western again, but that too did not wholly fit. Choosing for myself a little East here and a little West there, integrating them into a union—that is my being.

There can be no East without West and no West without East. They are soulmates, seeking each other out.

Sikeena Karmali, who works in the fields of human rights and international development, is currently in Uzbekistan overseeing and training human rights advocates. “My weapons are education and women’s rights,” says the Montreal-based Karmali. “I know I cannot quite save the world, but maybe I can integrate these values where they are needed.” From Ascent magazine (Fall 2002). Subscriptions: $15.95 (4 issues) from 334 Cornelia St. #519 Plattsburgh, NY 12901.

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