[See SAJAforum posts, sources and resources about the 2008 presidential race]
EDITOR'S NOTE: This post is written by a new member of the SAJAforum team, Maria Tirmizi, a Pakistani journalist from Islamabad now spending a year at the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism.
With a Yankees cap on his bedside table and Rocawear shirts flung over the couch, Rizwan Choudhary, 21, watched the first presidential debate in his house in Lahore, Pakistan.
Born and raised in Brooklyn, he left two years ago to study at a medical school in Pakistan, a move his parents, who migrated to New York some 30 years ago , hoped would help him learn more about his roots.
As he watched Senator John McCain baldly accuse Senator Barack Obama of wanting “to attack Pakistan,” he knew he’d be mailing his absentee ballot in favor of Obama.
“I do feel upset about Obama talking of conducting raids inside Pakistan, but I think he is just saying these things for political points. McCain is not saying it, but he’s the one who will actually do it,” he said.
With a harsh spotlight shining on Pakistan during this year’s U.S. presidential elections, foreign policy has become as big a factor as the economy for most Pakistani-Americans. While these voters are aware of Obama’s position of allowing targeted attacks inside Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas, or FATA - the harsh northwestern terrain bordering Afghanistan and considered the hotbed of Taliban activity - they still maintain that he is their presidential candidate.
The concession springs from the belief that his political statements, ill-advised and inappropriate, are only defense tactics against right-wing accusations of him having Muslim sympathies, and that they would be hard to follow through when he is confronted with the complex situation in Pakistan’s tribal areas as president.
Others perturbed by his words consider him the better of two less-than-perfect choices, preferring him to "a Bush successor," a term they use for Senator McCain. Still others think that his statements are in the interests of America, which is what should really matter.
“I got very sentimental when Obama spoke about Pakistan. I do love Pakistan, but America is my home. This is where I make money. This is where my kids are growing up. So American interests are above everything,” said Muhammad Asif, an Obama supporter who works in telecommunications in Jackson Heights and moved to the United States from Pakistan 26 years ago.
Even though Senator McCain positioned himself as a friend to Pakistan during the first presidential debate, speaking of having visited Waziristan in FATA and appearing aghast at Obama’s position on the country, many Pakistani-Americans seem to have little faith in his words. They believe that being a Republican, his policy towards Pakistan will be as aggressive as that of President Bush, on whose orders U.S. drones have struck inside the tribal region at least a dozen times this year, along with a ground assault that killed 20, including women and children. Around 200,000 civilians have already fled their homes to escape the airstrikes, according to the World Health Organization.
“We lost our faith with Bush, and McCain will only continue Bush’s policy,” said Amjad Khawaja, 55, owner of Eagle movie theatre in Jackson Heights, who said that his entire group of Pakistani friends in Jackson Heights is supporting Obama.
The inability to separate Bush from McCain hasn’t helped Obama with every Pakistani-American voter. Some of them, unconditionally supporting him previously, are now seething at his Pakistan-related statements. A Facebook group called “Pakistanis against Obama”, which has 480 members, states that his “political posturing at the expense of a sovereign nation that has sacrificed blood and treasure in pursuit of terrorists is unacceptable.” [Of course, there's no way to tell how many of those in the group are actually voters in the U.S.]
“Obama has said very clearly that if the Pakistani government does not act to combat terrorists, America will do it for them,” said Waqar Farooqi, a 26-year-old podiatric medical student from New York City. “This is the might makes right principle. It's an ultimatum to either declare your own people terrorists and kill them, or we will do it ourselves. I will not be supporting McCain either. My vote will be towards Nader.”
But these angry sentiments are few in number and a misinterpretation of what Obama has actually spoken of, according to Ali Akbar Mirza, 43, founder of the Pakistani American Democratic Club of New York Incorporated and an alternate delegate during the Democratic National Convention in Denver.
“What Obama says, and it is very important because people get confused about this, that if we know with 100 percent proof that Al-Qaeda is in Pakistan and the Pakistani government is unable or unwilling to act, only then will we take action ourselves. I don’t see what is wrong with that statement,” Mirza said. “I’m an American, not a Pakistani. Only my background is Pakistani. If any country has militants attacking American interests and there is proof, then we have to act on that,” he said.
He added, “McCain says, do it, but don’t say it out loud. That is more dangerous.”
Amidst the political posturing, the situation in Pakistan is getting bleaker by the day, with a gripping food and energy crises and an increase in suicide bombings in major cities in retaliation for the operation in the tribal areas.
“Thirty odd years ago studying in the U.S., it was a struggle for Americans to identify this sixth most populous country in the world. Now, it is a struggle to tell friends abroad that not every place is on fire,” wrote a political analyst, Shafqat Mahmood, in a Pakistani newspaper, The News.
Pakistani immigrants, who have been living in the United States for decades, maintain strong ties to their immediate or extended family in their home country and the deteriorating situation there holds great sentimental value to them.
The message of hope and change that Obama has brought to U.S. politics is something these people hope will be extended to Pakistan as well. The lingering question is whether that change can occur with Obama’s plan of sending more troops to neighboring Afghanistan.
Amjad Khawaja paused and said, “Let’s stick with Obama and hope for the best. With McCain, there is no hope at all.”
WHAT DO YOU THINK? Post your comments below
Earlier SAJAforum posts on Pakistan and the presidential race:
- CNN's Jeanne Moos on how the candidates pronounce "Pakistan"
- Temple grad student on "gotcha journalism" and his exchange with Sarah Palin over Pakistan
- Mosque Issues Fatwa Against Zardari for Flirting With Palin
- McCain and Obama Debate Afghanistan and Pakistan
- McCain and Obama on 61st anniversaries of India/Pakistan independence
- McCain on the "Iraq-Pakistan" border
