A 27-hour journey, an 11-hour stopover in Riyadh and too few cigarettes later, I finally arrive at the Lahore airport’s customs, Saturday, April 6, 2013. The agent, maybe 30 years old, looks right at me and starts frowning her black eyebrows, then takes a quick look at my visa, frowns a little more and questions me. “Why have you come to Pakistan?” she asks, lost in a too wide blue uniform. “I am a French journalist. I come from Paris to do an internship at Daily Times.” “Why?” interrupts the agent with a very strict and harsh tone. “I…I…I,” I lose all my words in front of this reality that suddenly hits me. This destination that I chose two months ago is not based on rationality or reason.
Two minutes of stammering later, I finally managed to cross the customs. But I could not pass over the question of ‘why Pakistan’ anymore. Already in Paris, my friends and family asked this exact same question, then two stewards, then the customs staff at the Lahore airport, then the editor-in-chief of Daily Times, then the couple who welcomes me in their house. I figured I had to find a way to satiate their curiosity and put in words what happened to be only a feeling for several weeks.
Everything began with a sentence pronounced last January by my international journalism teacher, Mireille Lemaresquier, head of the international department at France info (a 24-hour all-news radio channel). “There are still some countries in the world where there are very few French journalists, Iraq, Cuba, Cambodia and Pakistan, for instance.” Since I did not want to wait in the single file as a freelance journalist who freshly lands on a field that is already covered by several reporters, I thought that instead of embarking for Tunisia, what I had planned on doing initially, I should fly to one of these countries. It still does not fully answer the why Pakistan question, now does it? Well, I already lived and worked three months in Cambodia when I was 21. As for Cuba and Iraq, freedom of speech and the press represents a big issue as a journalist, especially a young one who does not speak the local language. Therefore, Pakistan was kind of an obvious choice, since media here seem to have freedom of expression without facing impediments.
This inner impulse transformed later into a concrete professional project when I realised the mental images I had of this South Asian country, located 6,000 kilometres from France, were exclusively involving three topics: insecurity, terrorism, radical Islam. As for the reaction of my close friends and relatives when I announced my departure, it was unanimous: “Are you not afraid? Pay attention, it’s dangerous.” Consternation enveloped me in the face of so many clichés against which my family and I planted ourselves. And the only effective way I know of destroying a prejudice for good is to grasp the reality with my very own senses. Moving is a sine qua non to be moved, to know in a more accurate way, to understand. That I learned essentially throughout the months I spent in South East Asia, and the year I lived in New York.
Another ingredient to a recipe made of prejudices: Here I am now, immersed for two months in Punjab’s capital in which I have already felt two heat waves, one literal and the other figurative. First the weather, 30 degrees in the shade is a physical shock when you have left a frozen Paris a few hours earlier, but a weighted shock considering the temperatures during peak summer season. Second wave is the warmth of the Pakistanis I have met: a couple share their house with me, their kitchen, their experiences and their time. Kindness is not the word to define this type of behaviour, I would rather describe it simply as open-mindedness. I am not saying here that French people do not know how to be welcoming and hearty because they do know how to. But a huge majority of them would not open their door to someone they do not know from Adam (or Eve). I must admit, red-faced, this natural way of hosting is a surprise. Until now, I watched Pakistan through one and only filter: the western media. As you might be aware, their thing is not to go on about kindness.
Anyway, my job as a journalist who moved her feet is to bring another ingredient to a recipe only based on prejudices. The greatest and funniest thing is when you start looking at two cultures from two civilisations — French and Pakistani in my case — is that you end up discovering how differences have common denominators. Just like mustard and chilli! In the city I was born in, Dijon (Burgundy), mustard is the condiment we use to spice our food. In Punjab, red chilli is the indispensable ingredient in every kitchen. In the end, what I see is we both like to season our meals. Your politicians are former cricketers, ours are former plastic surgeons. Well, these might just be some amusing examples, but in the next few weeks, I’ll try to dip and deepen my crossed analysis and refine my outsider’s insights!
The writer is an intern at Daily Times