Due to the USA's involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq, its backing of Israel and its political espionage over the last century, the USA is viewed with disdain by most of the nations of the Muslim world. Pakistan is not exempt from this. For years relations between Pakistan and the USA have been tense as they have been with every Muslim nation. Pakistanis, who put their religious identity above their national identity, are distressed by the harm America has caused for Muslims across the world. Harm such as hateful propaganda, various wars, a sense of superiority and harsh criticisms of certain religious and cultural customs of Islam by American media. This is why Changez smiled and internally rejoiced at the sight of the destruction of the two towers. He symbolises the many Pakistanis who would have been happy to see America brought to her knees 11 years ago.
Yet things have changed in Pakistan. After the fall of the towers, the international manhunt for the supposed perpetrator, Osama bin Laden, began. It was believed that he and his band of followers would be hiding in the obscure mountains of Pakistan which spanned a large portion of the country. These mountains are said to be filled with hundreds of caves and tunnels that were used by people for hundreds of years and would be an ideal place to hide. The USA gave large amounts of foreign aid to Pakistan and sent senior officers from the American military over in an attempt to train and pay for a force able to find and kill bin Laden in the mountains. After almost a decade bin Laden was found just outside of the largely populated city of Islamabad and was killed in 2012. This caused a massive outcry from the USA as many political officials were furious that the Pakistani government allowed the USA to waste funds looking for Osama in a completely irrelevant location. He had been hiding in plain sight all along. This put a serious strain on USA-Pakistani relations. Speculators believe that Pakistan wished to continue to receive foreign aid from the USA and they knew where bin Laden was located but failed to give the location to the USA in order to do so. So yet again US-Pakistani relations are strained.
Jens-I really liked this post. The background info was really informative, and it provided a good frame for the thesis. However, the book was only mentioned in the thesis! I think you need to incorporate more quotes and references from the book into this post-you're analyzing the relevance of the novel, so there needed to be more inclusion on that front. Maybe you could include Changez's rationale behind his feelings, or provide a comparison of Hamid's portrayal of U.S.-Pakistani relations with the real-life relations that existed in 2001. You have a good foundation for a solid argument, so I'll be interested to see how you do!
ReplyDeleteThis post was successful at getting your argument across succinctly and logically, however, there are absolutely no references to the book, except in the thesis! If you integrated quotes and references and made a bit more of a connection to the text, you would have a much stronger argument. Something I'd be curious to see is your analyzation of why exactly it was that he smiled on 9/11, and further analyzing the emotions that Changez has throughout his life in America. As Millie said, the portrayal of international relations between the US and Pakistan currently and in the past would be a great point to build off of.
ReplyDeleteOverall, a good post, but more intricacy would improve it significantly.