Well honestly speaking i think our problem is that we don't possess a coherent identity that we are comfortable with and can call our own. This is why we have these three groups that you mentioned, although each of these groups are a minority, they are vocal because the majority is just confused and willing to follow anyone who shouts the loudest (usually from these three mentioned groups).
Our identity issues are deep seated, and thus we are seeking an identity to fill in the void, and usually this is being done by looking at which direction the current wind is flowing and then taking that as a cue to what we should be doing. Perhaps this is a legacy of our colonial past, who knows, there's more than one reason for this.
People here have brought up Arabs and that we Pakistanis try to be Arabs. I would disagree with this statement because I have met so many Arabs in my life from what many would call "religious" or "conservative" countries, for example Yemen and Saudi Arabia. Every Yemeni and Saudi I have met is perfectly comfortable with their pre-Islamic as well as Islamic past and have reconciled the two. There is no conflict there because what contradicted Islam was abandoned but everything else was retained and adapted to Islam.
Certainly, it is much easier for an Arab to reconcile his pre-Islamic past with his current identity as a Arab Muslim because Islam's origins are within the Arab people and all of the major Prophets (AS) were Semetic. Islam was already intertwined within Arab culture from the outset. The Quran to this day is recited in the same Arabic as it was presented in to our beloved Prophet (SAW) by the angel Gabriel (AS).
But despite this, I have witnessed non-Gulf Arabs (who are in reality
Arabized people, like in the Levant and North African regions) who have also reconciled their pre-Isamic pasts with their Isamic identity. Egyptians, even the religious ones I have met, are not necessarily ashamed of the Pharoahs although it goes without saying that Pharoah is depicted as a arrogant ruler within Islamic scriptures (and Christian as well as Jewish scripture). They simply accept it as their past and some are even proud that a great civilization as that of the Pharaoh's existed in their homeland and gives them an identity that most countries today cannot boast about similar historical pasts.
Similarly with Iran, despite its image as a "Islamist" "extremist" theocratic state that (mostly) western media like to portray, some pre-Islamic traditions are still maintained, with strong Shia overtones. Essentially a new cohesive and uniquely Iranian identity has formed. Ancient Persia is considered as the origin of the modern Iranian nation, and Islam, rather than something that must replace the Iranian historical identity, has only supplemented that previous identity.
Us Pakistanis on the other hand, we have made it very awkward for ourselves by totally rejecting our pre-Islamic past to the point where we must now literally copy-paste other peoples identities to film in the void. But a national identity isn't something that you can just copy-paste because at most you will only be able to do that with the superficial aspects, like clothing and some words and phrases here and there, as those Pakistanis who imitate Arabs do, eventhough what they are imitating from the Arabs are just some pre-Islamic Arab traditions that the Arabs retained.
In the same line we have Pakistani Liberals who wish to imitate the west, but unlike the Arab-wannabe Pakistanis, the former group wishes to imitate an empty Western "culture", which cannot even be labeled a culture in the original sense of that word because it is extremely generic (due to its secular nature), consumer based and globalized. However both Pakistani Liberals and Pakistani Arab-wannabe's have a fundamental thing in common; they adamantly believe that by copying the superficial aspects of another people one will become just like them. This is an extremely delusional thought process. By this definition a Korean cosplaying as a Bedouin has become an Arab as long as he wears their clothes and learns a few phrases of Arabic. Forget the fact that Arabs are a unique people with a strong identity rooted in a particular history of a particular ethnic group from a particular geographic location.
The material expressions of a people's cultural traditions are symbols of the spiritual aspects of their particular history, and Arab history is not simply just Islamic/religion related. By copying the material expressions of another people one does not become that people.
No other Muslim people reduce their history/identity to religion alone, except us Pakistanis; not the Arabs, not the Iranians, not the Bangalis, not the Indonesians, not the Malays, not the Turks, etc.
And there is absolutely nothing wrong with this because Allah (swta) Himself created us in this manner. As He states in the Quran:
"Oh mankind, We have created you all male and female and have made you nations and tribes so that you would recognize each other. The most honorable among you in the sight of God is the most pious of you. God is All-knowing and All-aware."- 49:13
"And of His signs is the creation of the heavens and the earth, and the difference of your languages and colours. Lo! herein indeed are signs for men of knowledge."- 30:22
Language falls under cultural traditions, and colour falls under biological diversity, and Islam recognizes both as signs of The Creator, as He Himself states so in the Quran.
Unfortunately there are those even among Muslims who are following the current globalist trend and who say that we must overcome these unique identities, if not, outright destroy them, because they are "haram", eventhough this never occurred to anyone within Islam's more-than-1400 years history. Only now with the push for global consumerism where all organic traditional identities are under assault in order to replace them with man-made consumer identity, do we see this phenomenon of Muslims declaring organic identities as "divisive", "racist" etc. What Allah has created must be "overcome", and we must all become "one and the same".
For us Pakistanis I believe we can reconcile aspects of our pre-Islamic past with Islam as both are necessary to form a coherent National identity, and as the example of other Muslim peoples has proven (Gulf Arabs and Iranians in particular as these are not secular people by their nature).
@Nilgiri @Psychic @Metanoia @LeGenD @Indus Pakistan @Pan-Islamic-Pakistan
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