{"id":768,"date":"2019-04-10T08:00:49","date_gmt":"2019-04-10T12:00:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/upic\/?p=768"},"modified":"2019-04-24T22:39:02","modified_gmt":"2019-04-25T02:39:02","slug":"why-are-you-going-to-pakistan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/upic\/2019\/04\/10\/why-are-you-going-to-pakistan\/","title":{"rendered":"“Why are You Going to Pakistan?”"},"content":{"rendered":"

By: Andrew Wilson
\nAndrew Wilson is an undergraduate sophomore at Seton Hall University’s School of Diplomacy and International Relations.\u00a0 He has double majors in Diplomacy and Modern Languages (Arabic & Spanish) and a minor in Middle Eastern Studies.\u00a0 Upon graduation, Andrew aspires to build a field based career in international development involving interpersonal communication through critical language interpretation.<\/em><\/p>\n

I took a deep breath, dialed the number, and pressed call\u2026 \u201cHi Mom, are you sitting down?\u00a0 I think I\u2019m going to Pakistan.<\/p>\n

It was an overcast and mild September morning, a normal Northern New Jersey day.\u00a0 I left the dorm early to grab my usual yogurt and banana breakfast from the cafeteria, but that is when my day began to change.\u00a0 Instead of walking to my usual 11am Spanish literature class, I made a sharp turn and headed to the other side of campus to meet a complete stranger and talk about traveling to a country I knew little to nothing about.<\/p>\n

When I explain to my peers the work that the U.S.-Pakistan Interreligious Coalition does, I am often met with quizzical expressions, awkward smiles, and \u201coh that\u2019s nice.\u201d Admittedly, I too was somewhat perplexed when I first read the program\u2019s advertisement on the weekly Diplomacy School E-News advertisement listing.\u00a0 Nonetheless, I introduced myself at the interest meeting and was met with a genuine smile and a heartfelt welcome from every other person in attendance.\u00a0 This open willingness to be the catalyst for positive change is exactly the message that UPIC stands to uphold.<\/p>\n

When travelling to any country outside the first world, there is certainly a clear line between the comfortable and the unreasonable.\u00a0 Indeed, many worst-case scenarios sprung into my mind when I first contemplated boarding a plane to Islamabad.\u00a0 Even today, media headlines drone endlessly with myriad negative messages about South Asian geopolitical affairs.<\/p>\n

America\u2019s military involvement in Afghanistan recently lurched into its 18th<\/sup> year, and pressure continues to build in the India-Pakistan conflict while diplomatic policies remain disoriented. Most disappointingly, it appears that neither the United States nor Pakistan has made significant progress for positive intergovernmental relations since former President Barack Obama declared the death of America’s most wanted terrorist in Abottabad nearly 8 years ago.<\/p>\n

The German idealist philosopher Georg Friedrich Hegel once said, \u201cto define one is at the same time to define the other.\u201d Nonetheless, every so often, it is necessary to have a short and undefined memory.\u00a0 As grim as the current picture may be painted, UPIC stands to send a message of encouragement and change to those who dwell on past failures: That was then and this is now.\u00a0 After all, Hegel also said, \u201cNothing great in the world has ever been accomplished without passion.\u201d<\/p>\n

This message is exactly why I, a normal twenty-year-old American from Long Island, will join a diverse team and travel to Pakistan to promote the role of religion in building constructive, peaceful relations through face-to-face connections.\u00a0 Indeed, although many see religion as a tool for conflict, UPIC chooses to think otherwise by promoting faith as a mechanism for interpersonal empowerment.<\/p>\n

Again you ask, why me specifically? Surely there other people better suited for the task.\u00a0 Surely there are countless reverends, rabbis, and imams who can work these things out amongst themselves. I acknowledge and answer yes to all such questions.\u00a0 However, that such questions arise is exactly the reason for my enthusiasm.\u00a0 Sometimes it takes the perspective of someone wholly removed from the paradigm to alter the status quo.\u00a0 Sometimes it takes the vision of a complete outsider to change the revolving door debate.<\/p>\n

Of course, I offer a position of unwavering reverence to my personal beliefs and respect to the established dialogue.\u00a0 However, when global political discourse consistently revolves around egoism, exclusion, and outright hate, it becomes necessary to shift the spotlight back to the themes of love, empathy, and understanding that constitute all three faith communities represented in UPIC\u2019s delegation.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, it is the attitude of acknowledging differences through compassion instead of competition that drives me to join the UPIC team.\u00a0 I may not be the ideal fit, and it may not be the perfect environment, but these conditions only strengthen the need for individuals to step out of their comfort zones, break the stereotype, and extend the first hand.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I took a deep breath, dialed the number, and pressed call\u2026 \u201cHi Mom, are you sitting down?\u00a0 I think I\u2019m going to Pakistan.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4043,"featured_media":769,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[12,11,14,13],"class_list":["post-768","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","tag-pakistan","tag-seton-hall","tag-undergraduate","tag-upic"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/upic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/768","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/upic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/upic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/upic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4043"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/upic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=768"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/upic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/768\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":783,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/upic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/768\/revisions\/783"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/upic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/769"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/upic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/upic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=768"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/upic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}