The Clichés We Use

Conversations about Pakistan easily and comfortably slide into clichés. “Land of the pure” is a personal favourite. Different generations, from boomers to millennials, are likely equally familiar with “Pakistan at a crossroads.”

Used as a headline or caption, the phrase can describe almost any situation in the country, regardless of context. It has been applied during the Cold War, in the post-9/11 world, through democratic interludes and during hybrid political periods.

The responsibility does not belong only to Pakistanis. The rest of the world also views the country through a fog of clichés. Pakistan becomes the “hard country” or “the most dangerous country in the world,” while the details disappear.

Within that image are Islamabad’s leafy streets, Karachi’s port and Lahore’s Mughal past. Politics is dominated by the military, people are portrayed as having a preference for strongmen in uniform, and political parties are treated as family enterprises. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is reduced to the province of warrior-like Pathans, while Balochistan is described as tribal.