Times of Ahmad: 'COUNTRIES OF INTEREST'

The sense of freedom and justice that had taken 18 years to cultivate was jeopardized when the United States announced that it would indefinitely single out citizens from 14 nations, including Pakistan, and subject them to intense screening at airports worldwide.

Ahmadiyya Times | News Staff | Around the Net
Source & Credit:The New York Times | Voices | January 5, 2010
By Samra Habib | Toronto, Canada

I was 10 when my family left Pakistan. We packed our bags and made the move to Canada on July 4, 1991. It wasn’t by choice that we had taken the flight 26 hours earlier from Lahore to come to a country where we barely knew a single soul. Religious extremists in Pakistan had branded us “non-Muslim,” and our green Pakistani passports indicated our religious status. We are part of a small Muslim sect called Ahmadiyyat that falls outside the Sunni and Shiite majority in Pakistan and were therefore hunted by the authorities. We could not travel freely because to be identified as a “non-Muslim” in Pakistan could mean death.

Fearing for our safety, our parents would hold regular training sessions, teaching my siblings and me how to assimilate and not give our “secret” away. We weren’t to talk about going to our Ahmadiya mosque for Friday Prayer. We were quick learners — for the most part. After starting at a new school, I was eager to make new friends. To my delight, I spotted and made eye contact with my new classmate Khadija at the mosque during Friday sermon. Without thinking about my parents’ regular lectures, I said hello the next day and reminded her of our encounter in front of our classmates. “No, it wasn’t me, I’m not an Ahmadi,” she hastily replied. Unlike me, Khadija had remembered her parents’ lecture.

Soon after that incident, we left Pakistan. By leaving Pakistan, we believed that we had left the fear of religion-based persecution and discrimination behind us. Our Canadian passport was our new chance in life. It did not specify our religion, and we were allowed to travel freely without discrimination. Through our newly found freedom, we had learned that nations that believe in human rights do not tolerate systematic profiling of minorities. It gave us hope in justice that we had not known in Pakistan. I learned that I was free to travel in and out of the United States for work. I never thought that I would have to relive the kind of emotional trauma that comes with being singled out and discriminated against based solely on my identity.

But that all changed this week.
The sense of freedom and justice that had taken 18 years to cultivate was jeopardized when the United States announced that it would indefinitely single out citizens from 14 nations, including Pakistan, and subject them to intense screening at airports worldwide. The immediate impact of the new travel guidelines has been to unfairly focus on individuals born in one of the 14 countries, instead of evidence-based searches. It’s lumping together people like me and members of my family who have been violently displaced from Pakistan with the same religious extremists who destroyed our mosques.

At a time when the United States can greatly benefit from forming alliances with moderate Pakistanis, it is sending out a message that it cannot be bothered to differentiate between us by gathering better intelligence, that it cannot spare the dignity of those trying to escape the brutality of extremists in Pakistan by seeking shelter in the West.

In just one stroke, individuals born in one of the 14 countries or holding passports from one of the “countries of interest” are all stripped of their freedom and deemed “dangerous” because of what their passports say.

Samra Habib is a writer and editor in Toronto who has written for The Globe and Mail, National Post and National Post Business.