I'm a British Born Pakistani - AMA

[Pyracantha1]

Hello All!

I'm a British Born Pakistani. Please ask me anything. Should it be about our culture, traditions, marriages, Asian food etc. I'll try my best to answer

Psychedelic sheep

I’m british arab, practicing and traditional Muslim. My brother , is married to a white British girl who isn’t Muslim.

Were we remotely bothered ? By the religious difference yes, by the ethnicity not at all. I love her very much. But just like her parents were at the beginning needing reassurance when they heard she was marrying a Muslim, we needed reassurance when we heard he was marrying a Christian. I think it’s that extra bit were u want to make sure your child won’t be pressured into something outside his beleifs, because relationships have lots of compromises..

My mum loves her. They’re more similar to each other than I am to my mum. I love her.

Doesnt mean we don’t have differences . She is learning about our view of the world and we about hers. But what makes us happy is seeing how they respect and love each other..

Not many couple can work through their differences and make a love story out f it, so it is normal to feel lack of ease about whether it would work or not... do we try to intervene or disrespect? No. My brother is man enough to not allow it.

Sorry to barge in OP.

Op I went to an all girls school and there were a lot of second generation Pakistani girls. They would all hang out together, had smaller groups ect. None however had friends that weren't Pakistani Muslim or mix with people outside their groups. Is this the norm? Do you hang out with other races?

Would you be remotely bothered if your DC had white British non-Muslim partners?

That's a really good question. I guess that's more of a religious question than a cultural one. But if I look at it from a Pakistani angle then it would be nice for my DCs to marry someone of a Pakistani heritage because we would have something quite important in common. It's probably the easiest and laziest way for me as a future MIL. I won't have to explain our culture and traditions that we hold quite dear.
However you can't help who you fall in love with. So if my sons fall in love with someone who isn't from a Pakistani background then that's OK with me. They are the ones that have to spend their lives with this person, not me. And they should spend it with someone they love.

ILoveHumanity
Sorry to barge in OP.

Not a problem. Love hearing about your experiences and family.

Op I went to an all girls school and there were a lot of second generation Pakistani girls. They would all hang out together, had smaller groups ect. None however had friends that weren't Pakistani Muslim or mix with people outside their groups. Is this the norm? Do you hang out with other races?

I also went to a girls school (back in the late 90s!!) and I had the same experience.White girls were in their white girls group, the Asians were with other Asians etc. I don't think it's fair to say that just Pakistani girls hang out together. In my experience everyone was very segregated.

I really tried to be friends with the white girls and I did have a couple of very good friends, yet mainly I think white girls found us Pakistani girls a bit odd. Some of the reasons were (though they now seem like non-issues) we would not wear short skirts during PE or as part of our uniform and they could never understand why, we never spoke about boyfriends as often we are not allowed to date, we couldn't talk about going out, drinking etc as again we weren't allowed to do these things. So at that age there are already huge differences, resulting in being friends with people similar to you.

But I found as I grew older the differences became very trivial. Now I bonded with people of all colours and cultures as the things we were focusing on were the same; e.g. building a successful career, being ambitious, finding ways to chill out after a hard days work, marriages, children. All these now became common threads.

Not sure if I'm made sense!

Hi OP are you still here?

What should I cook that's traditionally Pakistani?

@LighthouseSouth

Long post warning

OP - you too feel it's been "beaten in to us" - your words. So tell them to fuck themselves!

that's exactly why I said about the pre census form! Note you are much younger than I am....this form filling labelling makes it a problem and I've been forced to work on some of these bloody forms so your description genuinely confused me. And now you say you feel beaten into it? We are in the same page!

You're allowed to talk about your experience. I'm allowed to talk about mine, I asked if you were the sort to ask "where are you REALLY from" because IME that's common when people want to use dual terms for themselves. I didn't know you felt it was beaten into you.

Some posters will remember the BNP. Even in my 20s I thought suppose they win and try to send me "back" to a country I've never been to. Can you see why I must hold tight to my Britishness from fear as well as pride? And the children of Windrush, similar position.

I've had people walk away at social gatherings when they find I don't speak a language other than English. Not "their" language. Oh the sin! I'm used to a level of prejudice to the point that I'm not even sorry I said it to you. How's that for honesty on an ASk Me Anything thread?

I've been told I'm denying my heritage when I'm a born and raised Londoner and never went to the place my parents left, joyfully left, because women are treated like shit. London IS my heritage. It's most of my parents adult life too, they are 80, it's their history too.

I'm at a stage where I have to ask myself where do I want this to go? People take my British identity less seriously than they used to. What can I do about that? Some days this might be well served by talking about it on a talk board.

I bloody HATE those ethnicity forms, my friend's son just turned 18 and you know you have to fill in all the official stuff for everything, he said to me "why won't they just accept I'm British?" I don't know. He has two British born parents as well. How far back must this information go?

Sadiq Khan spoke very eloquently today. It reminded me, he's a south London boy, yet when he did a trip to Pakistan a fecking BBC reporter said to him "how does it feel to be home?" And Sadiq, with his usual dignity, said "home is South London, mate".

Honestly I could wring that reporter's neck. But is that fair or is he too confused by all the terminology? Hmm...I'm going with racist!

I want to stand up for all of us who some people refuse to accept as British. Sometimes that will mean uncomfortable conversations and challenging things like terminology on a chat board.

If this rant makes ONE person understand me and other non white British people in the same situation, a bit better, it's been worth it! I see a lot of casual racism on MN, including "but where are you REALLY from" being defended. ENOUGH!

Don't let the bastards beat into you. All this labelling is an excellent way to divide and conquer via identity politics.

YES YES YES all of this.