Pakistani-American Relations: Current State and Perspectives

The article examines the political cooperation of Pakistan with the United States of America. The importance of maintaining dialogue is emphasized at all levels of interstate contacts, even in the most difficult conditions. Military and military-technical cooperation is highlighted as a traditional direction of Pakistani-American relations. Trade and economic relations between the two states are analyzed, including an analysis of the economic indicators of US-Pakistan cooperation in comparison with the traditional economic partners of Pakistan. The article covers the implementation of educational and ethnocultural programs by US government and public organizations. Summing up, it is concluded that bilateral contacts between the United States of America and Pakistan will continue and be predominantly of a partnership nature.

Pakistani-American Muslim women identity negotiation as reflected in diaspora literature

Identity is significant issue in the world. Pakistani-American Muslim women faced the problems of identity because they got different treatment in the society. This study reveals how do Pakistani-American Muslim women negotiate their identity and the result of negotiation? This research was done under descriptive qualitative research. The data of the research are the words, phrases, and sentences from diasporic literature entitled Saffron Dreams by Shaila Abdullah that published in 2009. To analyze the data, this study used postcolonial theory based on Bhabha’s hybridity and Tomey’s identity negotiation concept. Based on the research, it is found that Pakistan American Muslim women negotiate their identity by mindful negotiation namely adapting American culture and shaping hybrid identity. They change their fashion style by putting off their veils. They replace Arabic name into American style to hide their religious identity. In building the house they American building with Arabian nuance. On the other hand, in assimilating the culture to get a job, Pakistani American Muslim women must fight harder because of the striking differences in culture and the idealism they believe in.

“The Only Nerdy Pakistani-American-Slash-Inhuman in the Entire Universe”

As a Muslim Pakistani-American whose parents are immigrants, Kamala Khan occupies a neither/nor position familiar in both American “mulatto” literature and in postcolonial immigrant literature, wherein the mixed-race character is frequently marginalized, alienated, and Other. She is one of many examples in contemporary superhero comics both of an increased attention to the representation of people of color, and of a potentially ahistorical/apolitical postracialism. Ms. Marvel’s metaphorical mixed-racedness serves to place her in the vicinity of the postracial or in the lineage of the “multicultural” which preceded it, a vision of the world (or at least the nation) wherein race no longer has political significance, but is instead merely a signifier of multiculturalism. The political facts of being a Muslim and/or South Asian in America, and particularly in Jersey City, are either underplayed or ignored throughout Khan’s first Ms. Marvel series.

Kamala Khan, Miles Morales, and Marvel Now!

In 2012, Marvel Comics created a diversity campaign called Marvel Now! Several new characters were developed in order to add diverse superheroes to the Marvel Universe in an attempt to attract new fans through representation. This introduction of new heroes brought readers a Pakistani-American, Muslim Ms. Marvel in Kamala Khan, as well as Miles Morales, a Spider-Man of Black and Latino heritage. Given the stereotype that the majority of comic book fans are white, cisgender males, there was considerable resistance from traditional readers regarding these two new characters. This chapter examines the responses that arose from the assumed threat to white, cismale identity, the gatekeeping within comic book readership, and the toxic culture of the white, male fanboy.

Yes, We Khan—Diversity and De-Monsterization of Muslim Identities in Ms. Marvel (2014–)

In 2014, Marvel comics introduced a new character to take over the mantle of the superhero identity Ms. Marvel. The new heroine is Kamala Khan, a 16-year-old girl born and raised in New Jersey. Khan is Marvel’s first Pakistani-American, Muslim superhero to headline her own comic book; as such, she represents a move towards diversification in a historically conservative, white and masculine genre. In addition, Kamala Khan comes into existence in a political and social context where the 9/11 attacks, the ‘War on Terror’, and Islamophobia continue to reverberate. This article explores how the Ms. Marvel comic functions as a critique of the ways in which social norms, stereotypes and prejudices have monsterized multicultural, Muslim identities, especially in the years following 9/11. Conducting analyses of Khan’s conflicted relationship to her own identities and issues concerning visibility and concealment, I explore how these negative framings affect her self-perception, and in turn her self-representation. Lastly, I aim to illustrate the ways in which the comic challenges monolithic and monstrous representations of Islam through its depiction of diverse, multicultural, Muslim identities.

Criticism of Riffat Hassan's Theory of “Incompatibility of Shiite Mahdism with Qur’anic Verses”

Riffat Hassan, a Pakistani-American thinker, is a Muslim open-minded and leader of the Islamic feminist movement, who criticizes Shiite Mahdism through Qur’anic verses in several parts: the fundamental concepts and elements of Messianism, Imamate and hence Imam Mahdi (AS) in Shi’a, and psychological reasons for the tendency of Muslims to the Savior and Messianism. The present research critically examines the theory of Riffat Hassan in these cases and proves the compatibility of Mahdism with the Qur’anic verses. Therefore, elements of Shiite Mahdism, the Imamate, and the existence of the promised Mahdi (AS) are rooted in Qur’anic verses and hadiths, so the secularism or backwardness of Muslims are not because of the belief of Mahdism or seeking refuge in the Savior.

Book Review: Pakistan’s Nuclear Bomb: A Story of Defiance, Deterrence and Deviance by Hassan Abbas

Dr. Hassan Abbas is a Pakistani-American academic whose interest area lies in South and Central Asia. He is presently a Professor and Chair of the Department of Regional and Analytical Studies at National Defense University, Washington, DC. Similar to his previous books, Hassan Abbas has taken up yet another topic that revolves around the statehood of Pakistan.

Beware the "Terror Gap": Closing the Loophole between the U.S. Terrorist Watchlist System and the Right to Bear Arms

103 Cornell L. Rev. 205 (2017)In July 2014, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) interviewed a man named Omar Mateen about his connection to a Florida native named Moner Mohammad Abusalha. Abusalha had killed himself two months earlier during a suicide attack in Syria, during which he drove a truck full of explosives into a restaurant. The group formerly known as Jabhat al-Nusra claimed responsibility for the suicide attack and credited Abusalha as the first U.S. citizen to carry out a “martyrdom operation” on Syrian soil.The local Islamic community in Abusalha’s hometown of Port St. Lucie, Florida struggled to reconcile how a “jovial and easygoing” young man had become radicalized. Abusalha’s initial radicalization had occurred in the United States prior to his first trip to Syria in 2013, and there was a concern among the community that its youth could be susceptible to the same extremist tendencies—especially given that Abusalha had made an apparent recruiting trip back to the United States after his training in Syria. Mohammed Malik, a Pakistani-American living in Port St. Lucie and a member of the local Islamic community, took it upon himself to speak with the FBI and other concerned community members in an effort to understand the motive behind Abusalha’s radicalization. One such conversation occurred between Malik and Mateen, both of whom had attended mosque at the Islamic Center of Fort Pierce with Abusalha. During this conversation, Mateen told Malik that, like Abusalha, he too had been watching videos depicting the American-born-turned-al-Qaeda digital propagandist, Anwar al-Awlaki. Mateen told Malik that he found the videos “very powerful,” a response that Malik found disturbing enough to again contact the FBI. The FBI, having already looked into Mateen based on a tip received in 2013, investigated him for a second time and once again deemed him not to be a threat.

"Ms. Marvel," Tumblr, and the industrial logics of identity in digital spaces

This essay examines fan interactions on "The All-New Ms. Marvel Backstage Pass," a Tumblr site initiated by Marvel Comics to promote the Ms. Marvel (2014–) comic book. I conceive of this site as a space in which racial, ethnic, and gendered identity dimensions can be uniquely articulated in accordance with identity markers of the Ms. Marvel character, a female teenage Pakistani American Muslim. These articulations are possible due to Tumblr's unique affordances as a mediator of fandom formation—affordances that are both technological and social. For Ms. Marvel fans, Tumblr affords opportunities for intertexual and paratextual productivity, orienting emerging fans into broader rites and practices of fandom participation and specific forms of identity expression undertaken in accordance with identity vectors of Ms. Marvel, its creators, and its fans. For Marvel Comics, fan activities on "The All-New Ms. Marvel Backstage Pass" are a source of promotional labor inflected with the veneer of authenticity, providing the company with a centralized means of instigating fannish promotion and emboldening an emergent audience that corresponds to institutional desires for audience diversification. This Tumblr therefore brokers the economic and institutional drives of Marvel Comics and the cultural drives of an emergent diversified fandom.