Diasporas wanna gatekeep their western freedoms from homeland folk. Comfortable Islam for them while ruthless religious policing for us. I’m not saying they all do, but they CAN slip up, have a hoe phase, then become born again Muslims.

Slipping up on your deen could mean life and death under shariah law. Like I know y’all have had to experience islamaphobia, but we experience first-hand the effects of drone warfare, the war on terror, etc

Persecuted by western society, you latch onto your parents’ 30+ year old and your imagined perception of Pakistaniat. It must suck to find out it doesn’t actually exist anymore (if it ever did)

Culture isn’t static. It’s foolish for you to expect society will be waiting for you there 50 years after they left. And if you’re so concerned about the state of it, maybe you should’ve stayed to participate in it?

It’ll feel like a slap in the face to know that your homeland counterparts are being granted more freedoms by their parents, go out, drink, have sex, etc while you could never dream of doing so in the 50 year old snapshot of Pakistani culture that you cling to

But I invite you to get to meet Pakistan, as it is in 2020. It’ll free you, I promise. There’s no one way to be Pakistani. This dichotomy you’re caught in, where anything that toes the Wahhabist religious line is an act of betrayal to your Pakistaniat, will cease

You can’t assimilate all of Pakistani culture into a foreign, orthodox school of thought on our behalf. Your liberation from the WESTERN-imposed, extremist, monolithic view of Muslims will only come when you recognize your own varied, indigenous, and syncretic culture

And if you find you don’t agree with the historical, cultural practices of your own great-grandparents or the land that you claim, I’m sorry but that doesn’t mean you can rewrite what those practices are.

There is no, one form of Pakistani religion. If you want to follow orthodox practices, you’re free to. You’re no less a Pakistani. Now please let others practice their religion, or lack thereof, without attacking their Pakistaniat in return.

Oh and it is simply classist to think that “western” or “un-Islamic” practices exist strictly among burgers. If you think that even the MAJORITY of the bottom 90% of Pakistanis are all shareef namazis, idk what to tell you

It’s definitely a lot harder for the working and middle class to sin or violate cultural norms in safety. But that’s one way religious policing intersects with class. Kinda like how it is right now, between us, huh?

And ESPECIALLY in undeveloped gaons, loads of unIslamic practices fly under the radar as part of a culture so indigenous to that land that it predates Islam and and any such thing as Pakistan.