Pakistan: An Extraordinary Trip

The Badshahi Mosque, Lahore, Pakistan (built 1671-1673)

How do you describe a once-in-a-lifetime trip? I was invited by Ali Siddiqui, the former Ambassador to the United States from Pakistan, to join a group of about 20 on a VIP tour of the country. The trip included traveling with two former Prime Ministers, meeting with the current Prime Minister and his entire cabinet, flying to a dinner at a resort in a military helicopter, a private plan up to Gilgit and Hunza in the Himalayas, and the opportunity to travel for five days with tech CEOs, leading academics, NGO directors, and other assorted accomplished and interesting people. A singular opportunity.

Unfortunately, I can’t include names or pictures of the people in the group, because the terms of the trip were that everything personal was off the record, including who attended. So I can show you what I saw and tell you what I heard, but I can’t attribute anything to anyone except to the officials we met.

The trip to Islamabad was an ordeal for me. Three flights over, stopover in Rome and then Jedda, Saudia Arabia, where I got food poisoning. The rest of the trip was, let’s say, unsettling. When I landed in Islamabad, though, I was met at the gate by the Director of the airport and two deputies, who escorted me through passport control (I felt guilty bypassing the lines) and handed me off to a driver.  As we left the airport, a small army truck with four armed guards pulled out in front of us:

 

Vehicles were pulling over to let this truck through and my driver tagged along right behind. I was thinking – how smart of my driver to stick behind this army vehicle so he can coast in its wake, because people are naturally getting out of his way. It is Pakistan, and they are army. I thought this until we hit real traffic; then the army truck started blasting its siren and weaving through traffic. Surprisingly, my driver continued to stick close behind him. Through my haze of jet lag it finally hit me:

The armed escort is for me.

And there was another armed truck behind us, and both escorted me to the hotel. I later learned that our entire trip was being given the highest level of accompaniment; we were treated as if we were a presidential entourage. Armed guards, and a mobile medical unit, accompanied us everywhere we went; We could not even take a walk from the hotel without an armed escort. We flew by private chartered plane and military helicopter to our events and destinations. The staff was incredibly efficient and kind, catering to any needs we had, and even to many we didn’t.

We started with a welcome dinner Sunday evening.  We stayed at Serena hotels while there, very nice hotels owned in large part by the The Aga Khan Fund for Economic Development. Aga Khan – who heads the Ismaili community – is the funder of major hospitals in Pakistan and other charitable and developmental projects. We have an active Ismaili community here in Atlanta, and I consulted with some friends there before going to Pakistan. Seeing the impact of the Ismailis in Pakistan was gratifying, and they are talked about with great respect by everyone I mentioned them to in Pakistan, including the Prime Minister himself.

Monday morning we piled onto military helicopters to fly to lunch at a resort. Russian-made MI-17 Pakistan Army helicopter (I was on the one in back)

In the helicopter I had the honor and pleasure of sitting next to former Prime Minister Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar, who was a caretaker Prime Minister from Aug 2023 to March 2024.  We had a fascinating discussion about conflict resolution and peacebuilding. He said that he dedicated his administration to those ideas, and recounted how, at a roundtable of top political leaders in Davos, he commented that diplomacy is not enough to solve conflicts, that conflict was about identity, nationalism, and theology. So I told him I was trained in theology, was Jewish, and that my father, two brothers, and a daughter were rabbis. His eyes lit, up, he was delighted. 

Former Prime Minister Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar and me on the helicopter

He told me how happy he was that Jews were visiting Pakistan (there were other Jews on the trip, too) and informed me that he preached to anyone who would listen the need for a balanced view on the Middle East, that one must understand Israel’s side of the story to really understand the dynamics there, and not just demonize one side. He then referred to the story in the Quran where a Jew and Muslim had a dispute and brought it to the Prophet, who decided in favor of the Jew’s position. Prime Minister Kakar wanted to point out both that justice must be blind, and that both sides of a dispute have to be carefully considered to know the real truth. He was an engaging person to talk to, and I was pleased when he gave me his card and asked to stay in touch about my new center.

We had many meetings with the leaders of the country. We met with Finance Minister Muhammed Aurangzeb, with Major General Asad Ur Rehman Cheema and his high-level government group trying to help new businesses navigate red tape in Pakistan, and with army Lieutenant General Ahmed Sharif Chaudry, who briefed us on the state of the country and its army.

 Mr. Muhammad Aurangzeb, Finance Minister of Pakistan

I asked the Lieutenant General a challenging question I thought he handled, well, politically.  I noted that army participation in governments range from armies that run a country or have puppet governments, to armies that are on the sides but ready to step in if the government seems to go astray, to those completely subordinate to the civilian governments. Where does Pakistan’s army sit in that spectrum, and does the world’s impression of where the army sits reflect reality?

He — perhaps wisely — never answered the question directly, saying instead that the civilian government often calls on the army for tasks, so the army is very involved in governmental actions. He did say the army is controlled by the Prime Minister, and that the world’s impression is not really accurate. But it is also true that the army is not only the military authority, but also, for historical reasons, over 50 commercial entities are owned and controlled by the army. Current Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif is trying to divest the army of many of these companies and interests, as even the army believes it is not in their interest to be running commercial enterprises.

We met with current Prime Minister Sharif and his entire cabinet at the Prime Minister’s residence (pictures were not allowed, we had to surrender our phones at the door). It was quite an experience to enter the residence of the Prime Minister of Pakistan and to meet with him and his entire cabinet. Questions were posed to him about the economy, business, and plans for Pakistan’s future. I asked him about the brain drain of young people from out of Pakistan - a question he did not like - and he did try to assure that Pakistan was making progress in incentivizing its best and brightest to stay in (or return to) the country, which he sees as emerging from difficult times into a brighter future.

 Modeling my Kurta Shalwar

That evening we had a lovely cultural event – all of us were gifted with a traditional Kurta Shalwar, a long shirt, pants, and scarf set you can see me modeling above. We then went to a dinner evening of Sufi music and chant, a sample of which is below (clip is 1:37)

We flew up to Lahore the next day. We toured Beaconhouse University, and saw some beautiful and creative art pieces by the students. The students’ and faculty’s enthusiasm reflected a palpable desire to be part of the world community of culture, of intellectual achievement, of art. There was even a student who created an AI program where the user has to make decisions in an ethical scenario, and then the program analyzes the user’s ethical approach. Right down my alley!

Fabric boat installation by a Beaconhouse student

Despite a late hour, they kindly opened the stunning Lahore Fort after hours just for us. (Not a trivial thing; dozens of staff and performers stayed after hours just for our group.) Lahore fort is enormous, with large grounds and many buildings, including the tomb of Allama Iqbal, the “Poet of the East” (died 1938), and the beautiful Badshahi Mosque, the Mughal-era imperial mosque pictured at the top of this blog post.

A small part of the inside of Lahore Fort

We also saw a number of cultural performances. The most remarkable was the Pakistani Dervishes. I have seen dervishes before, but only the elegant “Turkish” dervishes, who twirl gracefully in black skirts to mesmerizing effect. Pakistani dervishes are more physical and staccato, using a violent head shaking when they are not twirling that I have never seen before. Watch this video to the end, and look at the heads of the men in red – they maintained that level of violent shaking for a good 20-30 minute performance (clip 38 seconds).

From Lahore we flew to Gilgit, way up in the mountains, and then drove to Hunza, in the Himalayas, at over 8,000 feet. The flight to Gilgit was one of the most beautiful flights I have ever taken, over endless mountains that disappeared to the horizon. Pictures cannot capture it. (One of the young staff from Pakistan had never flown before in her life, and her first flight was on a private plane over the Himalayas. We told her to enjoy it, she’ll never have another flight like this!) K2, the second highest peak after Everest, is in Pakistan, as are a dozen of the world’s highest mountains. We traveled with former Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, who told us stories of the coup in Pakistan by Musharraf, who imprisoned him for heading the main Pakistani airline, and then his life after release and his founding of a second airline in Pakistan. A lovely, warm, and interesting guy. Everywhere we went people wanted to take pictures with him, and one random person in Hunza told me “he was the best PM we ever had.”

 Former Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, the 18th PM of Pakistan (2017-2018)

Hunza is also famously studied because of the extreme longevity of its people. So they invited three elders to speak to us. They entered to the strains of a traditional trio of drums and flute, and talked to us of what had them live so long. Their faces say it all:

102 years old96 years old* 94 years old*

I don’t know their names. They told us of their secrets for healthy longevity; the woman said she made a paste of apricot seeds and ate it every morning (not the sweet ones! the bitter ones!). The man pictured in the middle is a highly respected farmer who has planted over 600 cherry trees in the area. He said to live long one must dance; and he got up and did just that. And then, before they all left, he made all of us get up and dance with him. Just magical.

I left Pakistan with mixed feelings. A generous, lovely people who treated us beautifully and would do absolutely anything for you; their tradition of honoring the guest and providing for them was so clear and lovely.  But the country faces almost intractable problems, as they are trying hard to drag themselves in to the modern tech age. I am not sure I went with many expectations of what it would be like, but whatever stereotypes I had were overturned. You can see why those who live there, or are from there, retain deep ties and affection for this beautiful, proud, flawed land.