WASHINGTON—The tenuous relationship between Washington and Islamabad has soured and threatens to complicate the matter of getting American and NATO troops out of Afghanistan by 2014.
But a group of experts gathered at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars Tuesday to propose one of the first steps toward bridging the trust gap between the two governments.
The consensus from the panel: That starts on a micro level with people who have footprints in both countries — Pakistani-Americans.
Pakistani-Americans are the second-fastest-growing group of Asian Americans. They are also in the unique position of enjoying personal success and affluence in the United States while maintaining cultural and familial ties to Pakistan.
The diaspora of Pakistani-Americans are key to forging people-to-people relations that could create a foundation for bettering relations between the governments, the panelists said.
“Pakistani-Americans have a reason to do it and the capacity to bridge this relationship in a meaningful way,” said Aakif Ahmad, vice president at Convergence, a U.S. firm that tries to find solutions to international issues.
Panelists recognized that strengthening personal relations alone will not lead to a stable relationship with Islamabad, but they said it’s a starting point to rebuild trust.
“Other than economics and trade, there’s a mega trust deficit between citizens of the two countries,” said human rights activist Fouzia Saeed who is from Pakistan.
Ahmad said technologies, such as video conferencing, can bring people from both countries together to share expertise in academia, medicine, politics and economics.
Aakif Ahmad listens during a panel discussion Tuesday, Oct. 2 at the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars. About 50 people gathered to learn how Pakistani-Americans can bridge the gap between the two countries to rebuild trust.
One of their goals is to shift the current perception of fear to one of opportunity. For American investors, Pakistan is a relatively untapped opportunity that could be rewarding if a conversation is sparked and trust grows.
Irfan Malik, president of USPAK, an advocacy group for Pakistani-Americans, said engaging the youth of the Pakistani diaspora here in the States will fuel the movement forward in the long-run.
The notion some Americans have that Pakistanis or Pakistani-Americans are terrorists is perpetuated by radical jihad, Malik said, but can be shifted by an actively-engaged youth.
“The youth are probably the greatest asset of the community; however, they can be our greatest liability,” he said.