Why terrified?

My essay on "Hostility towards Americans" apparently had no effect on a group of individuals considering a visit to Pakistan for a family wedding. Why are we terrified of Pakistan?

I say "we" because I too carry my own frightening images of Pakistan. Images that keep me from exploring every corner with ultimate freedom. I have yet to attend a Friday (or any) prayer session in Pakistan; I imagine anti-American sentiment I have never heard hear. Find your own images of Pakistan.

Prior to coming to Pakistan, my heart sank when I read the U.S. State Department warnings which included historical events of violence. The events did not scare me; violence happens. [I entered teaching in the age of Columbine]. The terror comes from the unpredictable nature of violence; I can avoid patterns.

We all know of bad neighborhoods. We have our own images of violent individuals. Some of these characteristics are poverty, ignorance, addiction, and your pick of the ethnic/religious group. We avoid these place and individuals because we feel this will keep us safe. This is sad because we avoid discussion and exploration of the roots of violence, and we maintain "practical" stereotypes to keep us from harm.

What do we do when we do not have characteristics to "predict" violence? There are many grey areas to the newcomer in Pakistan. There are differences [read: barriers] in language, culture, religion, and socioeconomics that make such judgements difficult.

The result is that we want to avoid the whole situation. Avoid the bad areas, and avoid all individuals that may be associated with them. Why visit a nation like Pakistan, and possibly put yourself at risk?

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Consider not reading any further in this post. The following are my personal beliefs and will be addressing you from on top of my soapbox. Plus, it's late here so it may not make any sense.
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There are large gaps that separate groups of individuals. Technology gaps, wealth gaps, education gaps, religious divides, and language barriers. The entirety of humanity has been divided into tribes, like a metaphorical tower of Babel. Popular ideas like multiculturalism, though it has many benefits, has served to emphasize the differences in individuals more than it celebrates our similarities.

People feel less close to one another. There is distrust about others that are different, and subsequently there is ignorance about others because we are not taking the time to bridge these gaps with communication.

Do Americans (and others) care to bridge these gaps, to learn about Islam, to explore the needs of other people, and to search out the multifaceted ways in which we are connected to others?

I may simply be naive and idealistic, but I think my presence in Pakistan helps to bridge these gaps in understanding. Take me as white, American, Southern, Anglophone, educator, young, male, college graduate, rich, or any other category into which you want to divide me, but my intentions are to create my own worldview where the average Pakistani and I fall into the same allotment of humanity, instead of distant partners worlds apart.

I believe that it is worthwhile to step into a distant land if only to discover common humanity. Maybe my paranoia about safety will not leave me, at least not until I can rationalize the roots of past incidents. However, I recognize that I carry stereotypes of Pakistan that are not backed up by firsthand, or even secondhand, observations. I realize that I must reach out of my comfort zone of seclusion (be it the USA or the confines of my house) to challenge these perceptions of Pakistan.

I seek reason in my surroundings, but I choose not to live terrified of Pakistan without good reason.