Ms Mehreen Faruqi, there is a lot of work to do in the country of your birth. No amount of airbrushing will correct the record regarding Pakistan's fondness for slaves.
Black Lives Matter – for Pakistan's Sheedi community too
• Pakistan has the largest African immigrant population in all of South Asia, known as the Sheedi community.• The Sheedis continue to face colourism, racism and prejudice from mainstream Pakistani society.
• The South Asian community has a collective responsibility to educate ourselves about anti-Black racism in our countries, and how we have benefited both from systematic oppression of Black people and their efforts to overturn it.
Despite being the largest African immigrant population in South Asia, Sheedis – as they are known – in Pakistan face restrictions to social, economic and political progress. This community was initially brought to the country as slaves between the first and 20th centuries, and entered the subcontinent through the ports of Sindh and Balochistan in present-day Pakistan, where many remain as dock workers, domestic workers, carpenters and blacksmiths. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/08/black-lives-matter-for-pakistans-sheedi-community-too/
I wonder if an official record exists where the Queen picked up the phone and spoke with Ms Faruqi about Pakistan's sad record of slave keeping. Can anyone give us any details about any such phone call.
