{"id":123,"date":"2012-03-17T06:46:45","date_gmt":"2012-03-17T06:46:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.raziazmi.com\/?p=123"},"modified":"2014-06-21T10:44:48","modified_gmt":"2014-06-21T10:44:48","slug":"across-america-and-canada-by-road","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.raziazmi.com\/?p=123","title":{"rendered":"Across America and Canada by road"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last June I returned to the US after 20 years, driving over 17,000 km across USA and Canada with my wife.\u00a0 This is the equivalent of seven return trips between Karachi and Islamabad, or three from Delhi in the north to Cape Comorin at the southern tip of India.<\/em><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/em><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

I – The joy of travelling \u2013 and driving<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

There exists something called a \u201ctravel bug\u201d.\u00a0 <\/span>Being bitten by the travel bug is somewhat akin to being smitten by love. They who have not experienced it don\u2019t understand it.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>But those who have, cherish the experience. In both, the pleasure does not come without pain but this combination of pleasure and pain is a blissful mixture.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>One difference between the two is that, while one strains the purse, the other stresses the heart.<\/span><\/p>\n

Being one who was bitten by the travel bug as a teenager decades ago, I find myself living from one trip to another, visualising when not visiting, virtually touring when not actually travelling.<\/p>\n

Last June I returned to the US after 20 years, driving over 17,000 km across USA and Canada with my wife.\u00a0 <\/span>This is the equivalent of seven return trips between Karachi and Islamabad, or three from Delhi in the north to Cape Comorin at the southern tip of India, all in the space of six weeks.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

And yet, I missed vast parts of USA or Canada, for they are, respectively, the world\u2019s third and second largest countries. In comparison to Pakistan, both countries are over 12 times larger in size.\u00a0 <\/span>Even India is only about a third the size of either country.<\/span><\/p>\n

My trip took place at a time when the US is in the throes of an economic crisis precipitated by a financial breakdown.\u00a0 <\/span>It is so acute that it might be the harbinger of the end of America\u2019s brief reign as the world\u2019s only superpower.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>And we may also be witnessing the beginning of the end of America\u2019s economic and financial pre-eminence in the world, which lasted long enough for many to refer to the 20th<\/span><\/sup> century as the American century.<\/p>\n

It is ironic that a financial and monetary crisis should shake the US, the epitome and champion of capitalism and free market.\u00a0 <\/span>I can\u2019t resist the temptation to recall the words of two US presidents who were also among its founding fathers.<\/span><\/p>\n

Thomas Jefferson wrote to the Secretary of the Treasury in 1782: \u201cI believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies.\u201d<\/p>\n

Five years later, John Adams confided in a letter to Thomas Jefferson: \u201cAll the perplexities, confusion and distress in America rise, not from defects in their Constitution or Confederation, not from want of honour or virtue, so much as from downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit and circulation”.<\/p>\n

I will leave the weighty issues of credit and finance to be discussed by our many experts.\u00a0 <\/span>But few will dispute that America has been a force for more good than evil in the world. Admittedly, Washington has caused much unnecessary death and destruction in many lands, but I often tell critics to ask how any other country would behave internationally if it had nearly as much economic, financial and military power as the US has had in the last few decades.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Suffice it to cite here but two statistics: America\u2019s GNP is nearly a quarter of the world total and it spends close to $700 billion on defence annually, which is over 42% of the total world defence expenditure and more than the next 15 countries put together.\u00a0 <\/span>And that includes China, Russia, India, UK, France, Germany, Japan, Brazil, Argentina and many more.<\/span><\/p>\n

The \u201cStates\u201d, as many non-Americans admiringly refer to America, mesmerises anyone who visits that country.\u00a0 <\/span>I studied and taught there for five years in the 1980s, when I also drove from its east coast to west coast.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Whenever people have asked me what was special about the US, I unhesitatingly mention two things: its universities and roads.<\/span><\/p>\n

My driving tour began in New York or, to be more accurate, at Newark International Airport in New Jersey, in an almost new rental Dodge Ventura.<\/p>\n

Driving anything is fun.\u00a0 <\/span>Depending on speed and distance, it can be a very thrilling experience.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Starting with the humble bicycle, through motor cycle, car and sports car to jet plane, being in the driver\u2019s seat stimulates the spirit.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>It has a liberating effect on the soul!<\/span><\/p>\n

Most people of my age can recall the thrill at being able to pedal our way around on a bicycle for the first time.\u00a0 <\/span>We had to learn riding the hard way, without training wheels, on oversized bikes, bumping through hard falls, nursing bruised knees and bleeding elbows.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Because our legs were not long enough to reach the pedals from the seat, we had to literally stand on one pedal with our left leg and reach the other pedal by thrusting the right leg through the frame, scissors-style we called it.<\/span><\/p>\n

The 50cc Honda motorcycle, when it first hit the roads in the mid-1960\u2019s, raised the thrill many notches.\u00a0 <\/span>Few were privileged to drive a car in those days but, boy, how very exciting it was!<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>For me, driving is a passion since I first pressed the accelerator many decades ago as a teenager.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

My first great driving tour was just over twenty years ago, with my wife and two young boys (9 and 2 at the time). \u00a0<\/span>I drove from New York on the Atlantic coast to Los Angeles on the Pacific coast, taking in many states, cities and sights of that great country.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ever since, I have wanted to be back on US roads. So when I planned on visiting my many friends and relatives in the USA and Canada, some of whom I had not met in nearly two decades, my wish was to turn it into a comprehensive driving tour of the two countries.\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

One does not live forever \u2013 and being alive is no guarantee that one will be road-worthy.\u00a0 <\/span>With so much to see in this world, it is best to take in as much as possible in any given trip. <\/span><\/p>\n

I was pining to drive further than I have ever done.\u00a0 <\/span>So, besides America\u2019s Pacific coast, it was my intention to drive across the vast Canadian prairies.<\/span><\/p>\n

(Published in Daily Times, 7 March 2012<\/span><\/em>)<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

II – Mountain Top and Niagara Falls<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

My plan was audacious in its conception, so audacious in fact that I chose not to divulge it in full to anyone lest they tried to convince us to curtail it.\u00a0 <\/span>Even my wife \u2013 who would share some of the driving \u2013 didn\u2019t know the scale of driving involved.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>In this instance, her poor comprehension of space, scale and time suited me well.<\/span><\/p>\n

The result was the trip of a lifetime, a journey to remember. In six short weeks, we criss-crossed the US-Canada border four times.\u00a0 <\/span>I should pause here to grieve for those tens of thousands of Saudi women who own fine automobiles, but which they are forbidden to drive by their government, as willed by their <\/span>ulema <\/span><\/em>who know best!<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Women in Pakistan are not so unlucky but, to be fair, I must also sympathise with those Pakistani women who would dearly love to ride motorbikes and bicycles but cannot do so, for fear of public condemnation or family opposition.<\/p>\n

The US Interstate road system stands in a class by itself.\u00a0 <\/span>Launched in the late 1950s under President Dwight Eisenhower, after whom it is named, the system has a total length of over 75,000 km, making it both the largest highway system in the world and the largest public works project in history.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Similar to the German autobahn (<\/span>Bundesautobahn<\/span><\/em>) motorway system, it is about six times larger.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

There is hardly a city in this vast country that is not connected by the Interstate system.\u00a0 <\/span>What is more, one can quite literally drive from any city to another anywhere in the USA without having to cross an intersection or seeing a traffic light.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>The longest east-west road (I-90) runs from Boston to Seattle, a total length of nearly five thousand kilometres, while the longest north-south road (I-95) connects the Canadian border with Miami in Florida, a total of over three thousand kilometres.<\/span><\/p>\n

From Milltown in New Jersey, where I have a nephew, we headed to an obscure little town in Pennsylvania called Mountain Top. I went there to see a niece, one of 11 nieces and nephews of mine who now call USA or Canada their home.\u00a0 <\/span>The exodus from Pakistan began in the early nineties. There is now hardly a family from the middle and upper classes of Pakistan, especially Karachi and upper Punjab, who do not have near relatives in the USA, Canada, Europe or Australia.<\/span><\/p>\n

And, yet, Pakistanis do not pause to ask why their much-beloved \u201cGod-given country\u201d (mumlakat-e-khudadad<\/span><\/em>) is becoming so unliveable. While a majority now lament the state of the nation, even admit to the current sorry state of the <\/span>Ummah<\/span><\/em>, mainly they spin conspiracy theories and blame others for their own woes.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Quite a few are in complete denial, denouncing the West as immoral and destined to doom.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>The sheer hypocrisy is astounding.<\/span><\/p>\n

One prolific Muslim writer, Dr Javed Jamil of India, has taken this hypocrisy to a completely new level.\u00a0 <\/span>He has compiled statistics to argue that \u201c<\/span>despite shortcomings, Muslims most civilised in the world.\u201d\u00a0 <\/span>With the help of a \u201cTable of Comparison of Criteria of Civilization between Representative Muslim and Western Countries,\u201d he attempts to show that in virtually every department, the Muslim countries are superior to Western countries.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>His statistical jugglery and intellectual dishonesty is truly bewildering!<\/span><\/p>\n

The obscure little town of Mountain Top in Pennsylvania is not a tourist destination at all.\u00a0 <\/span>But it has to be said that every town and city in any western country is worth visiting.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Nice and clean, with tree-lined streets and decent shopping centres, playgrounds and parks, they are a far cry from the filthy, noisy, polluted population centres that in our part of the world pass for cities and towns.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>My first view of the West was nearly four decades ago, when my train entered Finland from the Soviet Union.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>I could hardly believe what I saw, so vivid was the contrast, but about that some other time. <\/span><\/p>\n

From Mountain Top, we headed for Canada and our next stop was the Niagara Falls.\u00a0 <\/span>A ride on the boat enticingly named \u201cMaid on the Mist\u201d took us very close to the base of the waterfall giving us a shower, despite our disposable raincoats which were included with the boat ticket.<\/span><\/p>\n

Among waterfalls, Niagara is generally ranked number three, after Iguacu in South America (Brazil\/Argentina) and Victoria in Africa (Zimbabwe\/Zambia). Nevertheless, Niagara Falls is a magnificent sight \u2013 one is awestruck at the sheer volume of water tumbling down 57 meters in a vast torrent resembling a shimmering wall of crystal.\u00a0 <\/span>No Canadian worth his salt will fail to mention to foreign visitors that the view of Niagara is better from their side than it is from the American side, which is very true.<\/span><\/p>\n

USA and Canada are tied by a thousand threads, yet there is something amiss between these closest of neighbours. Canada remains an object of jokes for Americans and America a target of disparaging remarks by Canadians.<\/p>\n

Some Americans joke, quite self-deprecatingly, that Canadians, by virtue of their British and French heritage and territorial contiguity to USA, could have chosen British culture, French cuisine and American technology.\u00a0 <\/span>Instead they chose British cuisine, French technology and American culture!<\/span><\/p>\n

Besides American culture, Canadians are also partial to American highways.\u00a0 <\/span>My search on the Internet to plan my route revealed that most Canadians travelling to Calgary or Vancouver from Toronto or vice versa prefer to drive on the American side of the border, because the American roads are appreciably better and motels, food and gas are cheaper there.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The US has the best road signage in the world, which the Canadians only needed to replicate. But perhaps in their obsession with being different, they have put up road signs that even Canadians confess leave a lot to be desired.\u00a0 <\/span>In America, you have to be rather fuzzy to get lost; in Canada you are almost certain to miss an exit or two owing to poor signage. <\/span><\/p>\n

(Published in Daily Times, 14 March 2012<\/span><\/em>)<\/span>
<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n

III – Haunted hotel, single <\/span>begums<\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

There is a certain strangeness or, should I say, familiarity about Mississauga. Here, a mere 30 km from Toronto, one has to wait long to see a person of European descent.\u00a0 <\/span>Judging by the crowds, Mississauga does not look Western at all.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>One could be excused for thinking that he is in South Asia.<\/span><\/p>\n

Until recently, there were so many Pakistani and Indian women in Mississauga minding the children and biding their time to earn Canadian citizenship, while their husbands worked in the Middle East to earn petro-dollars, that some Pakistanis jokingly referred to the place as Begumpura<\/span><\/em>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Toronto is a fine city with many attractions though I find Montreal and Ottawa, both of which I visited on an earlier trip many years ago, more attractive.\u00a0 <\/span>On that visit, I also went to Montebello and Kingston.<\/span><\/p>\n

Montreal is the largest city of the French-majority province of Quebec.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Owing to a significant secessionist sentiment there, two referendums were held on the issue of independence from Canada, in 1980 and 1995.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>In the latter, the secessionists lost by the thin margin of 49.4% to 50.6%.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

If only the pro-independence forces had asked Pakistan\u2019s formidable ISI for assistance, they might have won the vote by a big margin!<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Or they could have sought help from the then Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, but that would have been a risky gamble.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

There is an Egyptian joke that Vladimir Putin asked Mubarak for advice in winning an election with the kind of majority which Mubarak always got but which eluded Putin despite his best efforts.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>The veteran Egyptian leader obliged by providing the Russian president some of his own election officials.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>But when the results were out, Putin was furious.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Only 3% had voted for him.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>No less than 97% of Russian votes had been cast for Hosni Mubarak!<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

In the capital of Canada, where fair and free elections are taken for granted, I had the pleasure of staying at the Chateau Laurier Hotel, whose <\/span>grandeur is tinged with a little mystery.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>A mere twelve days before railway chief Charles Melville Hays<\/span><\/span> was to open it on 26 April 1912, he perished aboard the RMS Titanic<\/span> when it sank.<\/span><\/p>\n

That explains why this magnificent Ottawa hotel is believed by some to be haunted.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Some guests have reported seeing the ghost of Hays, hearing eerie sounds and feeling unexplained shaking, while others have claimed a feeling of “being watched”. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span>I saw nothing, heard nothing and felt nothing.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>But, then, I am always sceptical of supernatural or paranormal tales.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The quaint village of Montebello in western Quebec, where I had the pleasure of attending an academic conference many years ago, is famous for the Chateau Montebello<\/span> resort, said to be the largest log structure ever built.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>The retreat stands on 65,000 acres of forested wildlife sanctuary and 70 lakes on the shore of the Ottawa River<\/span>, between Ottawa and Montreal.<\/span><\/p>\n

On the bus to Montebello from Montreal, when I hopped forward from a back seat to a vacant front seat for a better view, I had rude words addressed to me by the white countryman seated there.\u00a0 <\/span>I didn\u2019t mind sitting next to him as long as I got a better view from this front seat. <\/span><\/p>\n

In much of the world, women and men intermingle in buses, sitting or standing next to each other.\u00a0 <\/span>But in many Muslim countries (including Pakistan, Bangladesh and Saudi Arabia, but not Morocco, Malaysia and Indonesia) they are segregated.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>The ladies section in the front part of Pakistani buses resembles a cage in a Third World zoo, complete with iron grills and nets, in full view of men at the back.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

In Saudi Arabia, the seating arrangement is reversed, with men at the front and women at the back.\u00a0 <\/span>Some might think it mirrors the inferior status of women in Saudi society, but in my view this reversal of seating arrangement makes more sense, if the purpose of segregation is to protect women from the prowling eyes of men.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Rather than lustily gaze at the women in the front section of the bus as in Pakistan, Saudi men can only visualise in their mind\u2019s eye, so to say, the beauties seated behind them wrapped in <\/span>abayas<\/span><\/em>\/<\/span>burqas<\/span><\/em>!<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

A few Indian cities have introduced some \u201cwomen only\u201d buses to save women from male harassment.\u00a0 <\/span>Delhi\u2019s mixed buses are patrolled by plainclothes police monitoring what is euphemistically called \u201ceve-teasing\u201d. Segregation of men and women is also practiced in the ultra-orthodox Jewish neighbourhoods of Jerusalem.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Here, as in Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan and, increasingly, in Pakistan, women are also banned from billboards.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The very sight of women is too seductive for some sharia<\/span><\/em>-loving Muslims, just as it is for ultra-orthodox Jews!<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>In Taliban\u2019s Afghanistan, women had been liquidated as human beings, only allowed to live as sexual bed-fellows and house-keepers.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>This attempt to quarantine women from men, for the supposed good of both, is a vicious cycle \u2013 the more the segregation the greater the urge to ogle, prowl, stalk, harass, eve-tease, call it what you will.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Alas, religious fanatics and cultural chauvinists are unable to see the human and funny side of things.\u00a0 <\/span>A First World War veteran, Albert Facey, describes a funny incident in his memoir, <\/span>A Fortunate Life<\/span><\/em>.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>He was now driving a tram in Perth, Australia.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>An elderly passenger, seeing a very pretty young girl standing with a large bag, offered to take her bag, but she declined, saying the bag contained important stuff.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

As she struggled to stay on her feet in the moving tram, the old man said: \u201cI am too old to stand up and you won\u2019t let me hold your parcels for you. What about sitting on my lap?\u201d<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Tired as she was, the young woman accepted his offer and sat on his lap.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>After a while the old man tapped her on the shoulder and said: \u201cExcuse me, Miss, please get off my knee. . . I am not as old as I thought I was.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

(Published in Daily Times, 21 March 2012<\/span><\/em>)<\/span><\/p>\n

IV – Museums, universities and taxis<\/strong><\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

All Western countries are dotted with museums, small and big, museums of antiquity, art, railway, history, fire, geology, science, nursing, telegraph, you name it.\u00a0 <\/span>Big cities have big museums, small towns have small museums.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Their themes are as varied as the strands of human endeavour and existence.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Most of them are wholly or partly supported by endowments and donations.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Many are the products of personal initiative and are enriched by donations of entire personal or family collections.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The Canadian Museum of Civilization in Hull, just across the river from Ottawa, explores Canadian history in a beautiful building on a riverside setting.\u00a0 <\/span>For me, however, the surprise in its diverse collection was a typically colourful Pakistani bus.<\/p>\n

The bus\u2019 seats had been removed to allow easy passage for visitors.\u00a0 <\/span>Perhaps these should have been left in place to give visitors a hint of the discomfort that Pakistani passengers have to suffer when travelling in these buses.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Some have nearly cylindrical shapes and most have semi-opaque, cracked and barred plastic windows.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Together they transform the window seat into an instrument of mild torture.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Pakistani trucks are another matter \u2013 decorated lavishly like a Pakistani or Indian bride and especially designed to defy the rules of aerodynamics by slanting forwards at the top.\u00a0 <\/span>Not just speed but also fuel efficiency is sacrificed for the sake of appearance.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Then there are the lights, green at the back, orange and blue on the sides and bright red over the driver\u2019s head, perhaps to pinpoint the source of the lumbering danger. <\/span><\/p>\n

In Toronto, I visited the Bata Shoe Museum, founded by the Bata family, who fled to Canada from their native Czechoslovakia after the Communist takeover in the late 1940\u2019s.\u00a0 <\/span>The Museum’s collection, numbering over 12,500 shoes, includes specimens of the earliest footwear worn by man, the foot-binding Chinese women\u2019s shoes, those worn by Indian princes and princesses and much more.<\/span><\/p>\n

We drove to the little town of Port Elgin, 235 km northwest of Toronto, thanks to a nephew who lives there. Port Elgin is on the shore of Lake Huron, one of the five \u201cGreat Lakes\u201d straddling the eastern border of US and Canada, the others being Lakes Superior, Michigan, Erie and Ontario.\u00a0 <\/span>Together they form the largest group of freshwater lakes on earth by total<\/span> surface, second by volume after Lake Baikal\u00a0in Siberia (Russia). \u00a0<\/span>The Great Lakes hold 21% of the world’s surface fresh water. <\/span><\/p>\n

From Toronto, we headed southwest towards the college town of Kalamazoo in Michigan, home to another nephew, re-entering the US through Sarnia. Kalamazoo is a college town and like all college towns in the US, it is dominated by the university, in this case the Western Michigan University.<\/p>\n

There are some excellent universities in other countries, but the US probably has more excellent universities than the rest of the world combined.\u00a0 <\/span>Even average American universities are superior to the best in many countries with large populations and resources.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>The latest UK-based Times Higher Education World University Rankings names 14 US universities in the top 20 and 7 in the top ten.<\/span><\/p>\n

Miami University of Ohio, where I studied and taught for a few years, has a library with 4.1 million volumes.\u00a0 <\/span>Research took me to the library of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign which, with a formidable collection of 10.6 million, ranks behind those of Yale University (11 million) and Harvard University (15 million). The largest library in USA (and the world), the Library of Congress, has close to 30 million.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

To give my readers a perspective, the largest library in India, namely, the National Library in Calcutta (Kolkata), has 2.2 million books. Pakistan\u2019s largest, the Punjab Public Library in Lahore, has 215,000.\u00a0 <\/span>Both were founded by the British colonial government and were probably better maintained then than they are now.<\/span><\/p>\n

Universities in the US attract the same kind of interest and donations as mosques, churches and temples do in the Third World.\u00a0 <\/span>A substantial chunk of their hefty budgets comes from endowments and donations.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Harvard University\u2019s total income for the year 2004-05 was over $2.8 billion, of which nearly a third (31%) was from endowments.<\/span><\/p>\n

There is such a high emphasis on good education that parents save for years to be able to send their children to the best universities, even if it entails physical separation in addition to the financial burden.<\/p>\n

I could barely conceal my excitement when we set off from Kalamazoo for Chicago, on the long drive to Winnipeg, the capital of the Canadian province of Manitoba.\u00a0 <\/span>We were headed to Vancouver on the Canadian Pacific Coast in the far west, through vast treeless prairies and over the high Rocky Mountains. <\/span><\/p>\n

As we approached the large metropolis of Minneapolis in the state of Minnesota, en route to the Canadian border through North Dakota, my mind flashed back to a piece of news I had read a few years go.\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

It concerned the Muslim taxi drivers of Minneapolis, mostly Somali refugees, who comprise three quarters of the city\u2019s 900 taxi drivers. In the five years till 2007, they had refused to pick up over 5,000 arriving passengers at the city\u2019s international airport because they were carrying alcohol purchased from the airport\u2019s duty-free shops.\u00a0 <\/span>These Muslim taxi drivers were dutifully applying the rules of Islamic <\/span>Sharia<\/span><\/em> to the duty-free shopping of their American passengers in America!<\/span><\/p>\n

In an even more reprehensible, and by no means isolated, incident in Sydney a couple of years ago, a Muslim taxi driver refused to pick up a blind man with his guide dog as the dog would \u201cdefile\u201d his taxi.<\/p>\n

Never mind that in so doing these people were violating the rules of their profession and desecrating the very religion they claim to promote.\u00a0 <\/span>No matter that they are insulting the hospitality and generosity of the host population.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>It used to be said that \u201cIn Rome, do as the Romans do\u201d.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>But these taxi drivers and, I am afraid, many Muslim migrants in the West subscribe to the belief that \u201cIn Rome, teach the Romans what to do!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

(Published in Daily Times, 28 March 2012<\/em>)<\/p>\n

To be continued<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last June I returned to the US after 20 years, driving over 17,000 km across USA and Canada with my wife.\u00a0 This is the equivalent of seven return trips between Karachi and Islamabad, or three from Delhi in the north … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raziazmi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raziazmi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raziazmi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raziazmi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raziazmi.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=123"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.raziazmi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":782,"href":"https:\/\/www.raziazmi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123\/revisions\/782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raziazmi.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raziazmi.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raziazmi.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}