We all know Pakistan is far from perfect, but the point I try to get across to mainstream America is that the real Pakistan is very different, and much more interesting and likeable, than the Pakistan they see on TV. That’s an easy and enjoyable thing to do if you know and like Pakistan as I do, and it needs to be done, because the American public’s attitude toward Pakistan greatly affects our ability to support all the urgently needed humanitarian work that must be done. This is so because, as I and others have diagnosed, the Pakistani-American community suffers from chronic and worsening donor fatigue, and the wider American public represents a largely untapped source of funds for nonprofits working in Pakistan. But even prior to that, we need to elicit the positive interest and human sympathy of non-Pakistani, non-Muslim Americans, for everyone’s sake.