In-N-Out in Peshawar

As 9/11 approaches and the American collective imagination prepares to reduce Afghanistan and Pakistan to an unforgiving frontier of turbaned jihadis, it is worth reflecting just how interconnected our world has always been.

This is a photo I took at the Faisal Movers bus depot in Peshawar. Having spent the day getting lost in the rich history and culture of Peshawar, I was a bit surprised to find a knockoff In-N-Out Burger so far from its (and my) California origin.

But perhaps I shouldn't have been. Our histories have always been linked—from the colonial era Frontier Crimes Regulations which reshaped social order across the region, to the IMF policies which entrenched military dominance in Pakistan, to the refugee camps where mujahideen fighters received training and indoctrination from CIA-backed agencies. And the history runs both ways: the agency presently sending masked thugs into American streets was created in direct response to 9/11, itself bound up with decades of imperial foreign policy.

Given our interconnected pasts, the question is why we continue to treat our futures as separate.