What's Wrong With 'Paki'?
Not long ago Prince Harry made headlines for calling one of his coursemates from Pakistan a ‘Paki’ and the tabloids continued to carry this as the main story for the next three days. The prince quickly offered his apologies and the dust was settled. The matter looked familiar to me so I spent some time thinking over it. It happened before in 2002 when former (haha!) president George W. Bush said “..the Indians and the Pakis…”
Couple of days back I was asked by a local what does Paki mean? I had no idea! So, I googled the term and discovered this on Wiktionary:
The abbreviation Paki acquired offensive connotations in the 1960s when used by British tabloids to refer to subjects of former colony states in a derogatory and racist manner. In modern British usage “Paki” is typically used in a derogatory way as a label for all South Asians, including Indians, Afghans and Bangladeshis. To a lesser extent, the term has been applied as a racial slur towards Arabs and other Middle Eastern-looking groups who may resemble South Asians. During the 60′s many emigrants were also dubbed as “black” to further segregrate them from the white community. Some would say such a division still exists in parts of England.
In recent times there has been a trend by second and third-generation British Pakistanis to reclaim the word. The word has been turned into a keepsake for the young British Pakistani community that is not acceptable for someone outside the community to say it, including Indians and Bangladeshis.
Now I fail to understand why is it such a big deal. Don’t we use the term ourselves? (at least I remember the usage a number of times)
If Australians can be called Aussies, British called Brits, then what’s wrong in calling Pakistanis as Pakis?
Even if the term was invented as derogatory I’m pretty sure now its usage is mostly to abbrevate the longer version.
I’m not sure how the others see this but it will be interesting to note the views.
21 comments
Well if u wouldn’t had mentioned it in ur post that its used to degrade south asians i would had never known.
So paki is same as “sub L” and “CP” we can interpret in the manner that suits us. Having said that if general public doesn’t want to use it we should refrain from doing it so.That is what i think.
I remember using this word, and then one fine day, somebody stopped me from saying it. And the explanation was keh “This is a bad wordd..It has really offensive meaning attached to it. You should never use it”
And from that day onward, we all started taking “Paki” as a bad word. Er, I don’t really know what’s WRONG with it, other than the fact that Brits still use it in offensive terms for South Asians.. But a/c to the literal meaning .. isn’t paki = purity?
..Who the hell knows!
I’ve always just thought it was a British thing. In America I’ve rarely heard it and when I do it seems to be as an abbreviation. I’ve seen the video and it doesn’t really sound like he meant and derogation by it. What I find more telling in the video is that Prince Harry pronounced the Pakistani cadet’s name – Ahmed – pretty well. I think that perhaps shows more. Unfortunately these day no one ever goes out of their way to learn how to properly pronounce foreign sounding names.
as a minority, one thing i realised is that if you are comfortable with the offensive remarks used against your people, then the person who is trying to offend you loses his power. if you are comfortable with whatever bad words he chooses to use, then he can’t get under your skin and you’ve taken away his power.
my choice of nick can be understood as an extension of that thought. however, since none of us ever had to go through what this term meant, and how it was chosen to exclude and humiliate south asians in britain, it would be insensitive of us to think that the word should be ok’ed, because its not part of our experience. a friend of mine who grew up in england in the 80s would be regularly ambushed by a group of white boys on way to school, who would proceed to kick him in the face as they chanted paki, paki. not sure if he would find paki acceptable no matter how innocuous we think it is.
i think if someone in england turns around and says whats wrong with calling someone a madar-ch*** or behen-**** it would still not magically become ok for us.
that said, it is a shame paki is a bad word, because its quite a cool word to have. stuff like paki power and what not.
I only found out that it was used as an offensive term when I saw Bend It Like Beckham. It’s like black ppl calling themselves the “n” word, no can say it except for them.
I guess because in society it’s a slur, when used it can be accounted for as a slur. Better to take care not to use it than to use it and offend someone.
@Awais Karim
How can Paki be used to degrade Pakistanis? It just baffles me.
@Uni
Exactly, we should love it when they say Paki
@TheGoriWife
True. Unfortunately the media has a habit of going after little things. Welcome to my blog!
@karachikhatmal
About your friend, he could have equally be kicked by guys chanting Pakistani! Pakistani! Would Pakistani then be considered a slur? And I also agree to your last part of it being cool 
I totally agree with the first part. I have to add that if the term being coined as an insult infact means something bad then the point can be understood. But Paki doesn’t even mean something bad
@Yawar
Welcome to my blog!
Well, if I use it I will not offend others. Pakistanis can always use it in any case
Using the phrase PAKI has always been percieved as derogotory, it falls on par with calling a black person a “nigger”
I think it is highly amusing that this clip has been released into the public. It is of great public interest to know the real attitudes of our royal family.
Maybe Prince Harry will think again next time, he maybe dons a Nazi outfit? or utters a rascist remark???
i found the nazi uniform scandal just as idiotic as the ‘paki’ propoganda. It was a frickn fancy dress party, what was wrong being dressed as a Nazi? You can’t erase history. If you wanted to, you’d stopproducing WWII epics every year.
And anyway, the playboy bunny or she-devil costumes are much more disturbing.
well i guess its just the image that is associated with the word ‘Paki’. When u use the work ‘Paki’ in UK, u dont really mean someone from Pakistan, u basically mean someone who is most probably doing something shady, might even be involved in drug dealing and stuff like that. You might have noticed yourself that there was a time wen a black man was usually the bad guy on British TV, this honor is now slowly being given to ‘Pakis’…obviously its got to do a lot with the British born Pakistanis’ behavior but then they do stereotype to a great extent as well.
Waise, dont ever call a greek ‘yunani’, they find it offensive.
I have figured out the usage of the word Paki, but we should try to change it and not feel bad about it even if the others try to use it in a derogatory way. If we are not offended by it, then its no more derogatory.
If Pakistanis use the word amongst themselves…I have seen it writing in forums and on blogs because it takes a long time to write Pakistani…that is one thing. But in the context of a non-Asian person saying it in a country and cultural context such as the UK, it is, as mentioned above, on par with other racial slurs for Blacks, Jews, Chinese, etc., used by Brits and used in the USA, essentially meant to otherize, degrade, and dehumanize the intended target of such words. These words carry a heavy weight despite any presumed innocence of their utterance. We should guard ourselves from their usage.
Man just call them “Farangi” or “Safaid Chamri Walay” or whatever if they call you Paki, that’s what I say. I don’t find Paki offensive. It makes me feel proud. And “Pakistani” does more than that.
@KK: Same goes for “Khatmal”. Man, why didn’t I think of it first?
I don’t find it offensive either and don’t even care if someone intended an offence!
I love being called Paki. It is my identity. I guess the only thing we can do is that we should thank anyone who calls us Paki. It is a compliment, I think. And I believe the Foreign born Pakis have made this term into an offensive term, not the Goras. They must have felt offended when someone called them a Paki, those wannabe ********.
Same here man!
Nothing wrong, so to speak magar it started off as a racial slur and still is recognized as one. Personally, I’m ok with it too but with the derogatory meaning associated with it, you wouldn’t wanna use it in public.
it’s all about the tone. the way a lot of us say ‘goray’ could be considered offensive by the goray. But you’ll find that the angraiz have become a lot more open to supposedly ‘racist’ terminology against themselves.
a word’s only offensive if you take it to be. A lot of women use the term ‘bitch’ as a compliment. Instead of taking everything as an insult out of this inborn sense of insecurity, Muslims in general and pakistanis particularly should try to become people nobody thinks of insulting.
Going by cultural anthropology, it is not the literal meaning of a word that matters at times, it is the connotations it carries or its origins which are significant.
There’s nothing wrong with the word, its just that it has got a ‘racial’ touch…
paki dosnt mean pure, pak means pure. there is a hell of a lot of a difference in both words. PAK means pure and ISTAN means land. So say pakistani. end of story.
I just can’t seem to understand how any one can be upset about paki I can’t imagine living in a forien land and being insulted by being called a Brit