Intentional or not, Onijah Robinson — and the world — recognised the brutalised caricature of Pakistan for what it was, writes Benjamin Ashraf [photo credit: Moataz Aboamer/The New Arab]
I’m sure it didn’t take Onijah Robinson long to realise that, much like in New York, survival in Karachi is all about hustle.
She must have felt it the moment she landed at Jinnah International Airport, surrounded by a sea of shalwar kameez-clad locals shouting, “Madame, please”, as she grabbed her bags off the carousel, preparing herself to meet her e-husband in Pakistan for the first time.
It’s a daunting prospect for the uninitiated; the scenes at the arrival hall contain just about every element necessary to heighten the senses.
Even for us Pakistanis, Karachi has something of a reputation as Pakistan’s untamed and outgrown metropolis — a place where the promise of riches and romance are tested along the shores of the Arabian Sea.
Karachi’s motto, therefore, ought to be one of caution. In the city of 20 million, most who chase fortune end up empty-handed. Few leave their mark. But Onijah Robinson, the ‘American woman in Pakistan’, clearly ignored this advice and, for nearly a week, stole our screens and hearts.
In a world where debating the merits of bachelors and bachelorettes has become a global pastime, and self-conscious trivialisation carries the weight of political discourse, it’s perhaps no surprise that she took over our timelines.
It’s a love story tailor-made for the internet: a ‘catfish’ romance between a 33-year-old African American and a 19-year-old Pakistani, fuelled by fleeting anxieties and an unhealthy dose of peacocking — until it spiralled into a meme.
But I’d argue that the story of the ‘American woman in Pakistan’ is more than just algorithmic brain rot. Without sounding overly dramatic, the whole event felt somewhat allegorical.
In the weeks leading up to Onijah Robinson’s arrival in Pakistan, anti-South Asian hate had once again crystallised across the Atlantic. In Britain, communities of Pakistani descent were scapegoated for the crime of child grooming. In the United States, South Asians faced the wrath of MAGA following the H-1B visa debacle, while figures like J.D Vance and Elon Musk backed efforts to rehire a DOGE staffer who had openly called for the “normalisation of Indian hate.”
It felt impossible to go a day without seeing videos that ridiculed South Asian accents, appearance, or cleanliness for likes. And this tide of xenophobia appeared unrelenting until Onijah Robinson entered the fray.
Only in Pakistan
Not even the wildest imaginations of Lollywood could have scripted what happened next.
Rejected by her suitor’s family, Onijah Robinson moved from heartbreak to hustle, standing before a bewildered Pakistani press corps and began issuing a series of absurd ultimatums.
“My plan is to reconstruct the whole country, I am asking for $100,000 or more,” she said. The ‘moah’ emphasised with a thick New York accent, her hair partly covered with a black hijab. Then, she demanded money, land, and a Pakistani passport. “I won’t speak unless I get $5,000 a week from you — in US dollars,” she told reporters.
Bingo. And just like that, folks, a niche internet micro-celebrity is born.
Yes, there are real concerns about her mental health. Yes, it’s alleged that she used Instagram filters to pose as a white woman with blonde hair. But no, this story isn’t just about Onijah Robinson — it’s about how she was treated.
Long before the so-called ‘War on Terror’ began, Pakistan and its diaspora had been vilified by Western media to such an extent that it permeated into real-life bloodshed. Make no mistake, the legacy of ‘P*ki bashing’ remains very much alive even 50 years on.
When polled, 85% percent of Americans shared an unfavourable view of Pakistan, making it the second most disliked country in their world after Iran. Following the Obama-era doctrine that treated Pakistanis as mere collateral damage in US drone warfare, it’s no surprise that, for many American teenagers, Karachi and Pakistan exist only as killing fields in Call of Duty.
Yet here was an African American woman treated with (shock horror) compassion, receiving free housing and healthcare in a country that Joe Biden once deemed “one of the most dangerous nations in the world.”
Whether intentional or not, Onijah Robinson — and later the world — recognised this brutalised caricature for what it was. “I don’t live here, [but] I’m chilling,” she told ARY News in a viral clip which has since been sampled by Pakistani electronic musicians.
Far from being a land of “nothing but lies and deceit,” as Donald Trump claimed in 2016, the saga has instead revealed the extent to which the US has lied to its people about the Pakistani character.
African American TikTokers even compared Onijah Robinson’s experience of hospitality in Pakistan to author James Baldwin’s time in Paris — where he reflected on the relative reprieve of racial discrimination as a black man in France versus Jim Crow-era America — drawing a distinctly Gen Z parallel to Plato’s Cave.
Not a coincidence
The US strategy of “forever wars” depends on political and media institutions to depict Pakistan and others like it as genetically violent NPCs, a narrative that keeps the culture of colonisers in a place of hegemony.
At the material level, this extends from racial violence at borders, through detention and deportation, to justifying US war crimes in Waziristan.
At the psychological level, this logic seeps into society and reduces our men to barbarians, our women to silent victims, and our children to mere vessels of radicalisation — until rare moments, like now, when this ideological Iron Curtain is pierced.
The world has started to see through the façade. Now a simple YouTube search for “Pakistan travel” reveals a more positive trend: Why are Pakistanis so hospitable? Pakistan is NOT what I expected! What the media doesn’t tell you about Pakistan. And this isn’t just about Pakistan, it’s true for every country listed on the NYPD’s infamous “ancestries of interest” list, coincidence or not.
The truth is that this treatment isn’t an exception, it’s the rule. In both Farsi and Urdu, the phrase Mehman Nawazi — the art of caring for one’s guests — defines how we ought to treat one another. It’s a quiet custom with no direct equivalent in English, tying a guest’s comfort to a blessing from God.
Perhaps the US and Europe would do well to reflect on this custom rather than branding Iranians and Pakistanis as their most hated people, detaining Latin American children in ICE facilities, forcibly deporting refugees, or turning their ‘hospitality industry’ into a commercialised enterprise. Rather than preaching about civilising missions, they might consider practising a little Mehman Nawazi themselves.
Pakistan could use a fair dose of it too; it is far from perfect. The mass expulsion of Afghan refugees last year was a dark stain on the nation and it remains a country on life support. But, after over 20 years of largely externally induced instability, what Pakistanis long for more than else is a sense of normalcy — whether through the unintended tourism PR from Onijah Robinson or the return of international cricket — a right that has been denied for too long.
When I first came across this story and the media storm online, I couldn’t help but think back to an old interview with Youssef Chahine and how it relates to the moral of this story. In the interview, Chahine is asked about his identity as an Egyptian film director, with the underlying assumption that being an Arab must be difficult.
“Are you from the Third World?” the British interviewer asks with detachment. Chahine scoffs, “No, you are! Jesus Christ, we’ve been around for 7,000 years, and we proved we were civilised 7000 years ago,” a cigarette bobbing around his mouth as he spoke.
Though taken aback, the interviewer continues to question Chahine’s definition of civilisation by poking at material progress. “That’s not civilisation,” Chahine responds. “Civilisation is how you connect with others — do you know how to love? Do you know how to care?” The interviewer falls silent.
Pakistan, too, has been around for more than 7000 years via the Indus Valley Civilisation. It, too, is a so-called Third World country. But if the story of Onijah Robinson has taught us anything it’s that it, too, knows how to love and how to care.
Benjamin Ashraf is an Editor at The New Arab. He is also a Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Jordan’s Center for Strategic Studies.
Follow him on X: @ashrafzeneca
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Opinions expressed in this article remain those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The New Arab, its editorial board or staff, or the author’s employer.
