Dawn Images

Who gets to represent Pakistan? Well, it depends entirely on who you ask. Some people would say not all Pakistanis are ‘Pakistani enough’ to represent our country.

When the British-Pakistani Roma Riaz stepped into the spotlight at the Miss Universe competition in Thailand, social media had a lot to say. None of the discourse appeared to revolve around the fact that she is British — instead, people seemed to cared more about the colour of her skin and her weight. They claimed that she didn’t represent Pakistan.

This is about more than body shaming and colourism — it’s about who gets to represent Pakistan in front of the world. Riaz isn’t one of the fair-skinned waifish models we see on our TV screens. She looks, as she said in what we believe was a wholly unnecessary defence of herself, like one of her people.

Pakistanis seem to think the fair skin we are constantly sold as the ideal of beauty is the standard in our country, conveniently forgetting that we are brown. Pakistanis come in all shapes, sizes and, yes, colours. If we looked beyond our television screens, we’d see that the average Pakistan does not in fact have skin fair enough to rival Snow White. Though our colonial overlords left decades ago, their standards and ideals about beauty remain, and to no one’s surprise, we embody those ideals in the choices we make.

When the stars of most of our television shows are petite, fair-skinned beauties, whose foils are more often than not, duskier toned women, when fairness creams continue to be used and when words like “jamadaar” or “maasi” are used to degrade models with darker skin, is it any wonder that Pakistanis have a problem when they see a confident woman who doesn’t match those standards we’ve been fed our entire lives?

Instead of tearing her down, we should have been rooting for Riaz, cheering her on and offering thoughtful commentary or constructive criticism on what could have been improved. But in this climate, even constructive criticism would likely have been viewed by her detractors as fuel for their hate-filled fire.

Riaz represented Pakistan with grace and dignity. Did we think that sometimes her sartorial choices could have been better? Yes. But that the commentary about her representing Pakistan devolved to near-constant criticism of her looks is a sad reflection of Pakistani society. It is also indicative of the twisted ideals we have about just who can represent Pakistan — someone who fits our incredibly narrow standards for beauty, standards that most Pakistanis wouldn’t be able to meet.

Cover via Roma Riaz/Instagram