Journey From Kamalpur: A Memoir

In Journey From Kamalpur, Shabbir Cheema narrates his life from growing up in a mud house in rural Pakistan - suffering a decade of sickness, poverty and sectarian prejudice as a child and a teen-ager - to becoming a leading scholar and an advocate of democracy and governance at the United Nations, State Department's East-West Center and Harvard University. In his compelling memoir, Cheema interweaves stories about: his own struggles, perseverance, motivation and self-realization; his passion for democratic governance; opportunities provided by America and Pakistan; reconciling, as an immigrant, the cultural differences between his two worlds; and the dynamics of his families in the United States and Pakistan. He discusses the political turmoil and the role of military in Pakistan and their impact on the relations between the U.S. and Pakistan after 9/11; and his efforts to give back by engaging in the American public diplomacy programs and the United Nations' initiatives to alleviate poverty, improve the urban slums and build democratic institutions in Asia, Africa and the Arab region. He makes the case for continuing the struggle for social justice, good governance and the rule of law.

In the first section of my memoir, chapters 1-5, I describe my early life in Pakistan: my home, the poverty of my family, my sicknesses and early education, my low self-esteem, the factors that motivated me to try to excel, and my admission to Government College University Lahore as a major step on the ladder toward self-realization.

In the second section, chapters 6-9, I tell about my move to the East-West Center in Hawaii as a scholarship recipient to pursue my PhD degree; living and teaching in Malaysia; my time as a UN official based in Japan; and my transition-within the period of eight months-from Japan to Hawaii and then to New York.

In the third section, chapters 10-12, I describe the impact of 9/11 on my life in the United States, and my role, within the UN and UNDP global platforms, to advocate for policies and programs to provide shelter and basic services to urban slum dwellers, and to redirect UNDP grant assistance for the promotion of democratic governance in developing countries. I also relate stories about giving back to Pakistan and the United States: through the East-West Center's public diplomacy programs for journalists' exchanges between the U.S. and Pakistan; through two advisory missions to Iraq in support of the U.S. State Department's program on strengthening governance after the second Iraq war, and through my time at Harvard University.

In the epilogue, I reflect on the current situation in the United States and Pakistan: