The hall at the Pakistan Embassy in Washington glowed in Christmas colours on Saturday evening.
Red and gold decorations framed the space, while green — the unmistakable green of Pakistan — appeared everywhere: in flags, ribbons and lapel pins. White lights shimmered softly, echoing both the season and the crescent-and-star that defines the country these guests continue to call their own.
The pre-Christmas gathering, hosted for Pakistani Christians and their neighbours, began and ended with a chant that left little doubt about that bond: “Pakistan Zindabad.” It was not a slogan offered for form’s sake. It was spoken with warmth, conviction, and an insistence born of long experience.
For more than a decade, speakers noted, such gatherings have brought together Muslims, Christians, Hindus, Sikhs and Jews — a quiet tradition of interfaith fellowship that has survived politics, violence and neglect.
A message from the Virginia governor praised the organisers’ work over the past twelve years and encouraged the embassy to continue supporting initiatives that unite people across faiths.
Dr Srilekha Palle, an advisor to the Virginia governor, spoke of India and Pakistan as neighbours “so much alike,” expressing a hope to visit Pakistan one day. Loving one’s country, she said, was inseparable from faith itself: to love your homeland is to reflect your love of God.
Several speakers returned to that theme — patriotism without exclusion, faith without hierarchy. Pakistan’s Deputy Ambassador Batool Qasim described the dinner as a long-standing tradition meant not only to celebrate Christmas but to welcome Christian brothers and sisters and their neighbours into a shared Pakistani space.
Visits to Pakistan by members of the Christian diaspora, she said, often become moments of rediscovery — “encounters that help them understand the country beyond headlines and fear, and help others see their place within it”.
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