Every Georgetown student has seen Pierre Teilhard de Chardin’s quote in the ICC Galleria. “The Age of Nations,” the French Jesuit writes, “is past.” Writing after the calamities of the First and Second World Wars, one can see his point. Unbridled nationalism brought the greatest nations to blows, elevated fascists to power, and fueled the hatred that destroyed much of Europe.

I made the mistake this past June of taking my bicycle to a sports bar off Union Square to watch Spain trounce Germany in the European Cup final. I say “mistake” not just because the team I favored played so poorly and lost, but because, sadly, my beloved mountain bike was stolen.

As the son of a Pakistani immigrant, I’ve always felt integrally tied to events in Pakistan. Since my childhood, Pakistan’s endemically unstable politics have always been a topic of conversation at home.