Hey, great story. Being an atheist from Pakistan as well I can relate to many of the things you said. And its also a bit freaky because we've both studied a few years overseas
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(I was in australia for about 3 years)
I went to fairly good schools as I said, but it was during my time in Azad Kashmir when my dad was posted there, that I experienced my first shock as a boy of religious abuse. I went to a school where during the Islamiyat lessons, the local maulvi from a Mosque teaching us how to recite the many difficult Surahs and Verses in the Quran. If anyone fucked up, boy or girl, he would grab their hand, and whip the kid on the palm with a foot ruler he carried with him. Now as a 10 year old, I was bat shit scared of what I saw, and when I knew I fucked up...i cried like hell in fear...to the extent that the Maulvi actually took some sympathy and left me alone without getting a rash on my hand. It went on for around 2 years, but I had managed to overcome any troubles and avoided any beatings (i have always been a good yet underachieving student) so I witnessed the thrashings but didnt get any myself.
I can really relate to you on that, we were also taught arabic in middle school (class 8th or so) which included quran, and it was so annoying. Even though we had a female teacher, she had exactly the same sadistic policy of making people read the verses and if you pronounced anything wrong she would hit you with this cane. Fucking cunt. That was the class I hated the most during all my school years, and I often started skipping school when she would test us and got poor score that year although generally I was a pretty good student.
It was during my time there, that I saw some of the many sexual perversions I would see eventually among boys and people in general at time.
Pakistan definitely has an annoying gay culture, because the guys aren't allowed near girls they often grope each other etc. Although I'm not sure how much of this is specific to Pakistan and how much is just regular teenager behavior..