While the policy is similar to what was in effect for Haiti, the funds collected are pretty dismal in comparison. For Haiti, the figure reached $113 million within a month which was in turn matched by the federal funds. For Pakistan, it is yet to reach the $7 million mark. With post-flood reconstruction costs estimated to go in billions of dollars this seems a pittance of a figure. Even the $450 million dollars appealed by Ban Ki-moon have not all come in.

But this does not mean that overseas Pakistanis have not risen to the occasion. Throughout Ramazan, iftar fundraisers continued relentlessly amongst Muslims of every origin - particularly from Pakistan and India - literally emptying their pockets. In Toronto, at one iftar dinner held jointly by a leading philanthropist, Khalid Usman, and a noted charity organisation, the International Development and Relief Foundation, $400,000 were collected within an hour. In another such fundraiser in Florida, a little over $100,000 were added to the kitty.

These are just two examples of numerous fundraisers that have been and still are being organised everywhere in North America. The government of Pakistan should acknowledge the overseas Pakistani community as a whole who are perhaps the single most dedicated donors as well as volunteer workers unceasingly working towards generating funds and channelising relief goods and efforts either individually or through aid agencies. And they have a tough task.

The 'non-brown' people have not opened their purses as they did for Haiti or for the 2005 tsunami. Some are non-committal about Pakistan's plight while others are wary of all things Pakistani. And since even during these catastrophic hours we continue to create bloody headlines of blowing up fellow countrymen and mayhem in religious congregations, who can blame them?

Calls for a better response to Pakistanis' plight continue but the comeback remains sluggish. Canada's Conservative House Leader John Baird called on Canadians this week to show the same “legendary generosity” to the people of Pakistan highlighting that their predicament is of equal magnitude but still the reaction is only minimal. And that too only if there is some assurance that their gifts of food, money, medical supplies and basic necessities will be channelised through persons who can be vouched for.

Needless to say that this is our lowest hour, but let's at least be grateful to those sons and daughters who despite the distance from their homeland retain their sense of responsibility to the land where they or their forefathers were born. It must be commended that they have struggled hard and achieved a status through which they can afford to assist their homeland of yore.

Pakistanis settled abroad have attained much name and respect in professional circles and they man a sizeable portion of the elite work force. Without being disparaging, I'll say that that is certainly not the case with Haitians. In Canada, though the scale tipped more in their favour because Canada's governor general happened to be a Haitian, she is probably just one of a relatively low percentage of successful Haitians around the world.

For the most part they are in the minor league and so in their case it was the average white Canadian whose heart bled for the poor, starving and devastated children. The endless stream of visuals that were relayed elicited barrelsful of sympathy and the average person felt compelled to chip in. Not so with Pakistan. We have infamously put our face on the world map as a terrorist state with a crooked coterie of leaders who have their finger on the nuclear button and hence can neither be trusted nor deserve sympathy.

Even now, Oxfam, one of the foremost international charity organisations is maintaining extensive procedures of accountability to assure donors that all funds are being honestly channeled. It is continuously documenting, filming and sending updated blogs from the ground to keep Canadian supporters satisfied. Overseas Pakistanis, as a unified strength, are doing their utmost to persuade all whom they can reach out to and to look beyond Pakistans sectarian violence, its terrorist legacy and its corrupt governance.