For good times only?
April 16, 2001
Fortunes of nations are made and unmade by the will of its people. But this will has to find expression through a competent leadership, not just political and not just individual. It is, ultimately, the educated and devoted elite which leads a country to its destiny. While we justifiably mourn the absence of honest and competent political leaders, and some still hope for a messiah, the collective failure of its ruling elite has now increasingly become the focus of explaining Pakistan's inadequate performance.
And, thanks to its avarice, now that the going has become tough, it is the more privileged class, on whom "this country" has showered many bounties, which has begun to see no future for their scions except in finding a space abroad. Babies are being given names that will roll easily off Western tongues.
But the phenomenon is by no means either always a happy one, or even a consensual family decision. Middle aged parents, who could afford to educate their kids in the best institutions in Pakistan, are emigrating to give their children a foreign education and, what they believed to be, a better future. That they themselves are often miserable for having to work beneath their social and intellectual status, turns to morbidity and venom against the mother country which, they convince themselves, left them no other choice.
In other cases, the kids simply take-off leaving behind old and lonely parents. They are, of-course, expected to understand. Whether they really do, we cannot know for they will not open their hearts. But loneliness is writ large on their creased faces even as they stoutly defend "their decision" to let the children go "considering the state of this country." Often they even sell family assets to fund the kids' desire.
Is the privileged class, then, justified in charting the course it has for itself? Regardless of the brain -- and resource --drain on the country, or the plight of the stranded older generation which has invested its life in the children, it is difficult to question the right to do what people deem best for themselves.
The information revolution has opened up the world to those with money and talent. The opportunities offered by the West can never be matched by the poor country which nurtures and educates these bright young kids. And the state of our country isn't good either, we know that too well. By all canons of cold logic, therefore, they are right in opting out. But why, then, doesn't Dr Pervez Hoodbhoy live in the USA?
The well known physicist of the Quaid-i-Azam University, also a scholar, educationists, anti-nuclear and pro-peace activist, was asked this question in a TV interview. He has, he said, visiting assignments in the MIT and the University of Maryland, goes there occasionally and "gets some work done." But living there permanently, no. Why for God's sake?
Because, he says, he has here something that he does not find elsewhere -- a sense of belonging. Dr Hoodbhoy obviously puts more premium on this unquantifiable feeling than all the money he can doubtless earn in the USA. Besides, what he can do here, he says, is more valuable and rewarding than it would be abroad. So, he stays on and strives to make a difference despite all the professional and personal aggravations that he, and others who stand up for their beliefs, have to undergo in "this country."
Incidentally, his older brother, Dr Samir, had also left a plum job in the USA (and a serene suburban house by the Mississippi river) to come back home. He runs a successful business in Karachi and is also associated with Hakim Said's Hamdard University. The Hoodbhoys, and many others like them, represent the other side of the coin.
Those who see brightness only across the oceans can of-course laugh away the "sense of belonging" as being wholly unequal to the rigours of living in "this country" where nothing works without money or "sifarish." It is indeed difficult to argue with them. If the complexities of life are reduced to materialism, it becomes so much clearer in certain ways.
What it loses in the process is mostly unquantifiable, like the sense of belonging. To this can be added so many others -- the priceless joy of being with friends and family, the immense emotional (and even financial) support they provide in times of adversity. Perhaps patriotism can also be invoked, and the obligation to repay the motherland for what it has given us by struggling against the wind to light a candle.
If everyone abandons the stricken ship, angels will not descend to salvage it. If even a few stay aboard, as they will do, it can be steered to shore. Loyalty to the land, as to family and friends, is not after all for the good times only. The bond is for better or worse, particularly the latter. Adversity is the best test of an individual, as also of a relationship.
Even so, this is neither an argument against emigration, nor a "love it or leave it" tirade. Human migration is a universal and eternal phenomenon, and it is perfectly rational for bright and enterprising beings to seek greener pastures. Besides, more often, the migrants love the mother country more intensely, and help it more effectively, than many residents can. Chinese and Indian emigrants are contemporary paragons.
But consider this down to earth example. Her grown and "globalised" children having gone their way, this lady moved to the USA mainly for the care it gives to the elderly unattended by their children and grandchildren. The sale proceeds of her house in Islamabad were deposited in a local dollar-account as a hedge against inflation. Informed recently that the rupee had plunged and she had made a pretty packet, her instinctive reply was: "How sad for the country."
Against this simple and unaffected concern for the country, there are the drawing room discussants who talk endlessly of the ills of "this country" with a surreal sense of detachment. Their impersonal tones, and cruel comments, suggest that the subject is someone else's country whose fate will not touch them or their children.
Perhaps it will indeed not, as many of them have either squirrelled abroad the wherewithal for bad times and will take off at the first hint of trouble. Some have gone already, including many who have done the greatest damage to the country. Or, as they have done for centuries, they will bend to the storm and, having weathered it, be the loyal subjects of whatever follows.
Most of them, thus, have no stakes in the health of "this country". Not surprisingly, therefore, there is no element of concern in forecasting doom, much less the desire to do something to avert it. This disconnect -- the absence of a shared interest between the ruling elite and the country -- is being seen as the main reason for the absence of a determined, backs-to-the-wall, fightback.
This cannot happen until all shades of the elite acknowledge "this country" as our own and its ills are our own doing. On the contrary, the cruelest cut is that those who moan the most are also the ones who have profited the most from "this country." Sit in on any drawing discussion and be the judge.
Most of the vociferous ones will be from the rapacious elite, bureaucrats, politicians, landlords and businessmen, which has let down and robbed the luckless country. Yet, there is no acknowledgement of failure, let alone guilt. In sharp contrast, those who have benefitted the least will stand up for the country. As for the vast majority which has been wronged the most, it never speaks against the country. It blames the robbers.
So, emigrate by all means; but please don't run down the country to justify this choice. And discuss its failures by all means, but own them and the country; and put in some feelings, and some soul-searching on what each one of us can do to stem the slide.
Please remember also that, while we certainly haven't lived up to our expectations, the country has done better than many others. And, against tremendous odds too -- the most lethal of which is the kleptocracy. It can, and will, do much better the moment we start owning it and our own failures.
The author is a freelance columnist
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