Exodus

JULY 2001 - It would be almost true to assert that deep down, no one really wishes to leave one’s country and live abroad because no matter what, the country you belong to is the one that matters all said and done. It is also fairly obvious now that so disillusioned and despondent have we become about the present state of Pakistan – let us forget it has a future, that given half the chance – no, quarter the chance, most of us are willing to take the plunge and head abroad. There is an exodus and it is real. It is also very frightening.

While rummaging through some old papers, I found immigration forms for Canada that I had filled out a lifetime ago. For the life of me I cannot recall why I should have gone to all that trouble and then backed off. What sort of disillusionment must I have been suffering from so many years back or was it just the idea of living elsewhere? Later, there were times when thoughts of settling abroad crossed my mind. There was a standard of life abroad, there was the excitement of new cultures, cuisines and civilizations to discover, and above all, there was jazz - well at least for me. The idea of strolling into a smoky, dimly-lit bar packed with aficionados, a saxophonist playing ‘My Funny Valentine’ was intoxicating. But the dream remained a dream and the only visas I ever asked for were the non-immigrating type. Perhaps those were better times. Perhaps we still had hopes that Pakistan was the place to be.

On the night Mr. Bhutto took over, in spite of the mauling the country had taken and the loss of East Pakistan, there was still a strong feeling in many of us that although battered, we had taken up a journey that would take us forward. Peace in our lives and prosperity for the people who lived here. That’s all we asked for. As the national anthem played on TV and the flag fluttered, there was a feeling that the bad times were over and happy days were here. How tragically wrong that was. From one misery we continued to plunge into another. As the years slipped by, even the expression ‘going to the dogs’ took on new meaning. We continued to sink lower and lower and each time we paused to take a tortured breath, we consoled ourselves with self-reassuring clichés. We had hit rock bottom, but we were on our way up. We had sunk to an all time low, but there was only one way and that was up - platitudes served to extend the grand delusion. Now, like many others, it is difficult to ignore the reality that after rock bottom there is a void, that sinking into a crevasse of failure doesn’t necessarily mean it will come to an end, that falling doesn’t mean a miraculous rise to the top.

History is cruel which is why people are not comfortable reading it, let alone understanding it. Today, at the start of the new century, we are in deep crisis. Slogans and promises won’t solve the problems. Somehow we have to get rid of the grand illusion that the world revolves around us, that the sun shines only on us and were anything terrible to befall us, the world as we know it would never be the same. The fact is that we don’t really matter any more, in spite of the prophesizing deities who feed us the old garbage about our destiny and the great role assigned to us on the world stage. We have no role. We are history. Kaput.

What else can explain the devastating statistics that a Gallup poll has thrown right into our faces? A recent study reveals that as many as 62% of the adult population has indicated a preference to relocate abroad. In 1984, seven years into one of the worst reigns in our chequered and sad history, when Terry Thomas ruled supreme, only 17% were ready to migrate. 1984 is not a distant memory. We all remember that terrible time and the plague that came with it, but between 17 and 62 is a gap that is too awesome to comprehend. The survey slaps you in the face with one fact. No one wants to live here anymore. Can there be a more damning verdict? The US embassy in Islamabad is buried under immigration visa applications – triple the number in October 2000 over the same period in 1999. Canada has 40% more visa applicants this first quarter than last year. Doctors, lawyers, IT professionals - all want to head out for a better life. Well that list is not new. What is new is that agrarian workers, farmers, farm-hands, labour are desperate to quit and the lines outside the embassies grow longer. That is the scary part. How bad do things get when people who till the land throw the shovel aside and walk away? Surely they must be the last to think of leaving. They don’t have degrees or skills that an IT pro can tout. Their bond with the soil gives them a strong sense of identity. If those bonds are now torn and tattered, the myth of nationhood tossed in the air, the game is over. The sad statistics cannot be denied or shrugged off.

Most people believe that there is nothing much that can be done to save this country. Just because Mr. Jinnah made it or just because we regard ourselves as the chosen few, no longer can keep us together. The disillusionment of the people has not come overnight. Years and years of exploitation by those in uniform and those without, has taken its toll. The spirit of our people has been broken. We all know the reality of Pakistan too well. We all know that progressively this nation has been abused more and more, that the chasm between those who have everything and those who have nothing, has only widened. While the working classes worked, paid more and more for less and less, the looters have been at work, not merely siphoning off other people’s money but worse, ensuring perks and privileges for themselves and getting fatter and richer by the minute. How can the generals and before the the Sharifs, the Bhuttos and the rest, justify their shimmering Mercs, their opulent lifestyles and their liveried retainers? There is a world we all believe in and there is the reality that is Pakistan. When people no longer want to listen to lies and deceit, they pack their bags, sell what they have and go away. Law, order, accountability, tolerance, fair play are bad jokes and they have been repeated too often. We can fool the people. We can’t fool time. Time to take stock? Who is going to do that? Not this lot and not the next. Only when the common good of the maximum people becomes our mission, will things start to change.

Mr. Wasim Sajjad made sure that his letter appeared only a day later after last Sunday’s column – there is clout there as well. He said that all his trips were ‘duly authorised’ and I was dead wrong. He never made 101 trips. Only 50 or more. I rest my case.