One can easily understand the reasons that force the poor and not so poor to leave the country in search of a better tomorrow. It is a compulsion for them, not a choice, due to their economic suffering and social degradation in their own homeland.

Leaving hearth and home is a difficult decision, to say the least. It is doubly difficult for ordinary mortals because they will have to struggle at least at two fronts; economic and cultural. They can find reasonably good jobs if they are skilled workers, and menial ones if semi-skilled or unskilled.

The big problem they face is of cultural nature. Firstly, they would face discrimination born of open and hidden racial bias on foreign lands. It would dim their chances of getting better jobs. Foreign language spoken by the immigrants also becomes a hurdle especially in matter of speech which sounds strange, even weird for the native speakers. The problem is exacerbated by the immigrants’ strong organic link with their own culture and little exposure to the western values and social mores. Their accent would be frowned upon if not outright ridiculed. So they would have to live with their hurt ego and lowered pride creating psychic situation that would impact their mental and spiritual health. And they suffer this pain of humiliation in order to have a semblance of decent living for themselves and their families in a world where poverty is projected as an individual failure, not a product of an inequitable class society based on traditional hierarchies.

But what about our rich and famous? Why do they leave this country? They and their families undisputedly rule the roost. They can get away even with murder. Then why do they leave when they have made enough money through means fair and foul, mostly foul. They in fact start settling some members of their families abroad as early as possible. It is much easier when you have wealth and power. To begin with, they get their sons and daughters admitted to foreign universities least bothered by the hefty charges they have to pay. Students get good education and then extend their stay to be in line for permanent residence over there that eventually paves the way for their citizenship. Those who cannot have this sort of arrangement choose a different path; making investment in countries they want to settle in. Naturally, no country refuses money when offered even if it’s dirty. So they invest their ill-gotten billions abroad and buy the rights of citizenship. Such people have no cultural problem as they are already westernised in their way of living and socio-cultural habits while being in their own country. This facilitates their assimilation in the culture of their adopted country. Only their skin-colour betrays that they are a different race. They are rarely held responsible for the crimes they have committed in the countries they come from. If ever questioned, they would respond: “But that was in another country, and besides, the wench is dead”.

Here lies the clue that can lead us to understand this conundrum. Our rich and famous treat their country as ‘another country’ that can be ruled, exploited, plundered and debased at will.

The colonialists proved in a way better than this lot. The former plundered but enhanced the productivity that created wealth. The latter take the task of ruling as a licence to plunder all the resources and wealth created by the people with their hard work without adding to their capacity to create wealth. The one extracted in the name of ‘civilizing mission’ while the other continues to do exactly the same in the name of nation and national ideals the post-colonial state has set its sights on. Consequently there is economic, social and cultural chaos bordering on anarchy. The rules of the games are upended. In the absence of a revolutionary upsurge of oppressed social forces, the lack of respect for the rules immensely benefits the rich and famous who can act with complete impunity in their power game.

One may ask how do they survive rather thrive in such a fraught situation? They do so by creating islands of apparent peace and tranquility for themselves in the midst of chaos with the coercion of state apparatus that is always at their command. But can one live on the sea free of fear of being swept away by a high tide or tsunami? Being cocooned from the threateningly restless world by the power of the class and the state can provide a false sense of security as the poet Brecht points out: “We have sat, an easy generation, in houses held to be indestructible/of all those cities will remain what passed through them, the wind”. While being ensconced in their seemingly impregnable islands a doubt keeps continually nagging them; they may be vulnerable to outside hostile social forces. Such a doubt creates a state of uncertainty which can cause mass neurosis in a society of which we are a prime example. Our rich and famous have created this intractable situation with their culture of impunity.

In a nutshell, it’s they, who with their unbridled appetite for lawlessness sharpened by misuse of power of class and state, have made this country a space free-for-all. The unending shenanigans of mafia like quasi-legal factions have led to the country’s economic mismanagement, administrative dysfunction, politicisation of judiciary, ideologically motivated distortion of history, violent fundamentalism and erosion of what little we inherited in terms of democratic values. Things have come to such a pass that all the segments of ruling cliques have no faith in the future of the country because their very actions have rendered it nearly uninhabitable, even for them. That’s why they leave this country especially after their stint in power. They rush to the cosy nooks and crannies of the developed world to enjoy what their illegitimately amassed money can buy. They lavishly enjoy abroad what they stringently oppose in their own home land; an open democratic society. Their flight to safe havens is to cover their crimes while ordinary mortals’ desperate effort is to leave the country in order to ensure the survival of their families that often ends in a painful failure. Chest beating over the developed world’s double standard won’t help. Hypocrisy is natural when it comes to choosing between the poor and the rich aliens. The real question is; why do our people feel as if they are aliens in their own homeland? — soofi01@hotmail.com

Published in Dawn, September 11th, 2023