It was a news item on BBC Asia Today. Pakistani students who graduated from university in countries outside Pakistan are coming back to their home country to contribute to its development. Pakistani businessmen whose enterprises have flourished in other countries aside from their own are also coming back to Pakistan to establish new money-making ventures with the hope of chipping in their own share.
Why the hell are they doing this? Are they stupid? I mean, Pakistan is poor and wretched just like any Third World country. Just like the Philippines. Millions of people there live in shantytown ghettoes, just like many people in the Philippines. The majority of people there are inadequately educated, are hungry, desperate for money, and for the most part also either underemployed or simply unemployed. Just like many Pinoys in the Philippines. This is the reason why so many Pakistanis have also left their country to look for better lives and opportunities abroad. Just like millions and millions of Pinoys!
And yet, Pakistanis who have found greener pastures in other countries are going back to Pakistan. So noticeable was this mass action that it was worthy of being noticed by an international news agency. Why? It is a question that would probably make any Pinoy overseas scratch his or her head. Oh yes. Why indeed. Pinoys who make it good in other countries would never ever consider going back to the Philippines. What for?
But these Pakistanis offer a simply-stated reason. "We owe it to our country to make it better," I remember one of them saying in an interview. Those other Pakistanis interviewed in the same segment used other words and phrases, but this goal of making their otherwise poor country better was the general sentiment amongst them. Well, wouldn't you know, these people still see hope for their nation!
Then again, perhaps Pakistan does have a chance of overcoming whatever problems might be dragging it down. Who can tell? Perhaps one day in the future, we Pinoys might see "Made in Pakistan" on cellular phones, shoes, toys, clothes, television sets, or whatever, as ubiquitously as those "Made in China". Perhaps there might come a time when we Pinoys would see our grandchildren working in Pakistani-owned offices, following orders from Pakistani bosses. It might even come to the point when unfortunate Pinays forced to sell their bodies for money might even see Pakistan as a viable destination, just like how many of these same unfortunate women perceive Japan today.
If ever that time does come, there'd be no doubt that these Pakistanis who went back home for their country would have played a large part in engendering it.
We Pinoys aren't the first nation of people who have gone to other countries by the millionfold because of our unenviable station in life. Way back, long long ago, the Chinese were already settling in other territories even before Magellan had landed in the Philippines. Much later, when Columbus landed on North America, it was the turn of those from Ireland, from Poland, from Italy, and from dozens of other countries, to go to America to establish their own stake at better lives.
We Pinoys are not the first race of people who have ever tried to find jobs and successful futures in other places. We are definitely not the first race of people to be labelled as "domestic helpers". It just so happens that right now, in our present milieu, we seem to be the only race of people who do anything and everything to deny our own Pinoy-ness. We hate being simply Pinoy. A Pinoy in America has to be Fil-Am. A Pinoy in Germany has to be Fil-German. Jose Rizal, who lived in and travelled to many places, in this frame of thinking, ought to have been called Fil-Am, Fil-German, Fil-French, Fil-Swiss, or Fil-wherever else he might have gone. Strangely enough, he preferred to be simply called Pinoy. Maybe because he felt proud of it.
Is there anything wrong with Pakistanis feeling so much obligated to make their own country better after having gone abroad? Would there be anything wrong for us Pinoys to feel the same way? Those Pakistanis are motivated with an overwhelming need to bring their country back up from the morass of political corruption and widespread poverty it is mired in today. When will Pinoys who have made it big in other countries feel the same way?
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