Can we do more?

The image of Aylan Kurdi shook our collective conscience. The boy, whose story ended up in tragedy, on the one hand held a mirror to our values, and on the other shamed individuals and governments into doing more. While the topic was discussed and debated with passion in most newspaper outlets around the world, it did not quite become a major issue in the Pakistani press. In particular, the politically sensitive topic of what the Gulf countries are, or are not, doing was ignored completely.

On social media, however, there was substantial discussion, along with the circulation of a graph showing that Pakistan hosts the largest number of refugees (upwards of 1.6 million) than any other nation. Never to miss an opportunity for chest thumping, many friends and colleagues were quick to show that when it comes to generosity and hospitality towards refugees and migrants, Pakistan is the world leader and well ahead of any other country! Iran was our closest competitor with about half the number of refugees on its soil as Pakistan. While there were a number of problems with the shared image, including the fact that the source of the information was not there and the number of refugees listed for Turkey, Jordan and Egypt were way below the estimates from UNHCR, the fact that Pakistan has hosted a large number of refugees is indeed correct. However, one wonders if having a large number of refugees is a solution in and of itself? Do we, as Pakistanis, consider hosting refugees an act of generosity, hospitality and goodwill? Or do we consider it a mistake of an era, where many mistakes, domestic and foreign, were made in the name of religion? More broadly, what are, in general, our views about Afghan refugees?

A couple of weeks ago, I had the opportunity to have lunch with an ‘analyst’ from the National Defense University at a conference in the UK. During the course of the lunch I asked her about numerous challenges facing the country, and as the conversation turned to polio, she made it clear that it was a foreign problem, and the only reason we had this issue was because of the presence of a large number of Afghans in the country. Afghans, according to her, were bringing the problem to Pakistan and had WHO allowed us to separately report the problem in native population and refugee population, we would have shown the world that Pakistan is also polio-free. While bizarre and incorrect at so many levels, I had heard the same twisted story from a number of people in Islamabad earlier this summer, including a reasonably high-level bureaucrat. The facts that dispute this assertion notwithstanding, it shows a broader trend of xenophobia that extends to nearly all strata of society. The celebration of our values, as a country with the highest number of refugees, is therefore not without irony.

Having a large migrant and refugee population is indeed challenging, particularly for a country with limited resources like ours. Whether to assimilate and integrate, or to host people for only a limited time, the issues are thorny and can get people easily aggravated. Our problems and challenges aside, there are fundamental questions we have to ask ourselves. Are we doing enough for our refugees? Or are we ready to blame all our internal problems on a group of people that is foreign? Just because a particular security incident is connected to an ethnic group, or to a refugee population, does not mean that the entire group of over a million is guilty. We have to go beyond the hyperbole, and ask ourselves hard questions about social justice, education and health facilities. Are there areas in which we can do more? Are we even willing to have this conversation?

The next time we celebrate our hospitality and accuse certain European leaders of xenophobia and blatant racism, let us ask ourselves: do we, as a society, stand for better values?

Published in The Express Tribune, September 8^th,  2015.

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