The real difference between US and Pakistan

America has its fair share of problems and troubles. Only one race represents the overwhelming majority of the prison population. The constitution has a built-in system to block democracy. It is called the electoral college vote. Corporations can donate limitless cash in political campaigns so as to gain favourable legislation from the candidate they help during campaign. The fourteenth amendment was originally meant to give equal rights to freed slaves but it has been used and interpreted by the American judiciary to give corporations the same rights as American human citizens have. Well, actually more but that’s another topic for another day. The government lies to its people during wartime, which is a code word for unchecked presidential powers. Wartime is also a continuous status quo. America is always at war.

The list is long. However, I want to compare America with Pakistan by focusing on the opportunities and equality that the people in America have. And I am using the word ‘people’ not US citizens. Everyone can make it here. America is still the land of opportunities.

Countless people have already said this before that in America your hard work pays off. The real beauty is that you can be in any circumstances and be born in any family or live anywhere but you can turn your life around. You can change not only your life but the lives of those who depend on you. You can live the American dream not by being born in the right family or know the right people necessarily, but by hard work.

Pakistan doesn’t provide those opportunities because it’s not as rich as America is. Listen, I know this. But in Pakistan, you can’t change your destiny. With the exception of a few outliers, such as cricket stars, it would be hard if not impossible to find examples where unfair means weren’t used to gain success.

A person’s social status and birth in an underprivileged family lock their fate. There’s no escaping. There’s no reset button. The odds are against you and the system is your enemy. What’s more disturbing is that the culture is your enemy too if you’re poor and not mean. You’ll continue to live in that orbit where life never changes and success never intersects. You’re incompatible with the system and the culture and you can’t update your software either.

In America, people are from all kinds of cultures, religions, and regions of the world. What’s common between them is one document. That’s what makes them all Americans. It’s called the constitution. In Pakistan, it’s the constitution that’s not common for all.

With the advent of Islam, people who were previously born as low caste and spent a miserable life with no chance of escaping the system designed against them found a way to hit that reset button and achieve equality. Today, Pakistanis don’t have that breakout opportunity that the low caste people had back then. When people can’t break out, then they either break down or they break bad.

The majority of Pakistanis especially the ones born in underprivileged class are no different than the low caste Shudars and Dalits. We may mock India for treating their low caste citizens horribly and they do, but Pakistan has an overwhelming majority that’s treated as low caste just without the label. Speak Urdu, wear Shalwar Kameez and be poor and rest assured you’ll stay poor. Speak English but be morally corrupt and you’ll revel in high places.

Let me tell you who has respect in Pakistan: the killers, the land grabbers, the mean, the dangerous, the cunning, the deal makers, the swindlers, those who steal on a mega scale, those who can afford to put a journalist in their shopping cart, and so forth. Here’s the difference between America and Pakistan in a nutshell: good people can find success in America as well as the bad and the ugly. In Pakistan, success is only for the bad and the ugly.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 13^th, 2022.

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