Empty houses and runaway boys and girls

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What is happening to us as a society requires our serious attention as well as introduction of many reforms. This is not something that we are not aware of, but voices must continue to be raised to continue to build public perception, awareness to build and influence public discourse. The breakdown of the old ways is a societal reality, and the target of this breakdown are our individual families. We are losing our children. Parents try and give the best education to their children and in the process lose them altogether because more and more of them are leaving the country.

Metaphorically, the story can be told through the lives of immigrants. Our children choosing to move and live in other countries and not the countries of their birth - in the end, leaving their parents in their old age to live in empty houses without them. Over the last few years, this phenomenon has escalated and if it continues then it will have far-reaching consequence for our society and for us as a nation state. Like Deng Xiaoping of China, Lee Kaun Yew of Singapore is also credited as a leader who moved Singapore from poverty to prosperity in a single generation. Any state is a laboratory and nation-building are experiments that we conduct in this laboratory. When once asked to quote his greatest accomplishment, Lee Kaun Yew replied that it was 'creating a nation state'.

Today most of our children, part of the generation Z, feel alienated. They don't feel part of the group, the society and the nation state as exuberantly as we the baby boomers did or still do. Why? Globally, the changed behaviour of this generation is being attributed to its loss in the faith in the joint family system, religion, politics, existing norms, institutions, etc. The laboratories of the nation states which are devoid of this realisation are conducting all the wrong experiments giving results that are unfruitful and which in the words of Thomas Friedman are creating young minds that think of themselves as 'anywhere' rather than 'somewhere'. This is decline of the concept of nationalism.

Take the example of the American President who has come to the office riding on the strength of his core mission: 'America first'. Today the immigrants, mostly the illegal immigrants in the US, are jittery but if we look at the data and see that only in the year 2022 there were over 2.4 million illegal crossings along the southern border of the US, we would realise that as President his concerns are genuine and the reform he wants to put in place is more nationalist in character. His critics, mostly the liberalists, will call him an autocrat, dictatorial, ultranationalist or downright fascist but he is focused on bringing in a reform that is good for his country. Liberalists strategic logic that only a fascist could construct such a strategy is actually a message to the American people to continue to vote to power even in future an autocrat to do jobs that the liberalists refuse to do. For the Mexicans, the opportunities that America offers are unimaginable in their own state. Their state carried out all the wrong experiments and the results of these experiments had little benefit for them. The feelings of frustration, uneasiness and alienation now push millions of them to greener pastures of the US.

Recently, 44 Pakistanis died when a boat carrying illegal immigrants capsized in the Atlantic near the Moroccan port of Dakhla. For Pakistanis at home, the turning of the boat upside down and the tossing of the unfortunate passengers to their death is not the only tragedy. The greater tragedy is the prevalent process of turning the entire political system in the country upside down and forcing the various institutions to seek their existence and relevance by attaching themselves to the dictated political causes. Broadly speaking, this top-down dictatorial method is cracking and crumbling all the necessary freedoms that helped leaders like Lee Kaun Yew to create a nation state.

Liberalisation is a principal core of modernisation and the baby boomers and generation Xers who are in the leadership role are undertaking all the wrong experiments to impose radical ideas on society and preserve the top-down created order that does not enjoy the popular will of the people. This is pushing our children to 'anywhere' rather than pulling them to 'somewhere' - their own country - Pakistan.

During the French revolution, France also tried to impose radical ideas from the top. It resulted in societal disruption, widespread violence and social chaos which ultimately led to dictatorship. British MP Edmund Burke gained fame for opposing the French revolution. He believed that the revolution was illiberal, too radical and was not drawn from the society. He warned that it would lead to violence and anarchy, and his assessment was absolutely correct.

Constitution is like a holy book of politics. There is no politics if there is no respect for the constitution. American constitution lays down the original conception of any government protected by the constitution the founding principles of which its founding fathers demanded from every American to protect. The principles of liberty and equality and the right to fraternity are not myths, and which even President Trump has vociferously vouched to protect. The generation Z in Pakistan questions - what about our liberty? Our equality? Our right to fraternity? Is it too difficult an experiment to undertake?

Our children, the generation Z, is eloping as they hardly relate to generation Xers' consistent attempt to promote its abstract notion of politics on a society which is very reluctant and unwilling to accept. To the Xers who are holding the positions of authority, top-down extremist actions may seem satisfying but these actions are only creating large-scale disappointment and bottling up frustration in an angry generation Z. They see no hope. They are willing to elude and even the parents see little incentive of them staying on. This is a real story of home-alone parents wondering if politics in Pakistan will ever become a problem solver and if the country will ever lift and grow so that the next generations parents don't have to relive the story of empty houses and runaway boys and girls.