The Beggar's Patriotism

THE BRAIN DRAIN

One keeps hearing about this but never the numbers. And more importantly the reverse; those who come back. Not immediately but in time enough. Year to Year numbers on these things for contrast are useless. A bachelor's goes for 4 years, a master for 2. A labourer (the majority) goes out on a multi-year contract.

Interesting thing. Most eventually come back. Ten to twenty years is the gap. Contracts expire. Not everyone gets citizenship. Et cetera.

The time in between though, it makes up for 9% GDP of Pakistan in the form of remittances. Twice more than any of our neighboring countries. And yet there is this thing about:

"staying in your country and doing something for it"

A poor man's thought.

Words you would never hear from a nation with pride (based on actual glory) in it's bones. Any such nation never presumes to speak as one. Take the Americans for example, you would never hear this from them because with them it is the reverse; keep the others out - we can stay or go to fuck all if we want.

The perspective alone tell you all you need to know. Now take this as a template and apply it to any nation and you'll know where it stands and why so.

CITY-STATES AND THE ABHORRENT MODERN-DAY NATION-STATES

I really don't understand this attachment to the concept of the nation. Celebrating the achievements of any people, large or small, is one thing, understandable in ways, but combining your identity with hundred's of millions or restricting it to broad geography (including past peoples) is a modern day disease. Unprecedented in history.

Rome at the time of Caesar had about 500,000 people. Genghis has 1 million under him. The Last Prophet had about 250,000 people near the time of his end; while only a few tens of thousands before this point. These are not soldier numbers but total populations they governed over. Afterwards the empires expanded and conquered more and more but remember that the governance methods were highly decentralized. No Caesar ruled Egypt; they administrated it i.e. taxed and enacted the equivalent of broad Laws; nothing at all resembling todays exhaustive legal frameworks.

Identity was even smaller in those eras. You had loyalty to your King or Lord (decentralized administration) because they protected you and your right. Most likely unless you were a complete peasant you more than once met your lord or heard him speak face to face. Then you had loyalty to your tribe and religion too which was closely knit to your tribe once more. Lack of communication in broad meant that enforcing your interpretation of religion on others took massive repeated violent enforcement and then again only on the surface level.

And lastly/firstly it was to the family; same as today - so no more comment needed on this.

And then came the Nation - soldering everyone's identity to an abstract usually powered by idealistic concepts. The empires and their militaries fell because they simple could not amass enough men that some mythology of national identity could. The idea that this nation had suffered long enough at the feet of the elites and it's must now be protected and returned to its glorious past position. (Every nation believes it has a history that was bled over and if required will be bled for again).

Anytime in history, these empires actually tried to govern millions rather than just rule them, they all collapsed soon after. The modern Nation-State has not been truly alive for more than 150 years. A joke compared to historical timelines of Glory and Collapses.

NEIGHBOURS - NEIGHBOURS

Before I said that most eventually come back in Pakistan so allow me to post some numbers shamumbers too.

In Pakistan 60% of who leave are labourers. The gulf is their usual destination or some asylum awarding countries from which they almost always shift or straight up come back. 25% are students and 15% are Skilled workers.

A  fun fact: US is the only country to have a positive net migration (more coming than leaving) in the millions.

Now back to the mentality part. Any nation which has a restrictive culture, not necessarily laws, on migrating or leaving ones country is bound for failure and ironically dependent on migrants and imports. I really did not want to bring in India for comparison as external comparison is also one of the things I am talking against. (Peoples rich in thought compare themselves to internal standards of excellence, rarely external). But Alas, India does not have this rhetoric. They have national pride same as anyone else but not this passively contemptuous rhetoric against leaving the county. And thus they also have a high rate of skilled labourers leaving the country and eventually coming back in less than 10 years time due to the booming tech sector and in the mean time proving 4% of their GDP and hundreds of billions in remittances.

When China collapses (another topic - another time) in 15-25 years time; India will be set to take it's place. It is even following somewhat of the same story with a different past. One note: when I say collapse think about the USSR. Toe-to-toe with the American might at one time, solved poverty (a sad reality/joke), and afterwards it did not go anywhere; it fragmented and Russia is still a major player but they don't compare themselves to the Yankees anymore. But they used to.

Of all our neighboring countries - minus Afghanistan (poor documentation) - and all the countries currently in war on either side, Pakistan has temporary net migration rate of about 1.5 in the negative per a thousand people. People, the skilled and educated variety though the other is important too, coming back within 5 to 10 years is a boon; you get the foreign inflow plus the 'brains' back because most are still in their youth. People coming back after decades is useless.

If you were reading this for some point you must be disappointed. These essays of mine are more for Palaver rather than some bs intellectual discourse. It just the part of the great ironies of Fortuna; you don't get what you seek and what you try to stop, you end up causing.

Break it down to its components. Why does one person leave another? Their friend, their family, their loved ones? If it isn't something obvious like violence then it boils down to one thing;

suffocation.

You having to recycle your own breath.

Make of this what you will but as for this being Palaver between us - that's my next topic.