For any morally alive nation, the drowning of 400+ civilians – while trying to escape the country – in a shipwreck should be the ONLY talk in the country for weeks. We, however, still have bigger issues to discuss like the attack on a part of a building a month back or how the former prime minister acted during his umpteenth court hearing of the month.
Our nation seems to be undergoing a perpetual slumber. Nothing is enough to wake us up from it. The deadly floods of 2022 and the thousands that are still homeless. The worst form of state brutality on civilians. The never ending economic woes. The rise in poverty and hopelessness. The loss of crops for the second consecutive year. The very real impacts of climate change. Fellow civilians dying in lines for cheaper wheat. Nothing has been able to awaken our collective consciousness. The deaths of our fellows in the Mediterranean is only another addition to this list of unfortunate events.
Last Wednesday, an illegal migrant ship capsized and sank near southern Greece. The ship was carrying over 750 migrants – mainly from Pakistan, Egypt and Syria. At the time of writing, the confirmed death toll has reached 82, while hundreds are still missing. There are debates circulating around the effectiveness of the action taken by Greek coastguard and an accountability process for them. Although those are important points to discuss, our focus here is on the domestic side of the issue. There were over 400 Pakistani nationals on board – the largest number – and so far, only 12 have been found alive [1].
“Why has the homeland become so suffocating that people would rather die in an unknown sea, than live here?“
What should have been a national emergency, leading to collective debate amongst all strata of society, has largely been ignored by our media, intellectuals and society at large. It is almost as if hundreds of people, risking their lives, piling up illegally in an over-saturated ship, sailing away to an unknown land, with no certainty of reaching there alive is a normal daily occurrence. The boat disaster near Greece is only one of numerous such attempts being made by thousands of desperate Pakistanis to somehow make it out of the country.
Yet, there are no efforts are being made to understand WHY so many people are putting their lives at risk just to escape Pakistan. Why has the homeland become so suffocating that people would rather die in an unknown sea, than live here? PIDE reported in December that 37% of Pakistanis would leave the country if given the chance. More specifically, 67% of young people want to leave the country [2].
The ground reality is that Pakistan currently has the highest inflation rate in the whole of Asia – standing at 38% in May [3]. This is accompanied by rising unemployment, production units and companies shutting off and a decline in economic activity. In simpler words: not only do people have to pay extra to put food on their tables, they also have lesser money available to do so.
For many of us – especially those in the power corridors and those who have a platform to speak – inflation matters little because we have the privilege to continue living the way we were even with the price hikes. For millions of our compatriots, however, this is not the case. Inflation is affecting people in a myriad of ways, and has made people desperate beyond measure. Desperate enough to board a ship which provides little guarantee of landing on the shore.
There are two things that are even more unfortunate than this event in itself, though. The first is the level of indifference shown by our authorities, the media and the society at large. Yes, the Prime Minister announced a day of mourning and an investigation against those who facilitated the migration, but that is not enough. What is needed is a broad-based dialogue and understanding of the reasons leading to such migrations in the first place. What is needed are structural changes in the economic and social dynamic of the country.
Irony is that just a couple of days after this disaster, the government was preparing a “Chairman Senate (Salaries, Allowances and Privileges) Bill”, under which extraordinary facilities will be provided to one individual at the cost of the taxpayer money – adding further financial stress on the civilians [4]. Meanwhile, our media and other vocal individuals are still busy talking about the ‘9th May tragedy’ (read: burning of a building) and the same old narration of what Imran Khan did, who said what about him and the surrounding theories.
Little screen time is being given to the massive tragedy surrounding our fellow Pakistanis suffering in the Mediterranean because this discussion is bound to uncover a range of structural faults in the system and some level of fault at all of our hands. We would much rather ignore the problem altogether than solve it in depth and fix our ways.
The second unfortunate reaction to this tragedy was in the minority, but the fact that it existed was enough reason to include it here. A handful of people resorted to victim blaming, with statements like ‘why did they choose such an unsafe passage in the first place?”, “they could have used this money to set up a business in Pakistan” and more. This shows the level of disconnect that exists between different socio-economic classes in Pakistan. No rational human being puts their life at risk unless its a necessity. The reality is that people really are this hopeless regarding the situation in Pakistan. This is the level of desperation to get out, in hopes that they will get some reward for their efforts abroad, which they are unable to in the country.
There is a lot to unpack about this tragedy. A discussion in entirety will expose many people – perhaps many of us too – in contributing to the system that is on the verge of collapse. Our silence, the benefits we derive from the skewed system, our focus on quick economic fixes over structural reforms, our import of luxury products at the cost of necessities for millions of individuals, the apathy of our leaders and much more. These are all the issues that will come into light once we start talking. And we will have to start talking about these before it is too late, and we lose even more lives to such tragedies.
For starters, the entire civil society needs to ensure that this is the main issue being discussed on media as well as our policy circles. We need to ensure that this level of negligence cannot be brushed under the carpet. Yes, policies need to be made and implemented to curb illegal migrations. But policies also need to be made to ensure that every single Pakistani has at least enough income to put food on the table for their families, so they don’t have to resort to such desperate measures in the first place.
More importantly – we as a nation, need to come out of this collective slumber that we are comfortably residing in. If we need just one reason to stir our dying morality, let this be it.
Very well written!