DON’T get me wrong, I love Canada. I am grateful for the privileges that are available to me as a Canadian and that Pakistan could not provide — the safety of life and liberty; access to the best education; access to better healthcare, and most of all, access to a better future for my children. But I also love Pakistan and my heart longs for a day when my children can return to a country where there is protection of life and liberty, where education and healthcare is accessible to all, and where future generations of Pakistanis are world leaders in every way.

The relationship between countries and immigrants is symbiotic. Immigrants bring with them economic growth. They bring an influx of cash that is immediately injected into the economy, and continue supporting it through taxes. Their willingness to move in order to find jobs allows for the smoothening of local booms and busts, reinforcing productivity. Immigration improves the quality of the workforce as highly educated and skilled individuals are now part of it. Access to technology, academia and social resources allows immigrants to contribute to the country where they have settled through innovations and private business endeavours. All this helps generate income and employment.

Take a look at the Canadian ‘Federal Skilled Worker’ selection factor website, for example. Most of the most points allocated cover language competency, education, experience and age. The highest level of education (doctoral) and experience (six-plus years) in tandem with youth (18-35) scores the most points to meet immigration requirements. Candidates must also possess sufficient funds in their bank accounts (a family of four is required to have $22,603); and be healthy enough to not cause excessive demand on Canadian health or social services. Immigration is an investment; Canada wants the best of the human capital avail­able in the world.

Immigrants must uplift those left behind.

In return, countries like Canada provide access to a better life, though perhaps not so much in terms of status, even wealth. Most immigrants already possess a privileged status and wealth. They are privileged to be educated enough to qualify for immigration; their education allows them to have language competency and work experience. They are privileged to have enough capital to not only fulfil immigration requirements, but also to establish themselves in a new country.

This privilege, however, also endows a voice capable of shedding light on social and institutional injustices that exist in their homelands — a social currency capable of bringing real change in these countries. Hence, as the best of human capital immigrates, the country left behind is devoid of these social voices, social currency and resources.

No one can argue against the right to aim for safety of life and liberty. However, the devastation caused by poverty, inequality and corruption is then concentrated on the ones left behind without resources. Remittances to the underprivileged through non-profit agencies are simply not enough. A balance between social care and social conscience is necessary for any social change. Hammering a nail into the wall or sponsoring a family’s groceries is critical, but it does not address why these people are underprivileged in the first place.

It is the responsibility of the privileged to use their voice to stand up to the violence and oppression against the underprivileged whose voices are not powerful enough in their own country, and to speak out against the poverty, inequality, corruption and oppression in their native countries. After all, their privilege provides them protection against the backlash and repercussions that the vocal underprivileged back home would face.

They have a duty to shed light on the impediments in their country of origin because no one else is aware of them. And it is their duty to use their education to create opportunities that the underprivileged can benefit from. It is up to the privileged abroad to use their social currency and, together with social activists and social engineers, reconfigure their communities back home.

Granted that structural issues take a long time to change; nevertheless, immigrants have a moral responsibility to bring into focus societal and structural issues in their country.

Societal changes are not products of individual will, but rather of privileged men and women supporting grass-roots groups striving to bring change. Many oppressed groups in history have been successful, in part, because they have had the support of a few privileged individuals or groups. Refusing to acknowledge one’s responsibilities as privileged immigrants not only makes us guilty of social negligence, it also makes us accomplices to institutional obstacles responsible for poverty, corruption and oppression back home.

The writer is a graduate student at the University of Toronto and working on raising awareness of South Asian cultural issues.

Twitter: @shahanigans

Published in Dawn, October 2nd, 2016