How Boomers are responsible for Pakistan’s own migrant crisis

Boomer by definition means someone born between 1946 and 1964. Informally it is referred to as a mindset that is outdated and has no place or value in the current society as per the youth. The Pakistani boomers in this regard are responsible for promoting their backward and narrow-minded views to the general public especially towards the youth which represents a large portion of Pakistani society. Most Pakistanis celebrate the fact that this country has a young population but what is the point of such a major young population that instead of limitless opportunities, the opportunities are limited and people rather than being encouraged to ask questions, promote new ideas are being dumbed down and everything is seen as an attack on the government? (which in most cases might not be the case and even if it is, what is so wrong in calling out the governments for their incompetence?)

I saw this Al Jazeera documentary called War, Lies, and Hashtags: Pakistan’s Twitter Battles. The observational documentary, in my opinion, is one of my favorite documentaries and the Pakistani team as well as others involved responsible for it did a splendid job, there is no doubt about that but if one focuses on the story, it is not a story of praise but rather of a terrifying monster. The terrifying monster that is propaganda and how a young couple who could have achieved so much in life whether by their non-digital professions or even as digital creators were used for the state’s own purposes. This is not to say that neighbors don’t resort to this. They obviously do. I’m mentioning them here just to forward the idea that I’m against their human rights abuses and their tools of propaganda as well so I’m not labeled anything I’m not. This brings me to another problem, the fact that anyone that has a differing opinion is labeled anti-this and that has forced me to clarify even the obvious. This narrative has led to a migrant crisis. This migrant crisis is not born out of war where people are forced to leave one country for another which is safer but a migrant crisis of intellect and progressive thinking which has gone down the drain and will continue to go down as new generations come until it’s not stopped. That is one aspect of the migrant crisis here that are just lost refugees somewhere who will keep on searching for sense out of things that are obvious but are framed to believe that the world is just viewed in black and white.

The other migrants here are the talented youth who leave the country for better opportunities elsewhere. The idea that exposure is good is really flawed as is the concept of unpaid internships. There is this common belief that just because boomers had it hard, they have to make things hard for the younger lot as well even though with access to technology and other new things, this world should be made easier for them. People struggling and trying to get by to make themselves successful is obviously understandable but purposefully creating problems just because they had it hard is bullying which makes the youth leave this country for another one. Speaking of technology, Pakistan has a good number of freelancers be it content writers, video editors or graphic designers but when it comes to options like PayPal, Amazon or even the video game PUBG, one comes to the realization that the boomers do not realize the potential of tech nor do they understand how it operates and how they are harming the careers of the youth. The Supreme Court considering to even thinking of ban YouTube is problematic in itself. It does not matter whether it would be enforced or not right now but the fact that this is even a discussion should simply speak volumes about the people ruling this country or in senior positions have no idea how the world which is connected with technology even operates. This is not just limited to the tech industry but just simply look at the people in bureaucracies and other institutions. What do graduates and young people do then when the country they were born and raised in displays nepotism in all of its forms? and not even subtly This is not to say this concept does not happen in other third world countries but the whole point of this discussion is that it should not happen and is not fair to the people who are otherwise boasted as “The future of the country”. It has given birth to such a dangerous concept that people think getting ahead here is simply done through connections and hard work and determination are pointless if you are not sly enough.

The third aspect of the migrant crisis here is mental health. This reality has promoted depression and the feeling of hopelessness in the youth. Mental health services here are limited to a certain class and those who are not part of it just simply suffer. The migrants in this case become hope, happiness, and satisfaction which similar to the first aspect is simply lost or locked up in a theoretical refugee camp.

All the aspects here are connected to youth and the migrants here are progress, talent and happiness which are all lost all thanks to the boomers. The solution here is not to say that people should leave the country for good and look for another country with better opportunities but if things here cannot be fixed then that is the last resort obviously.

So what is the solution to this migrant crisis? The solution is to simply question the boomer mentality here. The first step is to comment “Ok Boomer” on their social media handles to make them realize that their concepts and view of the changing world has no place in modern society. The previous sentence is just a joke as well as a form of simple criticism. What can be done here is that the boomer institutions realize that the youth are not happy with how things are going and they should be given a say in how things operate around here because much of the laws and how these institutes want to run the show affect the youth and as history has shown not in a good way. Another thing that can be done is that since the youth are the future of Pakistan, they get positions in institutions and let the boomers retire because a country run by the youth for the youth will not only enable new ideas but also keep the young people’s interest at heart as well.