Muslim diaspora

LIFE AND TIMES OF
Muslim DIASPORA



Muslims have a long history of migration. They initially spread out to seek territory, look for business and proselytize. In later times a substantial number left their homes to seek better future, as the countries of their birth had suffered from plunder at the hands of colonists. Colonial rulers transported a great number as indentured laborers to Africa and South America. In the second half of twentieth century they went west for higher education and unlike their pre and immediate post independence predecessors, many elected to stay abroad.
Most of the seekers of knowledge returned home, sometimes bringing white wives of generally, though not always, lower social order in their own country. But these were the children of the native elite or the rare one possessed of high intelligence from genteel and impoverished stock, which would be sponsored for higher education with a view to marrying a daughter of the house. These Students concentrated on law, medicine or literature. The former made up the core of the leadership of Indian Independence movement. Jinnah, Gandhi, Nehru, Liaquat and most of their associates were London trained Barristers. Professors in Medical schools till nineteen sixties were exclusively UK trained. US and locally trained physician joined the ranks later.
WWII brought an earth change. Flower of British manhood perished. There ensued an acute shortage of skilled and unskilled manpower. In 1945 elections labor party won. They introduced National Health Service. British doctors boycotted it for a few years. To cope with the short fall the government actively encouraged doctors from the Indian sub-continent to come to the UK.
British government also offered all kinds of inducements and facilities for illiterate laborers to immigrate and work in the country. Working class was not only in short supply, but was in ferment too. Progressive movement was on the upswing in all of Europe. Manual workers from the subcontinent did not ask for any thing. They flocked from Kashmir, Punjab and Sylhet. Seeds of hatred sowed at the time between whites, blacks, browns and yellows persists grew like weeds into a storm of racial riots.

Early sixties saw the trend change to Doctors passing ECFMG examination and going to USA and Canada .USA, unlike the UK and Canada where you just had to buy a ticket (UK put restriction on immigration in June 1962 and Canada in December 1973), screened visa applicants, so only the educated or the rich investors could get in. This measure was good national policy, for every Doctor, Scientist and Engineer the country saved $200,000.00, it would have had to spend educating and training one of its own. And they did not even have to acknowledge the receipt of this aid!
Other educated persons and skilled workers also made a conscious decision to make their way to the USA. Engineers didn’t do particularly well till the influx of computer techs in the waning years of twentieth century. Accountants, Attorneys, Dentists and pharmacists had more bothersome restraints put on them. United States Government (USG) policy, as usual, was market driven.

Many Physicians like me moved from England to Canada and USA and had to go through several years of training over again. By the time I arrived in the USA in 1974, a substantial number of expatriate Doctors were well settled in private practice and lucrative and academic hospital based jobs, owned homes and had started investing in commercial property They were well on the way to becoming substantial citizens. Like all upwardly mobile groups their next focus was on professional organizations. APPNA (Association of Pakistani Physicians of North America) was founded in mid seventies. Because of its economic clout it developed great influence on Pakistani rulers and a few of its leaders have parlayed their influence into cabinet level jobs back “home”. They enjoy easy access to congressmen and senators, and actively participate in electoral process, fund raising and even running for office. In due course they become members of the establishment, belong to Rotary and other civic clubs and send their children to expensive private schools
The groups do a lot of charitable and social work. I would like to make a special mention of Asian American Network against abuse (ANAA) which is one of the more vibrant human rights Advocacy groups and lobbies for legislation to eradicate gender discrimination, honor killing and dowry murders .
Foreigners, especially Muslims suffered a tremendous set back and lost a lot of ground post 9/11. But they have exhibited a great deal of resilience and are inching their way back into mainstream society.
This brings me to ABCD’S (American Born Confused Desis, another campus nick name). Having put five of my own through college I am eminently qualified to dwell on the subject. South-Asian parents are highly focused (my American friends say obsessed) on educating their children. They forego vacations; some work two full time jobs to send the young ones to the most expensive schools they can get into. They make the children attend prep schools during vacations, (while their native peers are working summer jobs and partying,) and get them tutored by private academies for SAT . I personally know of instances when mothers have grounded kids for days if the school grades were not high. Their only competitors are Jewish mothers.
Results justify all the parental dedications and heartburn. These new Americans are up right citizens, and combine the virtues of both the worlds. They are bold, confident and honest citizens. They stand up for their rights, are not easily cowed by state apparatus, challenge any slight or discrimination, yet remain loyal to family, faithful to friends, and considerate of the dispossessed. They are articulate and social, and mix easily with “old” and “New” Americans alike. They have done well in their careers, reaching executive levels in all professions. They have gone into professions their immigrant parents found difficult to break into, like Law, Finance and Communications.
The trait of self-reliance, courage and independence of young girls is particularly gratifying. They assert themselves; take no such nonsense that they are delicate, dainty, helpless and emotionally labile beings, who should have half as much inheritance as their brothers, and half the vote as a witness.
We have come a long way from the portrait of “innocents abroad” of five decades ago and have come of age as a community, matured and stabilized into an integrated whole which owes allegiance to the land it lives and works in, and to which its future is inextricably attached, yet find time, resources and will to try to bring much needed solace to our kith and kin left behind at “home’ as most of first generation expatriates call the countries of their origin. We were strong enough to with stand, shaken, but not broken in spirit by the after math of 9/11.
As a part of the global trend there has been considerable regression to obscurantism. Christians, Hindus, Muslims and Jews, all are affected. In the fifties and sixties liberalism and secularism dominated. As a reaction to neo-imperialist hegemony and inept non representative governments in Asia and Africa which are unable and un willing to tackle economic, health and educational issues and have failed to eradicate social crimes and control population explosion, a lot of people have sought shelter in orthodoxy, exclusivity and intolerance. With empowerment of masses, freedom of expression, diversion of resources from the bottomless pit of war machines to economic development, this reactionary phase will pass too, but not with out a fight.

Educational council for Foreign Medical Graduates was set up to evaluate the training of non-American Medical graduates. It set up an examination which all foreign doctors, except for Canadians, had to pass in order to apply for and be accepted for training in the USA. After a year of training you were required to pass FLEX-Federal licensing examination also conducted by ECFMG that gave you a license to practice independently. The system was later changed. All medical graduates, Americans and foreign had to take the same USMLE- United states medical licensing examination.
I have dealt with the issue elsewhere. It will bear brief repetition. It is a euphemism for tribe-clan murder rooted in the feudal mind set and is a thinly disguised subterfuge for keeping land and other assets in the family. The case of a girl and (her friend) accused of illicit sexual relations is brought before a tribal court. She is not allowed (if not already killed) to appear in her own defense, nor may she present witnesses. A guilty verdict is inevitably handed down. The pair is executed by the girl’s family. If the case ever gets into a formal court of law, perpetrators are granted lenient punishment on the grounds that it was crime of passion. The practice in various guises is very common in Pakistan and other Muslim countries and to a lesser degree in India and Latin America.
Scholastic Achievement Test is conducted by an independent commercial group and is given considerable weightage during the assessment process for college admissions. 1600 hundreds is the maximum number of marks one can get examinations. It is called the perfect score. In my hinterland of Bath NY several students, all of expatriate origin, made the grade