Asian Quest for West

I was invited to speak in a conference in Manchester, New Hampshire.  Had a wonderful time with friends there and also in Boston where I followed the freedom trail.  Then took a bus ride from Boston to New York to get the feel of the land.  

While I was there, I asked my host to take me to Plymouth, Massachusetts, where the pilgrims from England landed in 1620 to seek a better and freer world where they could be what they wanted to be. Being in the actual place of which I had only read was very special and helped me to imagine the pilgrims’ quest somewhat in a personal way. 

I began to think of how, if given the chance, most of the developing world would like to immigrate to the US.  It would take a radical person on a religious level to reject an invitation to move to west from any of the Asian nations (from anywhere in the developing nations for that matter).  Coming from South Asian context, I am inclined to think that this desire to move westward is even stronger in my part of the world than anywhere else; especially after the Second World War and the independence of Indian subcontinent.  As nations overthrew the yoke of colonization, people breathed the sigh of relief and things like self-respect and freedom were at their doorsteps.  For over a thousand years, the Indian subcontinent suffered bitter subjugation at the hands of the Islamic and the European conquerors and finally in the 20^thcentury, at the heels of a major war that still defines world history; freedom and prosperity became real possibilities for the colonized nations. 

When the colonies were experiencing the taste of freedom from tyranny for the first time; the Europeans had ascended the hills of renaissance, enlightenment and were basking in the glory of modernity in the age of reason, science, and technology.  The quality of life was greatly enhanced in the lands where freedom, reason, science and technology flourished.  The colonized witnessed the glimpses of such a life when their colonizers used the natives and their natural resources in making the European life even more comfortable.  Thus, on the one hand, the colonized detested the European colonizers but on the other hand, the colonized were attracted to the kind of life the colonizers were enjoying. 

As the new nations began to take steps in actualizing freedom and prosperity, peoples’ patience was tested by political instability and rampant corruption in these new nations dashing the hopes of progress and prosperity.  Thus, and ironically, migration from east to west began even as the colonizing masters were still on their way home from the colonies. 

Interestingly, this desire to move westward to seek a better world did not begin in the east as we understand today, it began in the west. The English dissenters attempted to move eastward to Holland where they could live in freedom but they could not last there, not that Holland was a bad place.  They just did not feel at home there and finally, on board the Mayflower, sailed westward landing in Plymouth.  Seven years prior to their arrival, 104 Englishmen had landed in Jamestown, Virginia, making it the first colony in the new world under the English Crown.  The purpose of Jamestown immigrants was money and trade while the pilgrims at Plymouth were seeking a place where they could be who they wanted to be and worship God the way they felt right.  The same thing could be said of the Jews who found refuse in the West than in the East after their nation was destroyed.  Going back to Abraham, we see him also taking a westward journey. 

There is something magical that attracts people to the west.  Is it the sunset? Whatever that maybe, most people in South Asia dream of making the westward journey in their life.  There are valid reasons as why such a quest is justifiable.  In the eyes of such aspirants, the majority of those making this move experience better quality of life while the possibility of progress in their own nations increasingly becomes limited or non-existent.

But the world has changed from what it was 50 years ago and this change is only accelerating in our times.  As the Asian societies mature into established democracies and the demand for honest government grows from the public, the interconnectedness of the modern world can provide the possibilities for one to succeed without making this westward move at the expense of one’s identity.  One does not necessarily have to lose one’s heritage, nationality, language, and culture in order to gain a materially comfortable life.  There is much to life than mere material success that the west appears to provide or provides the conditions to prosper.

Unless your country is tyrannical and limits you within its confinements, bars you to exercise your freedom and deprives you of the possibility of learning and innovation, you can achieve and fulfil your dreams without the loss of your hometown, your childhood memories, and cultural connectedness; you don’t have to be a pariah in a foreign land.  No matter how much you try to assimilate in your adopted country, a modern immigrant will always live with the feeling of being an outsider in any nations.  Thus, in today’s world, the quest for west is not necessarily a good thing as it used to be in the past.  

However, it is essential for one to travel around the world to get the personal feel of the land and culture.  But even if one does not have the means and the chance to travel around the world, one can easily educate oneself through the readily available resources that are placed within our reach with a click of a mouse. One can walk in one’s city square and meet people from a number of different countries (unless you live in North Korea) and begin a conversation to get the feel of what it is to be in contact with people from different cultures.   I may not get the chance to drive along the Rhine river but look at this video (Visions of Germany Along The Rhine)that gives you such a real life experience of visiting these amazing places. Even if you were actually traveling there, you won’t get such up-close and personal experience of this beautiful land. There are amazing documentaries, films, movies, and travelogues which virtually can take us on an actual ride around any city in the world and not leave our homeland.  

The world has become a global village and we need a global mind instead of an immigrant mind and success can be at our doorsteps whether we are living in the mountains of Nepal and Bhutan or the plains of India and low lands of Bangladesh.