Educated Pakistanis are leaving the country in droves.
Various theories have been propounded to explain why more and more people (´intellectuals´ as some would call them) are leaving Pakistan for the West; the general impression being that they have no place for their country in their heart. The truth, however, is that it is Pakistan which spurns them and not the other way around.
This is especially so since Pakistan is rapidly evolving into a society where the primary determinant of social worth is money. Intellectual pursuits, whether in academia or the performing arts, are not only constrained by arbitrary and, frankly, ridiculous censorship, but are also regarded as the path of losers.
Take the case of historians. What hope do they have in a country that has no academic infrastructure worth speaking of and, more ominously, no desire to create one? What role does the study of history have in a country where children are taught that Pakistan came into existence the day Mohammed Bin Qasim stepped on subcontinental soil, harem and all, in the 8th century? How does one propose to engage in genuine research, given an academic environment where the state is constrained to teach Pakistan Studies instead of History because of the inconvenient fact that History predates Pakistan?