All men are created equal, but some are more equal than others

It was the 2010s, when Karachi used to rock with a couple of blasts, and shootings were just the new thing in town. We had a driver, a reasonably older man from the up north near Mansehra, Sikander bhai, once after picking me up from school, Sikander bhai told me how he ended up in the middle east without a visa, flights, or any formal travel arrangements, a thirteen-year-old kid would know off.

When you’re that young, you probably don’t check your privilege, and that’s fine, but over the last decade, I’ve tried to get hold of the realities around me, where the grass is not always greener on the other side. It’s been what, almost a decade, and the other day hearing the shipwreck off the Greek coast, it just hit me, what Sikander bhai would’ve never made it, what of his boat to the middle east would’ve met the same fate as the seven hundred individuals left their homeland for a better, and safe future.

While many, primarily men, try to get on the shore for a better ‘perceived’ future, have we ever wondered why? These are not free rides. Sometimes, they spend all of their life savings to touch European waters, and to be honest. There is something seriously wrong with the narrative around economic or social migration. Who manipulated them into getting into such situations? The traffickers, the cartels, for what? Not everyone can end up with a million bucks touching developed shores; the debate is more nuanced than that. While the Greeks or European agencies have tried to curb illegal migration, there is something seriously wrong with our part of the world, where men are treated like fodder to end up abroad without prior paperwork, planning, finances, or even skills.

Per some reports, each passenger on board the God-forsaken vessel had paid up to ten thousand or more dollars. Little did they know they’ll end up in a detention facility or deep water somewhere in the black sea.

It’s fascinating how most of us crib about less pay, shared housing, or the summer temperatures beyond European standards today, and in some other part of the world, hundreds of men are stuck in a small deck of an ill-fated ship resting at the mercy of Greek coastguards.