21st Century “Kunta Kinte”! Chapter 1 : The realisation!

21st Century “Kunta Kinte”!
Introduction: Revealing the “untold”!
Chapter 1: The realisation!

Migration among mankind is nothing new. Human migration is usually influenced by two factors: the pull factors and the push factors. Ages ago, mankind commenced migration either to hunt for food or fertile places to live or to avail some types of economic opportunities which were not available in their places of residence or to conquer another land. This type of human migration is directly influenced by the pull factors. The other type of migration takes place when people have to leave their homeland unwillingly, as a result of war, political violence, natural disaster, health issues etc. This type of migration is caused due to the push factors.

This natural human aspiration to migrate was very cunningly socially engineered by the developed world. This human characteristic was captured and exploited by the developed world to plan the formal face of human migration. They ended up developing a national and international policy titled the country’s ‘Immigration policy’. Overnight, all these developed countries were equipped with large departments of immigration to promote and facilitate this migration aspiration. They have developed a package influenced by very attractive pull factors.

I am part of this generation of migrants, very much influenced by these pull factors. Unfortunately or unknowingly, we have trapped ourselves into a conspiracy of modern slavery in the name of “skilled migration”.

It was a fine cold Melbourne morning in April 1989, when our story began.

We ‘willingly’ came to Australia as a ‘migrant’ with great ‘selfish’ hope to improve our own quality of life leaving our parents and siblings overseas in a developing country. We did not have any clue that we were part of a huge international conspiracy. We were “imported” and slowly exploited to upgrade the quality of life for typical Australians by working for this country. There were no direct opportunities offered to contribute to migrants country of origin through any formal programs designed by the Australian government as a gesture of thanks to those countries for sharing their talented brains!

It took more than 20 years for me to understand the deep meaning of the ‘migration’ policy for the developed world. ‘Migration’, policy is the civilised title for ‘Slave Catching’. They are not physically torturing us, we are not chained like “Kunta Kinte”, the African slave, but we are trapped with an invisible chain of pre-planned imposed “commitments” and “liabilities” on us!

This is probably the greatest conspiracy in relation to procure slaves since ‘Kunta Kinte’ as portrayed by Alex Halley in his novel “Roots”.

I think it is time to raise this issue now in the 21st Century before it becomes worse in the coming centuries. Our next generation migrants need to know our feelings and also the traps that we have already stepped in. This is a warning for them and also an eye opener for future prospective migrants to the developed world.

This long-term conspiracy was socially engineered after the Second World War when most of the developed countries were affected and did not have enough active human resources to support the country – socially and economically. A large number of Italians, Greeks and people from some East European countries were attracted to country like Australia and migrated here to improve their own quality of life. They commenced work mainly as physical labourer, very few of them were capable of taking a more intellectual responsibility or ‘white collar’ jobs in the knowledge industry to progress these countries in to the post war era.

This was the commencement of the ‘conspiracy’. Since then, few developed countries together plotted the plan to establish high standard academic institutions in various parts of the developing world including Asia (eg. Asian Institute of Technology in Thailand). These institutes were to ‘produce’ intellectually capable ‘knowledge slaves’ by attracting talented students from the developing countries. At the same time, the developed world created and offered scholarships for brilliant students from the developing countries to do tertiary studies in countries like the USA, UK, Canada and Australia.

Theoretically the objective was to send theses graduates back to their country of origin to support the development efforts of the poor country by implementing their knowledge after completing their studies. But, in reality, under the cover of scholarships, stipends the hidden plan was to support majority of these graduates to settle in a third country like the USA, UK, Canada or Australia.

This ‘vicious plot’ attracted people like us to live and work in the developed world through a mechanism, popularly known as ‘immigration policy’. These countries conspiracy to ‘capture’ this talented pool of resources is so open that it is directly comparable with the ‘slave catchers’ during the ‘Kunta Kinte’ time. They used chains, net and guns to capture slaves from Africa while today’s ‘slave catchers’ uses attractive university degrees, scholarships and promise for a better quality of life as the bait. The ‘bait’ looks so natural and healthy that you would accept the ‘importation’ process willingly!

Just like the way fish are willingly attracted to our baits under water.

I am one of their victims. A ‘knowledge slave’ of the 21st century. This is my story.

I am Farhadur Reza, an Architect-Planner, married to Nigar Ashfaq Reza, another Architect-Planner. We have two lovely daughter’s Kishoree and Auditya.

I was born and brought up in the capital city of Dhaka, Bangladesh. A developing country, still struggling to have a politically stable government even after 40 years of independence since 1971.

The country itself has a very proud history of happiness, pride and very rich cultural heritage. Villages are still heart of the country. Bangladeshies are always very proud of the independence war of 1971 which helped to achieve freedom from Pakistan and even before that, how they ended the British colonial era in 1947. The only shortcoming was the very low rate of literacy, population explosion and very low socio-economic condition. On the other hand there is a huge pool of prospective human resources with untapped talents and willingness to forward the country.

A perfect ‘target’ for the ‘international conspiracy’ to ‘capture’ ongoing ‘knowledge slaves’.

The international migration policy had influenced Bangladeshi social fabric long before the independence in 1971. It started in the 1950’s due to the British colonial influence and ‘English’ connections through various regional cities like Sylhet. That city had extremely well connections with the United Kingdom through the tea gardens, once mostly owned by the British. As a result, in the early 1950’s and 1960’s a lot of Bangladeshis migrated to the UK and eventually captured a considerable proportion of the restaurant industry by establishing ‘Indian’ restaurants in almost every prominent cities.

For our generation, the impact of ‘migration’ attraction, started around the mid 1980’s.

It was early 1986, I saw the advertisement on a daily news paper in Bangladesh regarding higher studies opportunity in an international prestigious institute like the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT) in Bangkok, Thailand. I knew some of my friends had already taken this opportunity and gone to Thailand before. AIT was offering a full scholarship including plane fair, accommodation and a handsome bursary.

The condition was very simple, you have to be an outstanding academic student and need to go through a very rigorous selection process. As a fresh graduate from one of the best universities in Bangladesh the ‘bait’ was too attractive for my newly married wife and I.

We were ‘hooked’.

The intention was very ‘noble’ from the developed country’s perspective – increase the literacy rate of all developing countries by building in-house capacity. All these brilliant students will eventually serve to improve the quality of life of their own people after completing the course by returning to their country. But the ‘hidden’ agenda was truly ‘secret’.

A team of “extraordinary talented” people from the developed world were working day and night to put the real intention under the glamorous cover of their “Immigration Policy”. Which was really unknown to all of us until we became part of the Australian conspiracy in 1989!

Nigar and I graduated from the prestigious Institute with a Master’s Degree in Social Science with specific focus on Human Settlements Development. It was very appropriate degree to implement our knowledge back in Bangladesh to improve one of the basic needs for our country. Instead we were attracted by the ‘word of mouth’ regarding the ‘immigration policy’ of Australia.

Australian Government announced, due to the ‘bicentennial’ year for Australia in 1988 they are offering permanent residency to any graduate from the AIT to live and work in any city of Australia. Obviously the promotion came to us with attractive video, posters and leaflets explaining the glamorous life in Australia. It was too hard to refuse for a young couple from Bangladesh!

We were ‘hooked’ again. ‘Hunted by the hunter’, ‘trapped by the slave catcher’ very timely.

We were offered an immigration visa and given a certain period of time to reach Australia and start the “dream life”. We had to wait few months due to the birth of our first daughter Kishoree in Thailand. We were so attracted by the campaign of the Australian government that finally landed in Melbourne on the 29 April 1989 with a two months old baby.

Few of our friends, already victims of the so-called immigration policy, came to receive us at the airport with some warm jackets to protect us from the windy Melbourne weather. But no one had any clue that what we were not protecting was our ‘soul’, already ‘defeated’ by the greatest conspiracy on earth!

We were ‘imported’ to Australia for a ’cause’, to serve the “Australians” as our ‘master’. And interestingly none of our highly educated migrant friends including us had any clue about this international conspiracy of capturing “Knowledge Slaves”. Officially this was a wilful migration! Called ‘Skilled migration’ under the independent category!

I don’t think I will be able to describe our true feelings now from that moment of April 1989. It was really a fantastic experience, tremendous satisfaction, overwhelming pleasure, as if we have reached our final destination, our ‘promise land’. As if, we have won a fight against the mighty ‘gladiators’ in front of hundreds of spectators. As if, it was a small step for us but a giant leap for our whole future life!

(to be continued in February 2012)

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