IF we look at history a major factor that has built human civilisation is migration.

The process that has its origins in Africa in the distant hazy past still continues, at a ratheraccelerated paceinfact.

Great migrations in history were epochal events; they laid the foundations of new societies. They also enriched and transformed the pre-existing ones by adding new blood and vitality to them. Migrations in certain cases also came into conflict with the established societies and destroyed them partly or completely. Peaceful co-existence has always been a challenge. But the very challenge has prompted efforts to End or create a space that would accommodate antagonisms originating from differences in races, colours, languages, faiths, social norms and cultural practices.

Eventually every society anywhere in the world, compelled by conditions, sooner or later comes to acknowledge the inescapable reality; it has to reconcile with the phenomenon ofdiversity created by natural and historical forces.

Indian subcontinent took chill from the European colonialists, Amartya Sen points out in `Identity and Violence`, and made it an essential ingredient of its food. Some centuries later the British, erstwhile colonial masters of the subcontinent, adopted Chicken Tikka Masala as their favourite dish.

One great migration or exodus that changed theface ofa large part of Asia and Europe is generally known as Aryan migration from the steppes.

However starting from the end of 5th century BCE onward migrationinvasions-took place from the Asia and Africa towards the West. Alexander`s invasion was the sole exception. Iranians, Arabs, Africans, Turks and Mongols intruded into western lands and stirred their stagnant waters. But during the last 400 years it has been other way around; western countries made immensely powerful by renaissance, scientific advancement and industrial revolution started gargantuan adventure of colonising the world that encompassed America, Africa andAsia inhabited by non-white races.

We witness the demise of colonialism by the end of 20th century. Colonial occupation changed the course of history and transformed and disfigured the cultures in these continents in a fundamental way by their extractive stranglehold. It also introduced them to a different way of life and heralded an unstoppable era of machine. As a result of colonial oppression and exploitation the colonised societies got impoverished. Each colonial power left its colonies poorer.

The structures erected remained not only extractive but also extremely discriminatory as they were neither demolished nor meaningfully reformed by the local elites which succeeded the colonialists. On the contrary the socalled `mother countries` got prosperous and richer which stirred and still stirs the imagination of peoples of erstwhile colonies. So there is a rate race from top to bottom to enter western lands legally and illegally. Upper crust loves to stash away its dirty money in bank accounts and offshorecompanies of the developed world. Professionals hanker after big pay packages /income in the name of honing and advancing their skills. Workers desperately seek greener pasture to avoid poverty, misery and indignity which weigh them down in their homelands.

Rights and political activists, writers, artists and intellectuals persecuted and reviled at home by non-democratic regimes see a safe haven in the West which can rightfully boast of its democratic freedoms and uninhibited intellectual expression. Women have a sigh of relief when settled in the West as they can free themselves from the shackles of rigid patriarchy and live their lives unencumbered by the traditional rules they have to go by in their orthodox societies.

But strangely majority of expats especially of South Asian origins do the opposite of what is expected of them; they support in the countries of their origins autocratic regimes and chauvinist political parties in the name of patriotism, repression of women in the name of traditions and religion, and primitive socialstructures in the name of culture.

The role of expat intelligentsia, the vanguard of expats, is interesting but intriguingly paradoxical. Look at their stand on language and culture.

They make contradictory demands. They want protection of their language and culture in their adopted home as they claim it would add to lingo-cultural diversity strengthening multi-cultural society. Here they emphasise the right of separateness. But in the countries of their origins in cahoots with their counterparts especially of nationalist persuasion they support the demand that minorities must adopt the culture and language of majority for socalled social cohesion. Relying on the shaky notion of `sons of soil` they want majority`s imprint on everything forgetting that today`s sons of soil are nothing but yesterday`s aliens.

In the historical process of absorption, today`s aliens (minority) would be a community of sons of soil tomorrow.

The present carries both the past and the future in an invisible manner though.

In a nut shell, expat intelli-gentsia supports cultural and lingual majoritarianism back home while rejecting it in their adopted home. In other words, cosmopolitanism in the West and chauvinism of national and cultural hueback home. They forget consciously or subconsciously that majoritarianism, when it takes roots, inevitably leads to authoritarianism. So how they reconcile the notion of multiculturalism with that of majoritarianism? Or they treat their original home and adopted home as if the two exist on two different planets? No society is insular, has never been if we look at history.

Interaction has created human society worth the name. This in no way condones the role the officially imposed languages and cultural practices play in distorting peoples` cultures and impeding the development of natural languages in Pakistan, for example. If diversity or multiculturalism is positive for human development and adds to intellectual richness, it has to be supported across the board without ifs and buts. soofio1@hotmail.com