My 6th year as an immigrant to the West — the good and the bad

Before I get into lessons learned and all that, passport privilege is real. When I visited Glasgow a few months ago, I almost headed into the longer line snaking out of the entryway, and then glanced at the conspicuously shorter US/Canada line that did not require a visa of its passport holders. For such dignities, I’m grateful.

As an unabashed admirer of the West, words come easy when thinking about the exceptionalism, cultural assimilation, superior institutional standards, and meritocracy of these lands. So it gives me no pleasure to note (still as a relative outsider) the rapid deterioration of the West, almost entirely self-inflicted, and feel powerless when many have no cognizance of it.

1. Rejection of what makes the West great: The US is still more religious relative to other Western countries that have long abandoned the vestiges of their great faith which shaped, particularly in England, their identity, judicial system derived from Biblical case law, and conscientious application of justice, often at great cost. Historian Tom Holland, author of Dominion, says, “People in the West, even those who may imagine that they have emancipated themselves from Christian belief, in fact, are shot through with Christian assumptions about almost everything.. All of us in the West are a goldfish, and the water that we swim in is Christianity, by which I don’t necessarily mean the confessional form of the faith, but, rather, considered as an entire civilisation.”

Having discarded and now openly hostile to faith, citizens’ natural spiritual impulses are now recklessly attempted to be satisfied with nihilistic, self-mutilating activism.

2. The ‘no work is mean’ attitude: Coming from a highly classist society, I frequently reflected on the dignity rendered to all tasks and jobs, and found it moving in all my travels to the West. Man being made in the image of God, must surely, have been the underlying ‘assumption’, and its weight can sometimes be deeply appreciated, only through its contrast.

I loved my life in Mumbai and miss the hustle and hospitality of people there, but markers of distinct socio-economic layers ran across society. It was unspoken in many occurrences, overt in others, but there were parallel societal clusters who mingled but didn’t merge.

3. The inability to hash out differences: This one is a bit of a head-scratcher. I was an admirer of public discourse in the West, and viewed the rancorous interaction between politicians and reporters, even the onerous hair-splitting over policy matters, as proof of a transparent society that greatly valued individual liberties, consent of the governed, and a robust commitment to free speech. Increasingly, however, even highly accomplished and educated men and women, who should have been steeped in these values prefer confining themselves to their in-groups, will tolerate no threat to their worldview, and retreat at the first sign of conflict.

Instead of engaging with another viewpoint, being open to conviction, and willingly entreating opportunities for growth.

Sadly, professing Christians have not exemplified the standard. How evident was this during the lockdown years of 2020–21. Francis Collins, the then NIH Director, whom I admired fresh out of my Biotech Masters program as an example of a public witness to the critical and ethical thinking encouraged by Christianity, as applied to science, failed to reason together with those who consistently provided clear-eyed dissent.

4. The rise in lawlessness: Growing up in Mumbai, no matter where I went, my head (or is it neck) was on a swivel. I could not let my guard down, and I mostly looked forward to my US trips because I did not need to be scanning all directions, all the time. Women in the West come and go as they please, and have no sense of the queasy unease or the stomach pit when you have to push past lecherous hordes with their obscene gaze.

When ‘Defund the Police’ spread to Toronto, it was truly chilling and each time I walk past or read about locked merch, shuttered stores, needles and syringes, bus shelters taken over by tents, the alarming rate of suicidality, pro-Hamas intifada chanters, and violent offenders released after their 49th strike, I feel a soul-sickness looking on at the destruction of the last-standing bastion.

5. The reek of death: Perhaps, best symbolized by the wafting smell of weed as one drives downtown. Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) according to an Oct 2023 Health Canada report* constituted 4.1% of all deaths in Canada in 2022, having grown by 30% over PY. The law is set to expand access to MAID for mental illness even if it’s the sole condition.

A culture of degrowth, decline, and death — how can it enjoin God to keep our land ‘glorious and free’?

6. The veneer of relationships: Much ink has been spilled lamenting the loss of friendships, increase in loneliness, and a perpetually online presence. Going from doing life with a community where people dropped in uninvited because they were in the area (they were not), were lavish with their time, and made it their business to know all about yours — the barren formality, revelling in its ‘niceness’ was a huge adjustment.

I’ve met genuinely well-meaning and compassionate people here, and experienced the kindness of strangers. It made overnight transition to a country, alone and with few connections, worthwhile. And so from within these fair lands, I hold out hope for a one — conscientious, chivalrous, with the ability and desire to hold conversations, even difficult ones, in person, and who rejecting the lull of the false bravado offered by the dating app culture, steps up to the plate.

Until the day that ‘swords are beaten into ploughshares, and spears into pruning hooks’, may the West be salt and light, a city set on a hill, and a respite in the storm.

*”Fourth annual report on Medical Assistance in Dying in Canada 2022.", Health care system and services: Reports and publications, Government of Canada, Oct. 2023, https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/publications/health-system-services/annual-report-medical-assistance-dying-2022.html