When I take an early morning stroll to buy the newspaper, not every day but nevertheless quite often, I walk past Rana Market in the affluent F-7 sector in Islamabad. Well, the market is not yet upscale, save for the fish and vegetable shops, and a new youthful clothes shop. But then, further down, towards the elegant post office building, the street is lined with day labourers. This article is about them. Most of them come from the Peshawar side, notably Nowshera, Swabi, Charsadda, and Mardan. They are young and strong men, smiling and polite. They belong to the good and great people of Pakistan. They are quick to joke and sometimes I think that maybe they have to use humour as a defence mechanism and pretend that life is a bit OK, which it is not, of course. Not for the young people, who dont have a job. Not for the old people either and some of them have white beard. They all sit ready and willing to take a days job for some three, four or five hundred rupees - the masons with their chisels and heavy hammers, the carpenters with their saws, hammers, waters and tape measures, and the painters with their brushes and paint charts. All neatly displayed, and each have his domain and place, next to a brother, a cousin or a friend from school; yes, because I believe they have gone to school, at least for some years, and many can speak some English. And then, a sudden day, some of them are not to be seen any more. I hope they got temporary jobs, or perhaps they had to go home to look after old parents, a wife giving birth, if they have had the opportunity to get married. Or maybe, they had to help they can a younger brother or sister needing school fees, or some other reason, also a job at home, for less pay, though. Last year, I remember that Hussain left, and I asked for him after a while, he was particularly cheerful and quick. I was told (and I thought there was some disguised envy in the voice) that Hussain had gone to Saudi Arabia, to join an uncle or brother, to become a foreign worker there, to earn $500 dollars a month or maybe more. In any case, amounts just being a dream to those left behind. And when it is prayer time, the street pavements get almost deserted, save for the tools and equipment, advertising the labourers crafts and trades. They seem to remain strong believers. Besides, the prayer gatherings break the monotony of waiting and waiting, hoping and hoping, maybe praying, too. But most of the time, just being bored and feeling useless and left out. Sometimes, selfish or just thoughtless landlords put stones and ropes to block the men from sitting too close to their houses. They would prefer to have some flower beds there, or perhaps just get space for visitors car parking, yes, on the pavement, never mind. The rules are often different for those with money and property. We laugh about it, but there is nothing to do for those who are on the lowest step of the social ladder. Nothing at all Not that I shall not praise myself either. I only noticed the men after a friend from Australia wanted some masons to repair her maids little house as a small gift, and maybe indulgence before she was to return home upon her lucrative contract completion. And after that, they were all my friends But I dont live in a big house and I dont have a lot of money. The least I can do is to greet them, show respect, and then I have developed the habit of buying an extra newspaper in Pashto or Urdu to share with them. What they dont know, is that it is they who do something good for me when they allow me to do that. And sometimes they get the sports and fashion pages from my English paper, too, which I otherwise keep for myself to read with my coffee in a soft chair back at my guest house. Coming to think of it, I hope they got to watch at least the highlights of the cricket match on TV yesterday, not just listen to some of it on the mobile phone radio, if the battery had been charged. I have lived for a while, as they say. But I am glad I still notice injustice when I see it, true, the one I have described is just under the tip of my nose. It strikes me that this is a terrible waste of talent, of creative, positive and great human beings. They are people in their best years, but they are not being given the opportunity to work, earn money, build their land and feel useful. Accepting it all, I reflect, they must be good people, because they could have become extremists or joined antisocial groups, and so on. They seem to succumb to the social order as it is, unjust and all, with no or very slim chance for any social mobility, not even a very humble job, giving a steady wage as a gardener, watchman or house help, not to speak of, a driver. They seem to accept that other people are different, living behind heavy curtains, in air cool houses, just a few yards from where they sit. They sit there without anything, except for dreams and prayers, and readiness to joke and smile at me when I walk past, ready for a days honest work. I am a Norwegian, and I come from a society where the government does what they are supposed to do - help the poor people who need support. And if the government and rulers dont do that, the labour unions, interest organisations and political parties on the left will soon tell them, and they will be voted out of office, leaving in shame because they did not do what they had promised, help the less fortunate. Obviously, company laws must be such that good profits can be had, and we must all be competitive in our global world. Still, if the profit is not shared, if the poor people in Rana Market are not supported, there is no need for any profit either. If the profit only makes the fat cats fatter, there is no need for it. Besides, if we dont share, if we dont redistribute wealth, if we dont pay tax so that the government can do its work, if we dont give zakat, then we are in actual fact thieves. Instead of taking from the rich and giving to the poor, we do the opposite. The sad truth is that very few of us will share with others; we only pay tax and share with others if the rules and regulations make it impossible to cheat. Pakistan does not have good enough systems to collect tax and share wealth. Perhaps, except for sharing within the immediate family, which the Pakistanis are much better at doing than we Norwegians are. But then in Norway, we have systems in place making it almost impossible to get away with not paying tax and fulfil our duties of sharing with the less fortunate. In addition, if we are caught not paying tax, or indeed being corrupt, the public shame that follows is much worse than any legal punishment. Recently, the Norwegian Ambassador H.E. Robert Kvile mentioned that he comes from a working class background and that he is proud of it. I think he mentioned it last week, in connection with the visit to Pakistan of Hon Akhtar Chaudhry, the Norwegian Deputy Speaker of the Norwegian Parliament, a Norwegian of Pakistani immigrant background. He came to his parents homeland to receive the Sitara-i-Quaid-i-Azam award. And the Ambassador succeeded in his life, the same way as the Speaker of the Norwegian Parliament, through hard work and good education. The Ambassador and the Speaker are prominent representatives of a country where the social justice and the social mobility work. It mainly depends on the hard and deliberate work of the individual. I pray that we in Pakistan, too, can live to see similar justice and fair play in society - for all men, and indeed, for all women. In Norway, we said a couple of generations ago, that there is a difference between a king and a cat, or as it goes in Norwegian, there is a difference between King Solomon and Jorgen hat maker. Today, young Norwegians would not understand that saying anymore and good is that - but my Swabi friends would understand, as they experience it every day. The writer is a senior Norwegian social scientist based in Islamabad.