Look at what drives emigration
Young people moving overseas
“THE western world offers lucrative scholarships to the brightest young minds on the continent and‚ on completion of their studies‚ offers them citizenship. When these young people invent things‚ they are credited as western inventions,” said Siphosezwe Masango, chairman of the parliamentary portfolio committee on international affairs and cooperation.
“These are African kids who should be doing work to advance their continent and contribute to world stability.”
Upon hearing such things, I flash back to the court martial of the Ceausescus, during which when asked why people were not taught foreign languages properly, Elena Ceausescu tried to sound motherly by saying (roughly translated), “We wanted to keep our nation’s children at home, in this country” – yeah, because communism was so wonderful and the brutal corruption of neo-communists had nothing to do with my leaving Romania.
What we almost never hear are politicians saying we should look at what drives people to emigrate from every place between Casablanca and Cape Town, and address the issues so that our country and continent stop being places people want to leave.
Had they ever done so, Elon Musk, Charlize Theron, Dave Matthews and my first girlfriend, among the multitudes uncounted by Home Affairs, would not have left South Africa to seek and, in some cases make, fortunes in foreign lands.
We wouldn’t have former SANDF members serving in the armies of the Commonwealth and France’s Foreign Legion, and Olympic athletes training at overseas facilities subjected to constant poaching attempts by other countries, while the service levels in American and British hospitals, hotels, restaurants and accounting firms would be among the world’s worst without the many who left South Africa.
Good people, especially the best and brightest, see problems coming from miles away and refuse to stay in countries which treat them badly while denying their futures a place under the African sun.
Then again, if politicians dislike the thought of the brain drain, they don’t do much to encourage people to return, certainly not if you look at how three MPs treated Dr Bruce Watson (holder of two PhDs and citizenships of three countries) during his interview for the position of inspector-general of intelligence, and the government dragging its feet in the matter of putting together an immigration and anti-xenophobia strategy even after all the incidents and bloodshed we’ve had.
Dear politicians, you earn around R1-million a year to solve this country’s problems. How about diverting your ample buttocks from protecting Jacob Zuma and apply them instead to the seats of power to do what you’re paid?
You know, do “silly stuff” like leading the country for the benefit of its citizens instead of the corrupt political parties and factions which put you there – or is that asking too much from professional lip-flappers?
Mircea Negres, Port Elizabeth