As an African in Diaspora, I have many a nights when my heart is filled with sorrow over the moral and economic dilemma my Motherland is in. Tonight was one of such nights.
I came back from work and proceeded to have a quiet evening of leafing through my current issue of Architectural Records – my way of keeping abreast of what is happening internationally in my profession as well as fanning the flames of youthful dreams and aspirations. However, I did not get to it.
For some reason, the word ‘brain-drain’ kept coming to my mind. I knew that was trouble. See, it is very complicated. I am an African by birth and by inclination, if I may borrow words from the wordsmith himself -Wole Soyinka. Meaning I believe in the uniqueness and greatness of the Motherland; that I expect that the nations of Africa will one-day rise, in the not-too-distant future, and walk with dignity, their heads high in economic stability and affluence, bringing in the next renaissance, revolution and revival. I believe it so much so that I actually feel that the responsibility for its occurrence is bestowed upon me, upon my generation, and its enormity overwhelms me.
This is not a dream I picked up along the way. It is a dream that I was born to dream, nurtured by the pan-africanists of the Wole Soyinka era, seared into my conscience by literature, engraved into my consciousness by the shameless parade of little African children on my cable network, birthed into reality by stiff immigration laws and requirements of the land of the free.
I believe it so strongly and I realize that I have a part to play. However, I also find my self walking, albeit, running down the paths of destruction and extinction, already defined for my Motherland through economic disadvantages, self-preservation and ambition. Am I speaking in riddles? Forgive me. I tend to consider my self a poet, and as such abuse ‘readability’ in my random ranting.
There is a trend, a pattern in history, where the economic prowess of a people, is destroyed by evacuating a substantial part of its top percentile manpower .It then results in economic stagnation. Stagnation results in starvation and starvation in death. And death right now looms in the horizon of the Motherland. Morbid, you say? I’ll explain.
Top students, professionals and professors emigrate consistently from the motherland in search of better education, remuneration and opportunities. A valid desire to advance their course in life prompts this - (self-preservation). Man’s innate craving for greatness, relevance and contribution - ambition- cries out loud and pushes, and he of course, drifts in the direction of least resistance – to a land supposedly flowing with milk and honey which in reality is anywhere but the Motherland. A motherland we have inherited, ravaged and ravished by the greed of her children as well as that of strangers she once welcomed with open arms. Broken and bent, the economic disadvantage of her current status prompts the consistent mass departure of talents and skilled professionals.
At the same time, she needs these skilled professionals and talents to stay competitive in the 21st century knowledge-based economy. The more people she loses, the weaker she gets in the global competition, and the weaker she gets, the more people leave. So it becomes a Catch-22, an endless cycle of cause and effect and here begins my dilemma.
I left home because I realized that I needed a foreign education in order to be competitive globally. I had a need to be of global relevance because my dreams were bigger than my Father’s house! Indeed it was larger than the whole clan. I realized that my motherland’s breast, as much as I loved her, no longer flowed with milk. So I conceded and made a pact with her. I agreed to be a sojourner in no man’s land for a time so that I can bring back home to her some rain. So that her arms will be supple again, her rivers will flow and the wrinkles on her face will fade. Maybe someway, somehow, she will birth again and her children will be ruddy faced, fed to satisfaction at her breasts.
However, being away from her presents to me another picture. A very morbid picture. A very very morbid picture. Rain is a natural phenomenon, caused by a cycle – not just an object. If I must bring rain, then I need to start a cycle. To be the start of a cycle requires that I be a part of the cycle. And truth be told, I am not sure I can be a part of that cycle…anymore. There is nothing more frightening to me than starting something and not completing it. I have one on my list right now…no; two and they still hunt me in the recesses of my mind.
How can I preach the message of an emancipated Africa when I contribute to it’s demise by my current status of Diaspora? How can I convince my siblings in Diaspora that there is a need to return, if I have not successfully returned? How am I sure that my return will truly bring an emancipation? How am I sure that the motherland of my dreams is not just a figment of my imagination, contorted to create hope for a future?
See, I am a …a drained brain. Hard to admit, I must confess. I work real hard to design and build schools for the children of no-man’s land, while the children of my Motherland learn under trees in the hot sun. My heart draws me home, but self-preservation and ambition keeps me here still.
So I cried. I cried my heart out tonight, because I can’t afford to go to my ancestors without even trying to birth this child within me. What can I do? What can we do? Am I, along with my generation, going to watch the Motherland wither and dry up till it self-destructs? Are we going to willingly sell Africa’s true resources – our minds and hard work for some more dollars and euros for the rest of our lives?
Our fathers sold our natural resources; now we are selling ourselves.
My heart cries.
