the brain drain

9-26-05
I have just had a long conversation with a priest about the “modern slave trade” of Africa, or modern colonialisation or more specifically, the brain drain. He posed the question from the start, asking about this greencard. I didn’t see exactly what he was getting at at first, so I went on a bit of a tirade about the state of immigration in the states, but then he got more specifically to the point of the brain drain. What is the brain drain? In effect, America is promising jobs and opportunites, while also censoring those people it allows to come based on education. This is most clearly happening with the case of nurses. Many nurses are consentually “exported” to the states to fill the gaps in our hospitals. You can imagine then that there are then less qualified public health people here in Africa, where it is truly needed. This trend is shared across the board. People who are victims of circumstance (poverty in these countries) give into the temptation of greater earnings in the states and go there. Many of them then send funds back to Africa. A similar situation is happening on a micro level here in Uganda with the effects of urbanization. Because the standard of living is much better in the city and in towns people who are educated flee the rural areas which often don’t have electricity or decent roads, much less plumbing of any sort.

What is one to do then??? The government is exporting power to Tanzania, Rhwanda, and Kenya, while many Africans don’t have any power. The government needs to support itself too. Meanwhile, trained Ugandans are leaving for “greener pastures” so they can better support themselves and often their families at home. Even though they have a “choice”, economically, they really don’t have a choice.

Then again, that frame of thinking is from a western framework, where the needs of the individual supersede often the needs of the community. I have been reading a guy named Benjamin Buzo, who is working to develop an African ethic. This is a communitarian ethic which places the primary emphasis on the community. This is an ethic that is developed from the traditional African system.