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Friday, May 11, 2012

Brain Drain and Naive Youth

Cuba: Brain Drain and Naive Youth
May 10, 2012
Fernando Ravsberg*

HAVANA TIMES — In a recent interview, the Cuban-American writer Uva de
Aragon told me that the emigration of thousands of intelligent young
Cubans does not constitute "brain drain," but their "escape" in search
of better opportunities in other countries.

The concept is controversial, even more so when it comes to a nation
(Cuba) against which enormous economic restrictions are being applied
(by the US) for the express purpose of "causing hunger and desperation"
among its people, while at the same time the world's greatest power
offers residency.

Yet beyond the differences of opinion, the fact is that every year tens
of thousands of young people leave the country by different routes, and
many of them are scientists, doctors, athletes, engineers and architects
– all trained by Cuba.

I know this because I have two "migration-age" children and many of
their friends are already abroad. Most of them came out of the V. I.
Lenin High School, an institution where supposedly some of the best
talent in the country studies.

And this involves more than their academic training, since the youth at
this school are also considered to be especially loyal to the ideology
of the revolution. It was expected that the men and women who would lead
Cuba in the future would be trained there.

It's true that the rate and volume of Cuban emigration is not the
highest in Latin America, as some would have us believe using inflated
figures. However, it does has the characteristic of being composed of
those people who are the best trained – from technicians to university
graduates.

They leave because they are the ones who earn the least, those who have
to live on a salary of $17 USD per month and don't have the opportunity
to do additional work. They are unable to start up a business of their
own or pilfer something from their job and resell it on the street.

But money isn't the only reason. Recently I was interviewed by a Cuban
journalist about the characteristics of the youth of the island,
something that forced me to collect information. I had to seek out young
people and talk to them about what they thought and how they felt.

I discovered that some of them leave the country because they have the
feeling that they're living in a country that isn't their own. They feel
like they're boarders in a strange house where the rules of conduct are
imposed by their grandparents, seniors who for any discrepancy will
remind them about everything they owe them.

Plus they're tired. Gays are weary of waiting for years for parliament
to decide to recognize their rights, just as young scientists doing
their PhD work abroad are confronted with laws that only allow them to
take their spouses and female children abroad if they leave permanently.

There are things as basic as male medical students having to cut their
hair when university authorities consider it too long due to supposed
"health concerns" – though these doesn't apply to women or foreign students.

Surprisingly, this is happening during the government of Raul Castro,
the young guerrilla who came down from the Sierra Maestra Mountains with
shoulder-length hair, something that was not imposed by the rebel forces
even though many of his comrades-in-arms wore their hair much shorter.

I remember when some college students argued for class attendance not to
be mandatory, putting the whole apparatus of the Ministry of Higher
Education up in arms, with them even threatening the journalist who did
a story on the issue.

It's true that in the end the youth organizations are the entities that
make the decisions, but this is only a mirage because often these bodies
— instead of representing their members — are mere tools for imposing
policies, rules and regulations.

Of course young people want to earn wages that allow them to have fun,
dress nicely and think about starting a family and living independently,
but they also aspire to build a nation where everything isn't already
etched in stone and where their opinions count.

A young communist told me that he's sick of his ideas being flung back
in his face with no other argument than a condescending "don't be so
naive," as if all the wisdom of Cuba were in the hands of older people.

Prejudice is neither new nor exclusively Cuban. In the 19th century, the
German poet Friedrich Hebbel recognized that young people often think
the world began with them, but he immediately warned that old people
think even more often that the world ends with them.

"I don't understand what the fear is all about," said one university
student. "We're the same age as our leaders were when they took power.
It's true that we'll make mistakes, but it's our right, just like they
screwed up from time to time."

They are accused of being too naive and immature, but such "defects" can
only be cured with "practice," giving them the power to make decisions
over their own lives and actively participating in the design of a
nation that — after all — will inevitably end up in their hands.

http://www.havanatimes.org/?p=69634

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