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Live and Die in My Motherland or Leave?

By Olive Nekesa Okumu

Some time back, my eleven-year-old sister, ever inquisitive and probing into matters one would think were above her age, asked me what my choice would be if I was given a second chance to be born and this time in any country in the world I fancied. I found myself too ready to answer. “Well�, I said, “I am not sure which country I would choose, but it would definitely not be Kenya.� My kid sister, who had obviously asked the same question of herself, said that she would choose to be born in Kenya time and time again because there was no other place on earth like her motherland.

I was reminded of that conversation when I saw the topic of this essay writing competition – “International Migration�. In fact, it seemed that the question of living in my country or migrating to another one had never left my mind. The dilemma it presented was deeply rooted in my being and the way I resolved it had everything to do with who I was and what beliefs and ideals I held dear.

There was a time when I too could not imagine leaving my motherland for any other country. Regardless of how magnificent another country might appear to be, the idea of relocating to it simply had no power over me. Even when my peers fantasised about living abroad, I remained the guardian of my conviction that I was in the right place, the place that was meant for me. I, therefore, could not help but wonder as to when my stance changed and for what reasons. Was it that I had stopped loving my country? Was it that becoming aware of the myriad of problems around me brought me face to face with the actual condition of my country and displaced my imagined version of it? Or was I hollowed out of all aspirations so that all I wanted was a better life, which I thought I could easily get elsewhere? Why would I, a twenty-year-old who has never set foot in another country, not want to live in Kenya for the rest of my life? After all, I used to belt out Sauti Sol’s “Live and Die in Afrika�, telling myself and the world that I would live and die in my motherland.

I gave myself time to look deep within myself to try and find the answers to my questions. I realised that no, I did not hate my country. I in fact loved my country and I was proud to be a Kenyan. What exactly was the issue then? Was it I that did not understand the meaning of loving my country and being proud of my nationality? If I was indeed proud to be a Kenyan, then why did I want to leave so badly? Why was the post “The goal is to leave Kenya and show fake patriotism by wearing the Kenyan flag wristband� always on my social media pages’ timeline? Why was the “American dream� my life dream?

It gradually dawned on me that I, as most of my peers, had imperceptibly bought the idea that the grass was greener on the other side. We had come to believe that life was better anywhere else except for where we currently were. This is the thinking of a multitude of people looking for ways to leave their country, especially people from countries considered to be “Third World� who wish to transit to the “First World�. We had convinced ourselves that by moving to more developed countries we would get a better shot at succeeding in life and accomplishing our life goals. And we had come to a point where nothing else, apart from the greenness of the grass, mattered.

I do acknowledge that the belief of a better life away from home may not be entirely a delusion. Many claims have been made to the effect that moving to a different country could be exactly what one needs to advance one’s career and expand one’s knowledge. Career advancement and expansion of knowledge preoccupy the minds of most young people and if they are shown the route to success in that direction they would pursue that route without a second thought. I too would not let go of the opportunity to advance to the next level of my career, and if that meant moving to another country then I would move in a heartbeat.

However, I can now see that this thought process is truncated. To begin with, how sure are we that as foreigners we stand a chance against the multitude of youth already struggling in their motherlands because they themselves cannot access the opportunities that we hope to get by moving to these countries? Are we really going to get the better conditions we enthusiastically hoped for or are we going to be despised because the reluctant hosts see us as desperate and a nuisance? Are we not likely to face hostility from the native citizens and won’t we have to suffer the humiliation of hearing “Go back to your country!� every single day? It is not a secret that uninvited immigrants are never received with open arms anywhere.

In as much as I wish I could avoid talking about, it is impossible to ignore the discrimination that people of colour face every day in foreign lands just for looking different. In the recent past the Black Lives Matters Movement gained attention all over the world, with millions of people coming out to condemn and protest against the mistreatment and annihilation of black people across the United States. If this was the fate of black people who were citizens of their country, how about those of us who have come from outside? We also witnessed discrimination against Asians during the Covid-19 pandemic as people from China in particular were blamed for the emergence and spread of the virus.

By now you could be thinking, “Oh she is such a naysayer. Why can’t she just embrace the positive without bringing up the negative?� I also wish I could, but that would mean choosing not to see. I am not trying to put fears and limitations on anybody’s ambitions and goals but surely it is worth seeing the full picture before deciding to make a move.

My second consideration is that, even if the grass was greener on the other side, it is not our grass. The truth is that we were not born to live on the sweat of others, that we cannot live with our dignity intact if we only benefit from what others have created. Is it not common sense that the grass is greener on the other side because someone is watering it? Does it not then follow that if you want it to be greener on your side you should water your side too? That got me thinking as to why we cannot strive to water our side instead of always being attracted by the lush green that is in someone else’s yard. It surely cannot be that hard to improve the living and working conditions of our people, can it? Those aspects of our reality that make us feel we live a wretched life and that make us pity ourselves have existed all over the world at one time or another. The difference is that, unlike us, all these other countries that we see as having “greener grass� have simply come up with better ways to address the problems they once struggled with. We too, then, can follow their example. All of us! Our government, too, must strive to find better ways of dealing with issues affecting the life of its people so as to make them want to stay. Otherwise, who is going to work towards growing our economy if everybody is gone?

I, therefore, have come to doubt that it is necessary or desirable for us to move from our motherland. I now know that I do not want to leave my country. Why would I if I do not hate it? I love my country and I am proud to be a Kenyan. I have come to terms with the fact that loving my country does not mean thinking or saying Kenya is the best country in the world. It also means admitting that as a country we should do better and we ought to do better because we have the potential to do better. I also know that it is not that those who want to leave are less patriotic than those who want to stay and they should therefore not be patronised because at the end of the day we are all Kenyans. But when, ultimately, it comes down to making a choice I sincerely hope that we all choose to live and die in Kenya and not leave.

The Destiny of the ‘Third World’ Is in Our Hands

By Erastus Wambiakale Otieno

The issue of emigration from ‘Third World’ countries in search of livelihood opportunities in countries that are deemed to be better economically endowed has generated quite some debates. On the one hand, human beings will always move in search of livelihood opportunities so such migration may be deemed as normal. On the other hand, such migration can pose a serious threat to Third World development because of the opportunity cost in terms of the potential loss of human capital that such countries do not always have plenty of. However, some of the migrations have been more about the desire to experience what other parts of the world have to offer based on the imagination that the local is probably inferior. The expression “the sun always shines more brightly in the neighbour’s yard� comes to mind. Unfortunately, this is an attitude that many people in the developing world have embraced. A substantial number of Third World citizens often think that their grim material conditions can be cured through emigration to other parts of the world that they consider to be boundlessly endowed.

Occasionally, I have wondered what would happen if all the emigrants fleeing one problem or the other back at home for a good life in other countries were bold enough to choose to stay and fight to change the circumstances that push them out. That would immensely benefit the Third World source countries because their skills, both hard and soft, their talents, and their wealth would remain in the home countries where they are sorely needed. They would be a very valuable resource, which would greatly enhance the economies of the source countries. Emigrants do not necessarily like the lives they live away in foreign lands. If they had the option they obviously would want to stay at home, yet the reality demands that they emigrate so that they can take care of the needs of their loved ones and the extended families back at home. But the question that emerges is: do these emigrants ever give a thought to the irony in the fact that their emigration plans often result in them contributing to some of the issues they are trying to escape from like poor management, which they cannot address when they are away? After all, the majority of the nations to which they relocate have faced similar problems in the past but the citizens chose to confront the issues head on instead of fleeing to other countries which could have offered them opportunity for a better life and escape from the chaos of home.

For instance, in response to social and economic inequality, food shortages, poor governance, and unfair taxation policies that were prevalent in their country in the late 18^th century, the French people did not flee from their issues, instead, they confronted them head on in what culminated into what we now know as the French Revolution. The revolution had far reaching consequences that are still evident to date in the French political, social and economic sphere. Similar corrective upheavals have been experienced in other parts of the world, some more comparative to the success of the French Revolution than others. Similar issues exist in many Third World nations and they call for a similar bold response with a view to correcting the anomalies. Perhaps the French Revolution offers a lesson for the total overhaul of the Third World economies that need to be emulated in order to stem the migrations that are increasing alarmingly.

There are those who highlight what they see as the advantages of emigration because those who go out to look for work send back money in the form of remittances. They argue that such money sent by emigrants can help to improve the economies of their families as well as the source country generally. Whereas it is true that some countries have come to rely significantly on remittances from such emigrants for foreign currency that advantage does not compare with the benefits that the host country derives from the migrant workers. To start with, emigration often brings benefits to the host country in terms of workers with rare skills and technological advancement which often prop up the economies of the host countries. Often, such skills are also passed on to the workforce of the host countries through apprenticeship. Therefore, the benefit in terms of skills that the host countries derive from migrant workers cannot compare to the benefits of the source countries in terms of remittances. If anything, the source countries are the net losers because they often lose highly skilled manpower, which amounts to loss of productivity, which undermines the economic future of the country.

Africa has a lot of potential when it comes to skilled and unskilled labourers. Unfortunately, we do not fully capitalize on that potential. Several reasons have led to this, but the main reason is that manpower has been flowing from these countries to developed countries for years. Doctors, engineers, teachers, lawyers, and other professionals go abroad to find jobs. How then will the Third World economies such as Africa’s grow if professionals leave to take up jobs abroad? We can only achieve transformation if these people stop emigrating and try to create back home opportunities similar to those that lure them abroad. A simple strategy, therefore, would be to discourage emigration from the Third World by offering the professionals incentives to stay. Perhaps all citizens should see it as their duty to pressurize the respective governments to take appropriate steps to meet the need for the citizenry to live a decent life instead of leaving the problems unresolved so that emigration becomes the easier option.

About three years ago, when African Americans protested the murder of George Floyd and to stop police killings of black people, African migrants stood with them. I was captivated by the wailing and lamentation by a woman in a very familiar Kenyan Luo Nyanza accent. Her fervour during the protests was unmistakable, it was deeply felt, especially in the way she disrupted traffic while pushing for justice for George Floyd. Unfortunately, she was using all that energy to push for justice in her host country and make it better at the expense of her home country, which needed such protests even more to demand for justice, social change and development. I could not stop reflecting on the magnitude of the social change that the kind of energies she invested in the George Floyd protests in USA could bring about if she invested them in Kenya.

 It is apparent that emigration has a direct negative impact on the countries left behind, but in the long run it will adversely affect the receiving countries in terms of the potential of social instability because of discomfort with the migrant workers due to the consciousness of their outsiderness.  Therefore, even as the source countries ought to do everything to minimize departures, the receiving nations have everything to gain by minimizing immigration of Third World citizens to their countries as a way of maintaining social order. Such a step would benefit the receiving countries’ economies by preventing overpopulation, which would put a strain on social services leading to unrest such as happens often in South Africa. One way of doing this is to make demands on the source countries to strengthen their economies and social services in order to encourage the citizens to stay at home.

It is in same vein I think USA should re-examine its Diversity Immigration Visa Programme which has the potential of escalating emigration especially given the attraction that USA is for potential Third World emigrants for whom USA represents the solution to their problems. As it is, the visa programme has already caused substantial brain drain from the Third World through loss of talented skilled workforce and academic personnel trained for several years in the source countries. The programme lures and makes them lose motivation and desire to work in their home countries. Additionally, through the United Nations Charter, developed countries should assist Third World countries to find a long-term solution to the push factors of emigration. It is not lost to me that eliminating emigration completely is a tall order but minimizing it to the lowest rate can make a big difference for such Third World countries with high emigration rates Such as South Sudan. Certainly, addressing both the push and pull factors like the Diversity Immigration Programme will stabilize Third World countries and help them to develop by refocusing their minds and energies.

This is to inform all staff members that the Vice Chancellor  has recently made several appointments to various positions within the University. These appointments reflect the University's commitment to excellence in teaching, learning, research, and extension.

On 6 April, Dr Symon Kibet Kiprop was appointed as the Chairman of the Department of Economics at the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. His extensive experience and knowledge in Economics will help to elevate the Department to new heights.

º£½ÇÆƽâ°æis celebrating the life of its don Muga K’Olale, former lecturer at the department Philosophy, History and Religious Studies and the immediate former National Chairman of the Universities’Academic Staff Union (UASU), who also served in the Union as National Secretary General between 2006 and 2016. His long service to the union made him synonymous with the union, therefore making him regarded as the NATIONALFACE OF UASU.