Diaspora

DIVERSE VISIONS BOOK TWO: subtitle “DIASPORA”

INTRODUCTION

The inspiration that triggered the poems in Diaspora is the perspective of the African immigrant to Europe, or to wherever in the western world. Those immigrants, who decided to move or not to move, leave behind their nations, families and loved ones. The reasons vary though, for political, economic, social or religious.

Diaspora is a dream that may either come true or dissipate into thin air, when they arrive to their destinations. Great expectations fail and things start falling apart.

The categories of Diaspora are two or more but the basic are those who come, without being literate or any professional qualification. These men and women end up working either legally or illegally. Most work on construction sites or physical hard labour jobs. Thus they are the labour or manpower brain drain.

The other sector is those who come to further their academic education but eventually stay to work abroad. Another subsector of them comes already trained in different fields, such as doctors, teachers, engineers and nurses. Their reasons to stay are mostly political or economic. For some, to go home may signify persecution by corrupt, dictatorship governments or regimes.

Thus I call them the elite brain drain from developing countries to Europe or the west developed and mature democracies. Diaspora denotes what these people experience and undergo, betwixt an exodus of mass migration.

By the author

Amadou BH Sey