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| (Together) We will work and strive |
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| Įrašė Moacir P. de Sá Pereira | |
| 2006.08.08 11.41 | |
        Morning Edition, the show on NPR, is doing a series this week on the changes Europe has undergone with the freer migration of workers. I've written about this a lot, but never with any real data. In short, though: I maintain that the porousness of EU borders—especially the availability of work without visas in the UK and Ireland—will be the central issue for all Lithuanian cultural (and, hence, political) organizations for the next decade, at least. Although the series (so far) has concentrated on Poland, I don't think it's a stretch to substitute "Lithuania" as you listen. Monday's episode is about the flood of labor going to Britain. Emily Harris interviews Rafał Dutkiewicz, the mayor of Wrocław, who plans his own trip to London to bring the (up to) one million Poles in the UK back. The piece is definitely framed in "brain drain" terms, highlighting efforts by the Polish government to keep their "talent" within the country. Of course, one woman explains, if there are no jobs for a professional in Poland, then the professional should go abroad—but only to work as a professional. Taking a fancy skill abroad to work an unskilled job helps no one. Among Dutkiewicz's solutions, however, is one that was seen as a horror of horrors when it was brought up at the Kongresas in June: if the Poles keep going west, he'll seek to bring in professionals from the east (Belarus, Ukraine). During one discussion about Lithuanian emigration, the threat of Ukrainians moving into Lithuania was brought up as an unchallangeably bad thing (though it was pitched as a sort of: our bright Lithuanians leave, and Ukrainian manual laborers take their place). I still fail to see why that is the case, unless I buy into a unusably sentimental vision of the ethnic nation-state. The second episode is about the migration to Ireland, one that is also very similar to a Lithuanian migration (old jokes about Ireland's being "Lithuania West" get more and more true as the EU hegemonizes further). The top 10 hits on a search for "Airijoje" in Lietuvos rytas strech back just over a month! Ireland is constantly in the news in Lithuania, and it's always Lithuanians who are creating the news (and, in fact, they even have their own newspaper already). Beginning with a story about a Polish television magazine that broadcasts every weekday, the episode continues describing how Ireland, earlier a source of labor, is now attracting labor with a booming economy. The immigrants are from around the world—Eastern Europe, China, Nigeria, and even other parts of Western Europe. But the piece ends with a firm warning (one that should be noted by hagiographers of globalization like Thomas Friedman). As long as business is good, everyone loves the immigrants. As soon as the Irish Economic Miracle slows down, though, trouble will start on up, and then we'll see about how ready Ireland is to be a homogenous ethnic nation. |
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| Paskutinį kartą atnaujinta ( 2006.08.08 22.49 ) |