Although our prospects seem dimmer, but changes are inevitable

At the beginning of this month, as in previous years, the results of the Greencard lottery were made public. We had the opportunity to observe on social networks not only the joy of the Greencard winners, but to witness the grief of many people.

"Green Card" is a certificate of citizenship granted by the United States to foreign citizens for life and indefinitely. Having received a certificate, you are legally entitled to live, work, study and constantly enter and exit the United States without a visa. Of the millions of people, 50,000 become winners and they can legally resettle in the United States.

In Azerbaijan every year hundreds of people take part in this program. According to available data, there were about 80-90 thousand appeals in Azerbaijan this year. It should be noted that out of every 100 people who apply in Azerbaijan, about 1 becomes the winner.

Therefore, every year the number of those upset is many times greater than the number of winners. But, that's not the point. And next - why are citizens so motivated to leave their country and move to another?

ASTNA tried to find the answer to this question in a conversation with the chairman of the legal education society, Intigam Aliyev.

* * *

Question: Why do young people try to leave the country?

Answer: Not only young people want to leave the country. Among middle-aged people, there are also quite a few who want to "flee to hell from this slum." There may be different reasons for this, but all those who have not lost objectivity will probably agree that the main reason is the difficult situation in the country. In this issue, the economic factor plays a significant role (making a livelihood) plays an important role in this issue, but not only. For many years, this country has been turned into hell for people who dream of a decent life. A significant part of society (one might say the majority) has lost hope for change, that life will improve. The desire of the dynasty, which has been ruling the country for more than half a century, to retain power at any cost, disbelief in the possibility of getting rid of it, led many people to lose hope and fall into pessimism. It is for this reason that the number of people who prefer a green card, thinking that God has turned his eyes away from this country, is growing every year.

Question: There may be problems that do not suit those who want to leave. In the countries where they go or will go, everything is not the way they think either. In addition, being the masters of their country, for some reason they agree to become second-class people, and even third-class people in a foreign land?

Answer: When Radio “Azadlyg” was shut down and its employees were harassed, you were dragged out of your apartment barefoot in pajamas; I read about it while I was in prison, it made me very sad. At that time, many journalists and other valuable personnel were forced to leave the country. You could have left too, but you stayed. Do you have the feeling that you are the master of your country? Or, how many of your colleagues in your environment consider themselves "masters" in this sense of the word?

I will not cite outsiders as an example, I will cite myself as an example: I am not going to leave anywhere, but I do not consider myself the master of this country either. I have a wide circle of acquaintances, in which there are representatives of all walks of life; I do not see anyone among them who would feel like the master of the country. A person will feel like the master of his country only when his vote in elections, in decision-making, matters; when a person can trust the police and have no doubt that the one who put a knife to his throat, demanding “not to write about it”, will be found and punished, and those who entrusted him with this will not go unpunished. Does Ayten Mammadova have confidence in this, after daily visits to the prosecutor's office to testify and return with nothing? Can a person rely on Themis when they destroy his property, steal his voice? Can people who have been beaten and insulted consider themselves the masters of the country when a Harvard graduate, a well-known politician, human rights activist, and journalist are subjected to the most heinous insults, violence, and torture? When, having sworn to be the guarantor of the safety of every person, instead of hitting with an “iron fist” on the heads of those who do this, sometimes he openly declares - “not a single policeman will be punished”, and sometimes supports violence with his silence?!

They persecute those who want to become the master of their country, precisely because they will put this idea out of their heads once and for all.

“So far, the only owner of this country is the family and she does not need companions”

Question: It is interesting that the majority of young people who have gone to study abroad for some reason do not want to return to their homeland. They  are well aware that there is a need  for well-educated specialists  here....

Answer: Abroad, in Europe, America, Canada, Japan, Korea (I don’t mean the object inherited by Trump’s “fat” friend,  Chairman of the State Council of the DPRK Kim Jong-un - ed. note), a sensible young a person, having received, along with a good education, an idea of ​​effective management, understands that in order to realize his potential in his homeland there is not even a small opportunity that are available here: there is no environment for business, normal government, laws do not work, there is no independent judiciary system, no independent media, no civil society…

A young people, becoming a part of society during the period of study, seeing the living conditions there, how they value a person, a specialist, knowledge, work, understand that all this will not happen in his country, don't want to come back.

You say that specialists with a good education are also needed here. If I say that they are not needed here at all, then I may seem biased. It all depends on what angle you look at. And authoritarian countries need good doctors, economists, engineers, and judges. A rationally thinking (in other words, sane) young man thinks - why change the wages, social security, medicine that are available in Germany, France, Italy, America, England, the assessment that the state gives me, to life in much worse conditions? Personally, I do not consider myself entitled to tell him, "come back."

Some who have gone abroad arrange a comfortable life for themselves and their families, begin to teach people who live and fight here in difficult conditions how to become masters of their country, and when the people, society cannot do this, it humiliates them.  Such people should be shown their place  (and in the same high tone), they say, since you are so smart, then come back and do everything that you spoke about ...

Question: However, in recent years we have witnessed how people who have received education abroad are nominated for positions in government and administration. Why do many of the foreign-educated young people refuse to return to the country, to hold these posts?

- Firstly, there are not so many posts that could be occupied by young people who have received education abroad.

-Secondly, many understand that taking a post in public administration means resigning yourself to the fact that you will become part of a corrupt, administrative system (it can also be called the “master-servant” system); that is, when they are ordered to scold the opposition, when they are instructed to agree to be "elected" to the deputies by falsification, without the slightest hesitation to assert that in Europe the participants in meetings are much more cruelly dispersed, that depravity flourishes in the Netherlands, and racism flourishes in America, that in Japan relationships with households, elders with younger ones are even more conservative than ours. Not everyone is ready to take on such a burden.

-Thirdly, it should be clarified how many of those who want to return and work in these posts and deserve it are provided with such an opportunity, and what are the criteria for promotion in general - professionalism and other necessary qualities or completely different qualities?

- For many years, the government has been asked for a report on young people sent abroad for educational programs: how many people were sent, who they are, in what specialty and for what amount, how many of them subsequently returned to their homeland, how many did not return and why they did not want to return ( when sending these young people to study at state funds, one of the conditions is that they will return and work in the area necessary for the state), what percentage of those who return work in one area or another, etc. However, there are no answers to these questions. Why are not there answers? Because very dark things can be revealed: starting with the number of children of officials and oligarchs among those sent to study at public expense, to the fact that a significant part of those who left did not return (in other words, this money was thrown to the wind), it becomes clear that most of the returnees are not provided with work in their specialty, and some work in a completely different area. The question is why is this happening? - will reveal completely different things: it will turn out that the state, in order to train specialists for the necessary fields of activity, allocates significant funds for these programs, but either it does not really need these specialists, or there are no jobs in the quantity necessary to provide them.

And, finally, how many nominees have achieved outstanding success in their field to give a thumbs up and say - "Well done, that's what overseas education means"! The problem is not with the people, but with the system. I am sure that if there were a normal environment in the country, then most of these young people could be of great benefit to society. In the system where they are hired, both uncoordinated initiative and independence are extremely dangerous. Therefore, even a very well-educated person who “knows several languages” (the fact that this is often speculated by throwing dust in the eyes is a separate issue), there are no noticeable positive changes in any area where “foreigners” are advancing - not in social, not scientific, not educational, not medical, not managerial.

Question: What can this trend lead the country to? What steps should be taken to end this or make the country attractive to our youth?

Answer: The desire of people to leave the country is indicative. But I see no reason to make a tragedy out of it. First of all, the number of those who left the country is a very small part of the population.

Secondly, in this country there is neither a normal economy, nor science, nor education, nor a large number of outstanding scientists and specialists in these fields, so that because of their departure the country would “fall apart”; even if all the employees of our Academy of Sciences leave the country, our science will not be cold or hot because of this, because we do not have science, and the Academy of Sciences is not its focus.

Thirdly, among those who left, there are those who are still useful to the country, but there are also those who, having stayed, do more harm than good, and there are many more of them than the first. How many well-known people in the socio-political sector who say, think: "The time will come, the Azerbaijani people will search for Ilham Aliyev in the afternoon with fire, the Kazakhs - Nazarbayev, and the Belarusians - Lukashenko ..."

How many “democrats” do we have who love Mollah Erdogan, who has been destroying democratic institutions in his country for years, whose prisons are filled with political prisoners, who wants to turn Turkey into a Sharia country today (and who has succeeded a lot in this)? Such well-known scientists, writers, artists, ranting about democracy, thinking like fascists, bursting with hatred, as many as you like ... Should we grieve because of their departure?

The recipe for the attractiveness of the country for young people by the civilized world has been open for a long time: in conditions of democracy, the rule of law, a market economy, free competition, people feel more comfortable and happier, they are attached to their country and without leaving their homeland, they do not disown it like the devil out of incense.

Of the nearest neighbors, Georgia follows this path; despite the  events  in this country  are far from ideal, despite external influences and threats, despite the fact that serious problems in the field of human rights have not been overcome, the country is on the path of development, and this is an irreversible process. If only Armenia does not get stuck in Karabakh, then it will follow the path of democracy.

Although our prospects in this direction seem vaguer, changes are inevitable for us. And also because after that more and more people will begin to understand that we have no other way.