Every year, a large number of young people, around 1.500 of them, leave Montenegro to continue their lives, education, and even work elsewhere. Data shows that 20–30% of them return, that is, 300–450, while the rest, around a thousand and a bit, do not return because they do not see a future in Montenegro.
And so on for years and decades. Of course, thanks to "globalization", before much less, now much more.
Despite the normal and healthy need of every youth to “fly”, too few of them return home and to their homeland, which is not to be expected, again in accordance with a normal need. It is said: “Homeland is where I feel good”. I wonder why they don’t feel good here, when their homeland is here?
I have yet to see a quality and professional socio-psychological analysis of this phenomenon.
But I have seen a very drastic phenomenon: that this country, small as it is, seems to dislike its established and proven people in the white world, as if it has renounced them and as if it is bothered by "returnees", especially successful ones. Why is that?
And how much fear do they actually have, who have built their name abroad, to return, when we all know that "all things are smaller the further you are from them - only Montenegro is bigger"...?
Does anyone in this country ever wonder why this is so? Especially those who are obligated to do so, because they make decisions and should have answers to these questions. Because, by understanding the reason, they would solve it.
And the very thought of how much our/foreign intelligence could contribute to the betterment of our country, if used properly at home, raises great hope for the possible rapid revival of our science, culture, economy, and the entire society as a whole.
Who cares if it's like that?
It's bothering me, obviously, and it's bothering me a lot, and not just today or yesterday. It's been bothering me for a long time. It seems like it's been bothering me since Montenegro was founded. Why?
My colleague, a great figure in world medicine, especially psychiatry, Prof. Dr. Dušan Kosović, has gained worldwide fame and status as an American psychiatrist and university professor. A scientist *par excellence*.
No one from his native Montenegro has ever invited him to give even one lecture, or examine even one patient in Montenegro or in his native Nikšić. Not the faculty, not the University, not CANU, not DANU, not KCCG, nor professional associations.
We didn't even know that it was ours until the publication "Who's Who in America" was published, where Prof. Dr. D. Kosović found himself with three or four other people from this area. Fascinating! So that, at the end of the story, he, i.e. his wife, from the inheritance of her late husband, and all according to his wishes, would allocate significant funds and donate them to Montenegro at the time of the construction of the "Institute for Mental Health" in Podgorica. Well, by luck or necessity, that Institute bears his name.
So, you had to die first, then donate money, so that your Home would remember that you were the first neuropsychiatrist in Montenegro and that you founded Montenegrin psychiatry in 1960 in Titograd.
Finally remembering him, we established, with the help of his widow, the "Dr. D. Kosović Foundation".
A little late!
But unlike Živko Nikolić, at least he could come to his hometown whenever he wanted, while this other Nikšić resident was an unwelcome guest in his hometown for a while! The genius was almost forbidden to stop by Ozrinići, to breathe and fill his eyes, because he dared to be a genius and to show his compatriots and fellow citizens a mirror with artistic expression and decoration, in which they, unfortunately, recognized themselves, their misery and wickedness...
There is a large army of scientists, intellectuals, and artists who have gone through similar or even worse things in their relations with their homeland.
Those who proudly emphasized and emphasize that they are from Montenegro feel that Montenegro does not see them, does not hear them, and is not ready and able to accept and use their success for its own benefit?!
It seems that deep provincialism and a mediocre worldview do not allow this small and almost autistic collective to "shake off" primitivism, shaped into a stereotype, from their shoulders.
Because in his bourgeois roots, an anxious Narcissus has long since settled and hidden, who does not need a mirror, because he has an idea of himself made to the taste of the narrator. And, most interestingly, it seems that the narrator has inherited the story about himself in a similar way. And so on into the depths of the past. And you know that narrators are not always “reliable”…
And on the other side?
After the end of World War II, Italy was on its knees. Four years of wartime alliance with Hitler and the previous decade of Mussolini's fascism could not "cover" the partisan movement and the transition to the side of the Allies. On the contrary, Italy emerged from the war as someone who had lost the war. Hard times had come to pay. Neither a long tradition nor a world cultural heritage could "raise" Italy.
The recognizable and unique spirit of this great nation managed to contribute greatly to overcoming everything and surviving in a defeated, ashamed, poor and divided nation.
Difficult years passed in extreme hardship and poverty. One better, the other worse, and so on...
And then in 1967/68. a great “economic boom” occurred and Italy set out on the path of its national recovery and rehabilitation. It didn’t take long for it to shine again in full splendor like a Phoenix and once again shower the world with its products, culture, science and achievements in all fields. Once again it was the proud heir to the great Roman tradition…
In addition to the very "measured" participation of the international factor in this "economic boom", do you know who took over 90% of the credit and who pumped in the necessary money for this renaissance in the twentieth century? Who worked for a symbolic reward in institutes, design and construction bureaus, who hired their private companies and logistics, etc., without compensation?
Well, Italians in the diaspora – the “other Italy” outside its borders, which this first Italy never gave up. On the contrary!
It was believed then and now that another Italy existed in the diaspora, in who knows which generation of descendants. And they succeeded... Italy has reached where it belongs - among the leading economic and cultural superpowers of Europe and the world...
It's a story about a mutual relationship of love and respect between the mother country and its people abroad. You don't get medals and memorials for that, because that's elementary, normal and natural. And to be expected.
After all, one wonders: do a motherland that does not recognize and respect its people and descendants abroad, and those people and descendants abroad, who do not recognize the important and delicate moments in the life of their homeland and the home from which the Homeland originates – do they deserve and need to have each other?
Maybe the homeland needs other people, or maybe people need another homeland? I don't know... but I know that politics has a very important, one might say decisive influence and an important role in all of this. I am convinced that true and truly patriotic politics should find, in its moderation and quality of vision, the necessary balance and equilibrium, which would give the opportunity to both people to be proud of their homeland and to "find themselves" in it if necessary, and for the homeland to be proud of all its people, wherever they are, and especially of the successful ones, who, carrying their success, carry forward and glorify the name of their homeland...
The author is the president of CIVIS
Bonus video:
