This article is about the 700 illegal immigrants who drowned in the Mediterranean Sea last month. It is about a collective sentiment of frustration. It is about the supposedly greener grass on the other side. A few months ago, a young Czech man named Vik Jedlicka invited people to a new country called Liberland. Founded by Jedlicka, the country is located between Croatia and Serbia and covers just seven square kilometres. Despite the state not being recognised by any other nation, online registration and applications for citizenship went viral. According to writer Assem Hanafi, 40 per cent of the applicants, some 20,000 people, were Egyptians. Things went so far that the Egyptian Foreign Ministry released a statement denying the existence of Liberland and warning Egyptians not to fall victim to scams or give foreigners information about the country that could harm Egypt's security. In 2013, the Central Agency for Public Mobilisation and Statistics (CAPMAS) announced that 61.4 per cent of Egypt's youth said they were willing to emigrate due to unemployment, and 30.5 per cent had even left the country without visas. Eighty per cent of these travellers had no contacts abroad, and 68.7 per cent had arrived at their destinations without work permits. So where does this frustration come from? The most recent episode started with a Facebook update at 4pm. It read: “Who wants to leave Egypt? PM me. #SeriousQuestion.” The next day, the poster's inbox had 30 messages. Most of the writers said they hoped this would be their way out of the country. Of about 25 comments, only four said they did not want to leave Egypt. People gave reasons for their frustration that included the lack of basic rights, failures to implement the law, and the rise of corruption. Others were more concerned about changes in society. “The thing I liked most about Egypt was how unique and kind hearted its people were — the kind of characteristics that used to be labelled “only in Egypt.” But these values have been deteriorating over the last ten years,” said Ahmed Khater, who develops dental equipment. “As a result of the 25 January Revolution I had the highest hopes of this country and its people. But as time goes by you see that there is something wrong and that people are being deprived of their humanity. I would love to leave, to keep the smallest shred of humanity alive inside me and because I see darkness all the way ahead in a long tunnel,” he said. Another factor is the working culture in Egypt and the way the system deals with creativity. “Creative people do not get the chance to implement their ideas because the system does not allow anything different,” according to an event organiser who preferred to remain anonymous. “The only reason a lot of people are still in the country is because they are attached to their families and the feeling that it is better to stick with something they know than try their luck elsewhere,” he said. However, feelings of frustration and the urge to leave are nothing new. They were around in the 1970s at the time of the oil boom and Open Door Policy. “Push factors, like unemployment and chronic poverty, made young people seek jobs abroad,” said Said Sadek, a professor of sociology at the American University in Cairo. “Pull factors included jobs and lucrative salaries in oil-exporting countries. “However, recently, young people have taken more risky steps towards illegal emigration, pursuing illusions abroad. It is all about despair about the future and the rise of poverty and unemployment due to the impact of the Arab Spring and the unrest in the Gulf. It is likely to continue for at least five to ten years,” Sadek said. “You have to have a good local economy to absorb young workers. Otherwise, more emigration and more tragedies will occur.” Notice of an event has been circulating on Facebook. Entitled the “Collective Emigration of Egypt's Youth,” it is scheduled to take place on 1 January 2016. On the event page, people help each other find cheap and efficient opportunities to leave the country. So far, over 114,000 people have registered as “attending”. What does that mean for Egypt's economy? There is no doubt that the fleeing of Egyptians from their own country will have a negative economic impact. “It is not unskilled Egyptian labour that goes to the global market — it is the talented people,” says Sherif Al-Diwany, director of the Egyptian Centre for Economic Studies, a think tank. “The biggest deficit we have is in employable youth leaving and competing against Egypt in the global market.” If the exodus continues, the country's GDP will suffer from a lack of local talent. People who could help enhance local industrial advancement will instead put their energies and efforts into building the capacity of other countries. “This will definitely have an effect on our exports, which will then lead to a reduction in the targeted growth rate,” Al-Diwany added. Low labour costs have historically been one of Egypt's comparative advantages, but this is changing due to giants like China and India. “We need to attract more Egyptians abroad back to Egypt,” he states. Al-Diwany was formerly a senior director of the World Economic Forum in Geneva but returned to Egypt in the wake of the 2011 Revolution. The writer is a freelance journalist.
