Brain drain versus motivation drain in Gaza

Recently, there has been an attempt by the Palestinian media to warn against emigration from Gaza in alarmist terms, drawing on a number of terrible stories linked to migration across the Mediterranean to show that a journey from Gaza is in fact a journey to be feared, with its final destination being death.

While these cases are absolutely tragic, the media sensationalises them and puts a nationalist spin on the subject, instead of focusing on useful tips, guidelines and support for those who, in a context of severe unemployment, have no choice but to leave Gaza in search of jobs or resettle outside the besieged conflict zone. A 2015 World Bank report put unemployment among young people at 60%.

The media chooses to exaggerate the dangers that anyone leaving Gaza might face in order to put them off looking for opportunities elsewhere.

It is understandable that attitudes to migration are a serious problem for a territory under occupation such as Gaza, where there is a struggle over land and an overdependence on local talent for the provision of basic life services such as health care and education.

Nonetheless, isolating people from the outside world by painting a horrific picture of what lies beyond the border just builds fear and ignorance and this is counterproductive, especially when conditions at home may be seriously affecting people’s quality of life on a daily basis.

My own experience as a lecturer at two of Gaza’s universities is a case in point as I found myself caught between two difficult choices: staying at home and falling into a silent depression or leaving home and retaining my agency as a human being.

Leaving Gaza

Educated Palestinians had an undeniable role in creating the tone of academic life at universities in Gaza.

Limited mobility and difficult conditions of occupation over the last decades has meant an over-reliance on qualified individuals who have completed higher education in neighbouring Arab countries, especially Egypt, as well as abroad in countries such as the United States, United Kingdom and Russia. The role of these academics was almost missionary since they would learn and observe and then carry this knowledge and experience back to their community.

However, in the increasingly connected world of today, the amount of knowledge available has massively increased, which has brought the need for a faster rate of exchange among institutions and societies, with collaboration becoming the backbone for economic, social and human advancement.

Within this context, the Gaza Strip remains largely isolated due to the political siege it is under and consequent severe restrictions on academic mobility. Thus its reliance on its own local mental reservoir remains essential to its survival.

In an interview with Cambridge Festival of Ideas, I talked about the context in which I was working at Gaza’s universities and how it was difficult for me, and my colleagues, to cope with academic responsibilities under conditions of conflict, siege, power cuts and limited resources.

But what was even more difficult was the lack of vision of a better future in Gaza, which affected the motivation of students to learn and of lecturers to teach.

The isolation of the Gaza Strip from other parts of Palestine and the outside world was reflected in the narrowness of our ambition and interests. In these circumstances, it is hard to keep motivated and much easier to cling to an everyday routine that is stagnant, where neither you nor your life is moving forward.

This context teaches passivity: you become an observer of life rather than an active player in it, an observer of the world from the balcony, be it through social media, the internet, radio and TV, or the glamorous tales narrated by the few travellers who are lucky enough to make their way out, mostly through scholarships.

I was one of the lucky (and hardworking) individuals who, after working for six years in public schools in Gaza, won a Said Foundation Scholarship to study at the University of Oxford in the UK. When I left to take up my place, I had no other thought than returning to contribute to my society in Gaza and to improve the higher education experience at Gaza’s universities.

When I did return, however, I could see that achieving this goal would be a challenge due to the harsh reality of a conflict that has become deeply internalised in the fabric of Gaza society, causing the emergence of counterproductive practices at Gaza’s universities.

I stayed for five years, doing my best to push as much as I could to create and implement change. My theoretical study of higher education at Oxford University came up against the reality on the ground, and yet perceiving myself as privileged with the unique opportunity provided by my education equipped me with a large sense of responsibility that kept me continuously trying to find a way to contribute to the Gaza community.

As an ambitious person, however, I was not happy with the limitations placed on my life and dreams in Gaza and, befogged with questions about the future, my energy started to wane and I found it difficult to find any purpose in what I was doing.

Lost motivation

Five years after my return to Gaza, it was time to travel again to study for a PhD in Cambridge as a Gates Cambridge scholar.

My earlier experiences at Gaza’s universities gave me a huge appetite to learn as many things as possible, as I realised I was not only a student, but a valuable resource for my community. Simultaneously, however, I realised that having these experiences was not sufficient in itself because the main resource was me, not only what I personally had learned.

Many people in Gaza have lost the motivation to study and work, just as they have lost their sense of self and any interest in their own lives due to the unjust restrictions they face. While some may be able to find compensation for that within their families or within Gaza society, others may not and therefore the choice of leaving becomes necessary for survival.

Brain drain may not be a problem that is exclusive to the Gaza Strip. However, it is exacerbated in Gaza because Palestinians in the diaspora are not usually able to visit, and although they may be able to contribute from abroad, their impact remains indirect and distant for those who are inside.

The alternative is motivation drain, where one chooses to stay confined by the conditions of occupation and to endure the devastating consequences of the Palestinian schism, which seems to get worse every day.

The lack of motivation may be even more harmful to Gaza’s universities than brain drain as it distorts Gaza’s human resource, reducing it to a machine that responds rather than innovates, one that complies rather than creates or transforms.

A refugee frame of mind

Would I go back to Gaza? I don’t know.

What I know is that living in a zone which is between the Gaza Strip and the outside world has been a necessary experience and it has changed me a lot. I would not have liked the Palestinian media to make me more frightened than I already was before I embarked on it.

I am not in Gaza, but I recognise that wherever I go, I will be committed to contributing to the Gaza community and this makes me feel it is no less an option than staying in Gaza with a feeling of helplessness, feeling out of place at home.

As long as the occupation continues on the Gaza Strip, Palestinian lives will be shattered, caught between the inside and the outside, refugees in all senses, but most powerfully refugees in their heads and their hearts.

The continuous siege of Gaza will also mean that Gaza’s universities continue to face this dilemma of brain drain or motivation drain in the coming decade.

Dr Mona Jebril is a research fellow (and supernumerary Queens’ postdoctoral research associate) at the Centre for Business Research, Cambridge Judge Business School, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom.