Some thoughts about the consequences of mass emigration in Lithuania.

To my English speaking friends I feel the need to briefly explain why this recent flood of long blogposts. Couple weeks ago I felt compelled to write an article to one of our major internet news portals on the topic of Lithuanian emigrants. Over the last couple years I read quite a few articles where Lithuanian emigrants to various EU countries and especially UK, where criticizing, making fun of and just plainly hating Lithuania. This not only included government (which would be easy to understand), but also calling all non-emigrating fellow citizens fools and idiots, at the same time praising their own life in UK.

Having lived here for almost two years now, I see both the not-so-perfect reality of immigrant life in UK, and also am concerned about this disrespectful and divisive attitude towards motherland. The first article drew some attention, but many people missed the point, thinking that I am only critical of British life. So, two more articles followed, trying to describe and show the seriousness of the problems that both emigration as social phenomenon causes and the worsening personal attitudes of people to each other.

In addition to that, there is a bunch of laws being created or amended that make emigrant Lithuanian citizens deprived of many of their previously enjoyed possibilities. These include the right to get your driver's license, free medical care, even the right to vote is being discussed. So, there is a deepening social, economical, even cultural divide between the "western"and "eastern" Lithuanians.

The overall problems caused by this emigration go much deeper than this. Things like thousands of children growing up w/ their parents working abroad for years, and they being fostered by grandparents, or sometimes even worse - some friends of the families. Schoolteachers and social workers report a rising tide of teenage violence, runaways and commonplace sociopathic behaviour among those abandoned children. So, the freedom brought by capitalism is striking hard our society and those few years of economic boom in 2005-2008 is charging its price for all the mortgaged houses, flatscreen TV's, leased holidays and cars. I hope to continue writing on this topic.