Europeans Fleeing to Former Colonies

Just as we have our "reverse Dust Bowl" migration here, they're having something similar in Europe, call it "reverse post-imperial migration."

Maria Mendes is returning to the land of her birth four decades after she fled war and revolution.

Hers is no sentimental homecoming, however. Cold economic reality is forcing her and tens of thousands of other Portuguese to seek a new life in Angola

"You can't get by on a pension here," says the 60-year-old retired teacher as she stands in a line for visas that stretches outside the Angolan consulate in Lisbon.

"Salaries there are at least three times higher,” she adds. “That makes it worth all the difficulties.

Mendes, whose husband is already in Angola, has accepted a university teaching job there. 

She was among more than 500,000 Portuguese who joined an exodus from Portugal's African colonies when they gained independence in 1975 after 14 years of anti-colonial war.

But with their economy in the grip of the euro zone's debt-driven recession, many are now flocking to seek new opportunities in a Portuguese-speaking country whose economy is enjoying a spectacular oil-fueled recovery after a 30-year civil war.

Angola.  "Spectacular oil-fueled recovery".  That clearly has implications, no?  Where have I heard that before??

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