The School Debate on Emigration
Your Serbian class debates the motion 'Young people should stay and build their country rather than emigrate.' You are assigned the opposing case. The audience includes students whose parents work abroad, a teacher who has lived in Germany, and a visitor from a Serbian community organisation in Australia. Statistics mentioned in class: roughly one in five young people in Serbia has considered leaving; remittances from the diaspora are significant to many families; and towns in eastern Serbia have lost population for decades. Your teacher warns against two traps: romanticising life abroad, and dismissing those who leave as disloyal. You have five minutes and must respond to at least one counter-argument.
1. Outline your argument in Serbian (100-140 words), addressing the audience's sensitivities and pre-empting one counter-argument.
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Model answer should: (1) Open with a shared value rather than a clash - Svi želimo da mladi ljudi imaju dobar život, i ovde i bilo gde. (2) Argue that mobility is not betrayal: leaving can be temporary, educational, and a source of skills and remittances, with concrete reference to families supported from abroad. (3) Pre-empt the loyalty counter-argument directly: Ne mislim da je odlazak izdaja; izdaja bi bila zatvoriti ljude u izbor koji im ne odgovara. (4) Shift the burden to conditions at home - jobs, wages, healthcare - rather than to individual virtue, since demanding that young people stay without changing conditions is unfair. (5) Address the audience: acknowledge classmates with parents abroad and the visitor's community, framing the diaspora as part of the nation, not outside it. (6) Close with a proposal, e.g. policies that make return easier. Language focus: concessive clauses with iako and mada, the conditional for hedging, and appropriate formal-but-warm register. Top-band answers avoid both traps the teacher named and actually engage a counter-argument.
2. The visitor from Australia asks, in Serbian, whether you think the diaspora should be expected to return. Answer in 60-90 words, showing awareness of how diaspora communities see themselves.
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Model answer should: (1) Reject the word 'expected' as a basis for policy while valuing connection - Ne bih rekao da se od nekoga može očekivati da se vrati, ali veza može da ostane jaka. (2) Recognise that diaspora communities maintain language, food, and family ties across generations, and that many identify as Serbian while being citizens elsewhere. (3) Distinguish emotional expectation from practical support: scholarships, language programmes, and short visits may matter more than permanent return. (4) Avoid treating the diaspora as a resource to be extracted, which can sound instrumental. (5) Use appropriate Serbian: dijaspora, drugа generacija, održavati vezu, and conditional forms for a diplomatic answer. High marks require awareness that identity and residence are not the same thing, and a respectful register towards the visitor.