DR1 message board, where have you been all my life? hehe
I've been looking for a place where I can discuss these issues without the empty political rhetoric (rtejeda, you messed it up for me a bit in the end).
One thing that I have found time and time again is that of all the Dominicans that have done the most good for this country through the centuries, and there have been a lot, have all lived and were educated in a foreign land and returned here to help their fellow Dominicans.
Rick, its interesting that you mention that. I agree that a lot of the Dominicans that have helped the country have been educated outside the country. Why do you think that is?
I dont think that it is because there are no good schools in the country. I know, it is a numbers game and if we had a better public school system, the chances would be better. However, there are plenty of private schools that output enough critical thinkers capable of tackling all the problems in DR.
There is something else to this and once again I fall back to the cultural problems rather than institutional. We have had this problem since before it was the Dominican Republic. It was articulated by the positivist Dominican intellectuals of the late 19th and early 20th century, and instituted by Trujillo: Racist Pessimism. We tend to downgrade anybody or anything that is Dominican. And it is widespread throughout our society, from upper to lower class.
Now this thread can be divided into the top-bottom approach (with stronger institutions by better Constitution and less corruption) and the bottom-up approach (culture change).
I would like to do a thought experiment, and it is not perfect so do not murder me in your responses.
Let's take the top-bottom approach... imagine we will take a chunk of the Dominican population and place them in a bubble, or country, with strong institutions. Let's call this place Washington Heights, New York.
Will they be prosperous?
Dominicans perform worse than other nationalities (look up the stats). Many have researched this and found that they have lower confidence levels than even African Americans. They do not have the "can-do" mentality, their identity (dominated by this racist pessimism) tells them that they are who they are.
I tend to analyze Dominicans in this bubble by their approach to race, since its unquestionably related to the pessimism. If you do this in NY, you will find a positive correlation between Dominicans who are over the race issue and their economic success. (No study has been done, only by observation)
I suspect that the same would hold true in DR if it had strong institutions.
This problem (pessimism) is also an impediment in other aspects. A lot of the middle to upper class schools output student carry this typical mentality. In addition, they are more in touch with the rest of the world and use it as a point of reference to measure how backwards Dominicans are.
Instead feeling empathy for the lower classes, they despise them. So aside from being a minority that has the capability of helping, the potential is undermined by the culture.
Until there is cultural unity, I dont have hope.