This week Henley International Passport Index 2019 downgraded Bangladesh further, severely weakening the green passport for another consecutive year. Previous year it was ranked 97 but this year it slipped down two notches due to Benin and Djibouti's revocation of on arrival Visa facility for Bangladeshis. These two African countries are in far better position in terms of GDP per capita but the size of their economies is not as good as ours. In Benin, the Muslims constitute the second largest group of the population whereas the Muslims dominated the population in Djibouti, where both the Americans and the Chinese have strong military presence.
The group feeling did not come into play when the countries took their decisions regarding Bangladeshi nationals. The Henley Passport Index ranks passport of a country in terms of its national's ease of access to other countries. It extensively used International Air Transport Association's database to create the index.
Immediately after the country's worst terrorist attacks, Sri Lanka temporarily suspended on arrival visa facility for foreign nationals. Sri Lanka's biggest heroin seizure also occurred because Bangladeshi drug traffickers misused the facility to a great length.
Even Bhutanese parliament did not approve a bill to allow free movement of vehicles of South Asian countries in fear that small Bhutanese law-enforcement personnel will not be able to deal with an overwhelming number of vehicles and foreign nationals.
And there is more , neighboring Myanmar is still dilly dallying to take back 700,000 of Rohingyas, unjustly dubbing them illegal Bangladeshi.
The point of bringing all these examples here is to underscore our neighbor's view about us. This simply does not make us proud, give us a feeling of grandeur and an aura of being special.
Even small island nation Vanuatu, one of the few countries that give visa free access to Bangladeshis , is likely to review its decision after more than hundreds of Bangladeshis stranded in the island nation falling into the lure of human traffickers.Stranded Bangladeshis were promised to be taken to Australia. Instead, traffickers brought them to Vanuatu to extract money from them, taking full advantage of visa free facility. The Vanuatu court was taken aback by the fraudulent incident and urged the International Office for Migration to intervene.
The weakening of our passport has been going on for the last six years. In 2013, our passport was ranked 85 in HPI. In 2017, the green passport was slided down by 10 places to 95. In 2019, its rank worsened further to 99. Perhaps not all the countries are buying our staggering economic success stories.
In many countries of Europe, Bangladeshis topped the list of boat-riding asylum seekers. War-torn Syrian refugees, whose 14-year of quality schooling made them more sought after refugees, are welcomed in many countries but not the Bangladeshis, whose 14-year of schooling is not as good as that of other refugees.
This is also writ large on the quality of nationality index (QNI), conceived by Dimitry Kochenov and Christian H. Kälin. QNI ranks qualities of nationalities based on factors like economic strength, human development, ease of travel, political stability and overseas employment opportunities. In 2012, Bangladesh was placed at 129th position. In 2015, it was downgraded to 138. In 2017, it was further downgraded to 149. Like HPI, QNI is also maintained by Henley & Partners. I am sure these guys did not start a malign campaign against us.
Another interesting measure of how other nations view us would be the kind of foreign envoys they send to our country. Last three of the US diplomats were at the last leg of their diplomatic careers. State Department did not give them new assignment. At least two of them, including the current ambassador, are close to defense establishment and held important posts in war-ravaged and corruption-stricken countries.
Previous British High Commissioner to Bangladesh was sent to Afghanistan. At least two of the former British High Commissioners to Bangladesh were sent to the Caribbean islands as envoys. One of them, who played an instrumental role during the 1/11 government rule, was recalled by the UK foreign ministry on disciplinary grounds and the other one was never integrated into the system.
Meanwhile, we sent our crème de la crème of career diplomats to these countries. However, during the 80's and early 90's we sent controversial political appointees to developed countries. One powerful EU country even refused to accept one such appointee as ambassador because he was not worthy for the position. It appeared that he was father of a secret lover of the then powerful dictator. Government changes but this kind of behavior left a negative impression on bilateral relations, which is often reflected in reciprocal conduct. Even Myanmar receives career diplomats of powerful countries as top envoys since its resumption of democracy.
Much trumpeted social indicators and economic achievements did not bar others to quarantine us in barbed wire encampments. Now we see this barbed wire also exists in bilateral relations. It is evident that sweat-money filled forex reserves, inequality driven GDP growth rate, eye dazzling structures and military strength did not convince others that we deserve to be treated as equal global citizens.Downgrading of our passport and nationals is an eye opener to the fact that we need to do lot more to develop our human resources.
The group feeling did not come into play when the countries took their decisions regarding Bangladeshi nationals. The Henley Passport Index ranks passport of a country in terms of its national's ease of access to other countries. It extensively used International Air Transport Association's database to create the index.
Immediately after the country's worst terrorist attacks, Sri Lanka temporarily suspended on arrival visa facility for foreign nationals. Sri Lanka's biggest heroin seizure also occurred because Bangladeshi drug traffickers misused the facility to a great length.
Even Bhutanese parliament did not approve a bill to allow free movement of vehicles of South Asian countries in fear that small Bhutanese law-enforcement personnel will not be able to deal with an overwhelming number of vehicles and foreign nationals.
And there is more , neighboring Myanmar is still dilly dallying to take back 700,000 of Rohingyas, unjustly dubbing them illegal Bangladeshi.
The point of bringing all these examples here is to underscore our neighbor's view about us. This simply does not make us proud, give us a feeling of grandeur and an aura of being special.
Even small island nation Vanuatu, one of the few countries that give visa free access to Bangladeshis , is likely to review its decision after more than hundreds of Bangladeshis stranded in the island nation falling into the lure of human traffickers.Stranded Bangladeshis were promised to be taken to Australia. Instead, traffickers brought them to Vanuatu to extract money from them, taking full advantage of visa free facility. The Vanuatu court was taken aback by the fraudulent incident and urged the International Office for Migration to intervene.
The weakening of our passport has been going on for the last six years. In 2013, our passport was ranked 85 in HPI. In 2017, the green passport was slided down by 10 places to 95. In 2019, its rank worsened further to 99. Perhaps not all the countries are buying our staggering economic success stories.
In many countries of Europe, Bangladeshis topped the list of boat-riding asylum seekers. War-torn Syrian refugees, whose 14-year of quality schooling made them more sought after refugees, are welcomed in many countries but not the Bangladeshis, whose 14-year of schooling is not as good as that of other refugees.
This is also writ large on the quality of nationality index (QNI), conceived by Dimitry Kochenov and Christian H. Kälin. QNI ranks qualities of nationalities based on factors like economic strength, human development, ease of travel, political stability and overseas employment opportunities. In 2012, Bangladesh was placed at 129th position. In 2015, it was downgraded to 138. In 2017, it was further downgraded to 149. Like HPI, QNI is also maintained by Henley & Partners. I am sure these guys did not start a malign campaign against us.
Another interesting measure of how other nations view us would be the kind of foreign envoys they send to our country. Last three of the US diplomats were at the last leg of their diplomatic careers. State Department did not give them new assignment. At least two of them, including the current ambassador, are close to defense establishment and held important posts in war-ravaged and corruption-stricken countries.
Previous British High Commissioner to Bangladesh was sent to Afghanistan. At least two of the former British High Commissioners to Bangladesh were sent to the Caribbean islands as envoys. One of them, who played an instrumental role during the 1/11 government rule, was recalled by the UK foreign ministry on disciplinary grounds and the other one was never integrated into the system.
Meanwhile, we sent our crème de la crème of career diplomats to these countries. However, during the 80's and early 90's we sent controversial political appointees to developed countries. One powerful EU country even refused to accept one such appointee as ambassador because he was not worthy for the position. It appeared that he was father of a secret lover of the then powerful dictator. Government changes but this kind of behavior left a negative impression on bilateral relations, which is often reflected in reciprocal conduct. Even Myanmar receives career diplomats of powerful countries as top envoys since its resumption of democracy.
Much trumpeted social indicators and economic achievements did not bar others to quarantine us in barbed wire encampments. Now we see this barbed wire also exists in bilateral relations. It is evident that sweat-money filled forex reserves, inequality driven GDP growth rate, eye dazzling structures and military strength did not convince others that we deserve to be treated as equal global citizens.Downgrading of our passport and nationals is an eye opener to the fact that we need to do lot more to develop our human resources.