Ground Realities
Beaten and brutalised in Malaysia . . . and elsewhere
PHOTO: JESSICA LIM/ REALPICTURE
It is a most healthy condition when the government of a country chooses to be firm with that of another. When the Bangladesh authorities lodged a complaint with the Malaysian government sometime ago against the Kuala Lumpur firm responsible for the plight of about a hundred Bengali workers in the country, it did what was expected of it. For far longer than one can imagine, Bangladesh's citizens in various spots around the globe have gone through ill treatment and outright demonstrations of injustice owing to the inability of the government back home to speak up in their defence. There are all the instances of Bengalis suffering abroad that we remain acquainted with. And most of these citizens of our country have for ages gone through an immensity of suffering that no one, either here in Bangladesh or abroad, has much cared to take note of. You take all these tales of suffering relating to our Bengalis in Malaysia and try to internalise them. It has been known for years that many of the recruiting firms luring our people to Kuala Lumpur have manifestly been unable to do justice to them through providing them with the jobs promised earlier. In a good number of instances, these hapless individuals have borne the brunt of not just the callousness of the companies but also the indifference of the Malaysian authorities. There are all the reports of Bengali workers being subjected to physical abuse every time they have complained about low pay and poor living conditions. Amazingly enough, few have been the moments when the government here in Dhaka -- and you can refer to any phase of governance in the last two decades or so -- has taken it upon itself to ask the Malaysian authorities why an investigation into the bad treatment of Bangladesh's citizens has never been initiated. It is a responsibility that all Bangladesh governments ought to have carried out a long time ago. The unfortunate reality is that they did not, which is why outrage of the sort perpetrated in Kuala Lumpur the other day has been a near regular feature of our lives. The Bengali workers who went on a hunger strike on the premises of the Bangladesh High Commission as a way of drawing attention to their plight were pounced upon by a mob said to have comprised agents of the recruitment firms. We now need to ask the question: who could have been audacious enough to beat up Bengali citizens within the compound of their own diplomatic mission in a foreign city? Were elements of the mission itself involved in the scandal? Perhaps we will come upon an answer soon, or maybe someday. Perhaps the government, now that it has taken up the issue with the Malaysian authorities, will bring back home to us facts that will help us understand the issues involved. And it is not just the authorities in Kuala Lumpur who need to be asked to explain why Bengalis have been so brutalised, and so often, in their country. There are all the places in the Middle East where our citizens are frequently the target of assault, be it physical or emotional. It is not uncommon for people in such places as Saudi Arabia to refer, freely and almost with elation, no doubt with contempt, to Bengalis as miskeen, or beggars. That is a slur, which should not have been there in the first place. And it is humiliation that should have been handled purposefully by the Bangladesh authorities through the issue being taken up with the administration in Saudi Arabia. There are, of course, always those little incidents that often make foreigners in any country peeved. Subtle racism somehow has a way of coming in between foreigners and citizens of the country they happen to be in. Let us face it: those with darker skin colour, as also those with a poverty-driven economic background, have historically been victims of the more prosperous. That, you might say, has been the way of the world since the beginning of civilized existence. Segregation, for all the modernity or modern sensibilities that may be emphasised before you, is there. But what cannot be acceptable is the slur that is collectively applied to a people. And because it cannot, it remains the duty of the government, in this case the Bangladesh government, to take a position where the dignity of its people abroad will serve as the basis of relations between this country and those where Bengalis have toiled for years in search of a decent life. Over the past many years, young Bengali boys have been subjected to some of the most horrendous kinds of sport in the Middle East. They have been placed on the backs of camels and forced into races that harmed them physically and, yet, made the Middle Eastern nouveau riche exude peals of pleasurable laughter. To what extent the Bangladesh authorities have taken up the issue with their counterparts in Abu Dhabi or Dubai remains unknown. It is quite likely that the matter quite escaped the attention of governments here, or was simply ignored. When such attitudes are adopted, it is but natural for a country to sink in low self-esteem. Every young Bengali, who should have been in primary school but who returns home after his trauma in the Middle East, is a living testimony to how our own people undermine us abroad. When your own labour attaches in your own embassies do little than can be considered service to your fellow citizens, when they stay out of reach because they are unwilling to answer questions from the media, you know how much of neglect and squalor may have come over the society you call your own. Months ago, the Bangladesh High Commission in South Africa was burgled, more than once. The thieves made off with computers and the like, a happening that exposed the critical security situation in the country Thabo Mbeki governs. The Bangladesh government will be doing a fine job, for itself and for the country, if in future it remains aware of what it must do every time a foreign state is unable to guarantee the safety of Bengali diplomats, indeed all categories of its citizens, in its territory. But it is a job that calls for the presence of dynamic, purposeful diplomatic missions abroad. It does not make any non-resident Bengali happy to be told by a Bangladesh consular official in Washington that he can collect his American passport bearing the "no visa required"seal the next day. It is a seal, just a seal. Why must an individual who has travelled all the way from Bethesda be asked to come again? If that is part of the reality, there is another: our missions in important global capitals have, by and large, been treated by politicians and bureaucrats on home ground as protocol offices, which is dangerous. And it is dangerous because our diplomats who should be cultivating links with the host country are forced into a state where, often in the interest of keeping their jobs or of not being recalled home before the end of their term, they must tend to often unruly visitors from home. Diplomacy is an art. It is, again, a whole lot more. It is, simply and plainly, a vocation that has at its core the principle of a defence of national interests abroad. When those interests are left to gather weed and rust, it is a country's place in the world that comes to rest on shaky ground. With terrible consequences, one might add. Syed Badrul Ahsan is Editor, Current Affairs, The Daily Star.
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