The diplomats we should be sending abroad
NO, we will not be speaking of foreign policy or the making of it today. We have done that before; and if circumstances necessitate such deliberations again in the coming days, we will do so. But today we mean to go into some serious talk on the class of diplomats we should be sending abroad, on the expectations we have of them. And, of course, there are all the grievances our career diplomats, at various levels of service, have not been able to voice for a long time.
The Awami League-led grand alliance government, in its wisdom, has just named an academic as the nation's next high commissioner to the United Kingdom. It is a political appointment and the government has all the right in the world to place in strategic positions individuals it feels will accomplish the tasks it has set out to do where projecting Bangladesh's diplomacy abroad is concerned.
Even as we say this, though, we recall our experience of political appointees as diplomats at the senior level in recent times. Their performance did not quite make us happy, for they were too beholden to the party in power to be able to speak for all of us abroad. Much the same, however, can be said about some career diplomats. Their ingratiating attitude to the government of the day put paid to any brilliance they might have been able to bring to foreign policy.
Be that as it may, there are certain points the government will need to bear in mind, in the overall national interest, as it dispatches ambassadors, high commissioners and press ministers abroad. It must do that in order for these individuals to be able to articulate the interests of the country at important global capitals. In the first place, these diplomats should not be guided by the sentiments of the expatriate Bengali community as they go about their business.
All too often, expatriate supporters of the party in power intimidate diplomats into plain pusillanimity, to a point where the diplomats come to depend on the good word of the community for their survival in office. Add to that the fairly regular manner in which the expatriate Bengali press goes after our diplomats, eventually convincing the governing politicians back home that the diplomatic missions are actually falling apart. Many bright and dedicated diplomats have over the decades come to grief because of such constant knifing from expatriate Bengalis.
In the second place, it must be the responsibility of the government to ensure that diplomats stationed abroad are not reduced to being protocol officers owing to the endless arrivals and departures of high profile visitors from home. The time and resources expended in keeping visiting ministers, lawmakers and relatives of the mighty and powerful happy leaves little room for diplomacy on the part of our high commissioners and ambassadors.
There have even been instances of ministers travelling to London or Washington on private visits and yet demanding constant care and attention from the missions. The resultant fear among the diplomats all too often leaves them cringing before such august presences, for they need to keep their jobs. Dignity goes missing; and political brashness abounds.
In the third place, it would do well for the government to remember that morale in the Foreign Office, in any office for that matter, is important. Such morale suffers when serving diplomats are pushed aside and retired ambassadors are given postings that should have gone to the former.
In the BNP-Jamaat era, the Foreign Office man who expected to be appointed envoy to Egypt saw his chances go up in smoke when a superannuated diplomat was eventually sent to Cairo.
In this past month, it appeared that the Awami League government had decided on sending to Delhi a new high commissioner in the person of the current ambassador to Moscow. That move appears to have been reversed; and now, as we understand, a former ambassador, no longer in service, will be moving to the Indian capital.
A good number of former diplomats are certainly excellent men, brilliant in their comprehension of foreign policy and global realities. But should that be a reason for them to be brought in again? That act blocks the path for scores of equally brilliant, younger men and women in the diplomatic service.
One last point: it is time the political classes stopped treating the Foreign Office as a dumping ground for men from other services. The inane practice of placing the services of senior serving or retired military officers at the Foreign Office for onward posting as ambassadors surely does not take Bangladesh's diplomacy to new heights. On the contrary, it enervates the foreign service and does little to create enthusiasm at the missions. As with political appointees, soldiers have not had much of an impact as our diplomats abroad. That is the unblemished truth.
It is on the quality of its diplomacy that a nation is enthusiastically cheered or brusquely shunned abroad. Will the powers that be make a note of it?
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