Sorowar Hossain

We Bangladeshi are not that bad as compared to other nations in context of talent. In abroad, Bangladeshis are known to be hard working and sincere about their jobs. Although we are having these two important qualities, we are losing our reputation in many foreign countries and losing big manpower market in Malaysia, Middle East, South Korea, Singapore whereas other nations like Philippine, Cambodia, Vietnam are grabbing up those positions. What are the critical factors behind this?

Embassy is the representative of a country. The efficiency of Embassy people drives the country forward. How about our Embassy? Eventually our Embassies are good for nothing. Every Bangladeshi should feel any foreign Embassy as home. Do we feel home? Answer is NO. For instance, whenever we enter Singapore Embassy, we feel we are in typical Bangladesh although you can see well developed Singapore through the Window. Forms used for passport renewal, visa applications are bearing the legacy of 1980s. The old haphazard forms are kept Xeroxing for decades. I emailed to the Embassy about this issue and offered them new computer generated forms without anything in return. Irony, there was even no reply. I have information that the email reached to the respective people. Why are we so indifferent? Is it our habit? I don’t think so. Our personal life style will tell you different story. We really understand our personal gains.

Malaysia is a big manpower market for us. It is because of Muslim Identity and hard working nature of our Bangladeshi people. Malaysia has the nice and well structured Muslim culture and they have very soft feeling towards other Muslims. Even it is obvious from the TV programs. Malaysian top singer Siti Nurhaliza, named as Asia’s Celine Dion, feel very proud to declare his Muslim identity in the media! Unlike in our country, there is no such caricature or teasing towards religious belief in guise of progressive mind or outfit. In early 2000, there was a wave of bad feeling towards Bangladeshi workers in Malaysia which was based on some sporadic and petty incidences (love affair, marriage between Bangladeshi workers and Malay girls). Those small issues were ignited by Malaysian Indians who were used to control the newspaper as they saw Bangladeshis were their competitor. Recently, an obvious rift has emerged between Malay and Indian in Malaysia. As an eye shore, world media is igniting this local issue in order to tarnish a well developed Muslim country. As a consequence, Malaysia has unofficially decided not to take foreign workers from India. This should bring harbinger for Bangladesh. But the truth is that we are losing our market due to the tremendous inefficiency of our impotent Embassy. Most of the embassy people are arrogant in nature and don’t think much about the well being for own country. Bangladesh is investing substantial amount of hard-earned foreign currency to run foreign Embassies to represent Bangladesh. They are paid NOT to renew only passport or issue Visa. It is their patriotic responsibilities to generate new ideas or try for different kind of channels in order to penetrate the existing country and its culture which will bolster the relation between two countries.

Let me tell you an inspiring story about real patriotic attitudes of an Embassy people and their power of communication and talent. I am doing my Ph.d under a Hungarian origin supervisor at National University of Singapore. There are only about 50 Hungarians (including Embassy people) in Singapore (approx 50,000 Bangladeshi). 5% of this number belongs to my supervisor’s family. The Hungarian Ambassador in Singapore came to our lab just before Christmas. He was so delighted to visit our lab. He was so inspired that the Ambassador took an initiative to make contact with Singapore Government in order to open up a relation between Singapore and Hungary in the field of science and technology. As a result, within less than a month, a group of high officials (including ministers, director of science and technology) from Hungarian Government is being invited to visit Singapore. They are visiting our lab and meeting my Hungarian supervisor while I am writing this story. They have already discussed about the scholarships, exchange student programs etc. As a long term consequence of this initiative, the relation between Singapore and Hungary will be stronger than ever before which will ultimately affect the economy. For your info, Hungary is one of the poorest countries in Europe.

You will feel the patriotic attitudes of Philippine Embassy people towards their fellow country people. During last Eidul Fitre, I invited my Indonesian friend to my house but he refused my invitation that day because they had invitation from Indonesian Embassy at Singapore. Every year Indonesian Embassy even organizes Eid prayer as well! There are more Indonesians as compared to Bangladeshis staying in Singapore. It is worth to mention how impotent Bangladeshi Embassies in foreign countries. Some of my friends from various countries wanted to travel Indonesia. Everything was ready but I could not make it due to Visa difficulty. Indonesia allows on Arrival visa for people from 70 to 80 countries in order to promote tourism. Irony is that Bangladesh is NOT included among those countries although most of the Poor and rich Asian countries are being included on the list. This failure goes to Bangladesh Government, more specifically inept Bangladesh Embassy in Indonesia. Their main responsibility is to bolster the relationship between two countries.

How about our foreign Ambassadors? Please justify yourselves. It is very hard to find any genuine true patriotic Ambassador who will think about the well being of our country. They are getting salary in terms of existing foreign country standard which is much higher and does not match with his colleagues from the same BCS cadre who are staying at home. Although most of the foreign Ambassadors are highly talented, we don’t see the justification of their merits. They are accountable to every people in the country.

source: the new nation (Bangladesh)