Malaysia is one of Asia's biggest employers of foreign labour. But recently, cases of deaths, abuse and forced labour have come to light. What is going on? Who is protecting these migrant workers?
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.
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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?</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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?</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p><b><font color="#333333">Syed Badrul Ahsan is Editor, Current Affairs, The
Daily Star.</font></b></p>
<p><i>Source: http://www.thedailystar.net/story.php?nid=4495</i>
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