When the World Was Meant for Everyone
While we have 190+ countries in the world, South Asian countries are the ones that need to worry when it comes to travelling. We say humanity exists; we were born to see and travel the world, and being from South Asia, I wonder, which world? South Asian countries, for decades, have only had the dream of seeing the next part of the world, and with that dream most people died. Even after years of peace and sovereignty, Asian countries are still seen as the weakest move on the chessboard, like a pawn.
It is not only about traveling to another country but even within your own. While you try hard to make ends meet, sometimes you are not able to visit your sister only kilometers apart. Sometimes, being a travel guide, you can take tourists to a specific popular restaurant, but you, despite being a 50-year-old citizen of that very country, never had enough money to eat there. You could only smell the food and say that might be a good meal. In Nepali there is a phrase, “saas rahunjel aash,” which means “Hope as long as I breathe.”
The irony is that travel is not always friendly; it is not always a vacation but a whole lot of mental stress, travelling only to clear the mental fog. When I think of traveling, I do not check my passport’s expiry date but directly visit websites to see if my country has healed a bit from being among the weak passport countries.
Travel is not freedom. It is politics.
The Passport Is a Political Document
People might say it is because of economic conditions, but they forget that a country’s economy is directly linked with politics. Traveling to other countries is a privilege that people do not understand, and having money is a privilege as well. For some people, having a passport is happiness, but when it comes to traveling, that passport is seen as a reflection of your country’s situation. Politics is played when the visa officer looks at the color of your passport. They do not see you as a person but as a whole country. This is precisely what Morgenthau’s first principle reminds us, even after all these years, that politics is governed by objective laws rooted in human nature.
While we travel, we worry about whether we will get a permit, and even if we do, will we be stopped by officers at the airport and suspected just because of the color of our passport? When inside our country, we might think soft power is working and the world is finally seeing us, but once you step outside, not many people know anything about your country despite millions of views and comments on public media pages. The data we see on social media is not balancing our introduction to the world.
Nepal has stood on the side of non-alignment since the period of the Shah dynasty, and now as a democratic country, it continues to send a clear message that Nepal is not taking any one side, instead leaning towards making peace with all countries. Despite that fact, the Henley Passport Index tells a very different story. Only 35 countries are open to Nepali passport holders, while Singapore, also an Asian country, opens 192. That difference is not geography. It is politics. Nepal holds much of its own soft power, and the fact that Nepal offers visa on arrival to 180+ countries tells a lot itself. Yet when a Nepali passport holder steps out, the story is entirely different.
The Queue of Hope
The implementation of visa restrictions by powerful countries is clearly showing they are doing it for their own good so that people do not come to use government facilities or old-age benefits, but the reality is people come for jobs and studies. They talk about security and fraud, and that cannot be ignored. However, this cannot overlook the fact that people waiting in a queue of hope, trying to reunite with their families in the simplest way, showing how innocent they are and wanting to live a legal and free life, are getting caught in it without any mistake of their own.
Powerful countries have swept visa processing suspensions across dozens of nations, with the reason being that immigrants would extract wealth from their people. But I wonder, why would anyone? If you have a good education and a creative side, you do not need to extract anything. In fact, the country benefits from your ideas and creativity, and you are the one paying taxes to that very country.
Even if security was the core reason that made powerful countries act this way, why is it that when people visit a visa lounge or airport, they have to pray with their every bone not to get rejected, as if they are going to meet God directly? Every state is nothing but a normal country. Why then does a passport determine your designation, unlike a human being’s wish or desire?
Politics Begins at Home
Even when we say travel is politics, it does not simply apply from one state to another. It includes the money, power, and bias within one’s own country when it comes to selecting a student to represent on an international platform, be it education or athletics. Not everyone is privileged. In a developing country like ours, most people are trying to make ends meet, dreaming rigorously and innocently to fly high to the next destination, only to find out that rules and discipline are for the less innocent people.
Politics begins at home. When one sibling wants to be an athlete and has an interest in football, she is supposed to study, complete her education, and marry, while the other is given the opportunity to live life according to how he wants.
Even though politics begins at home, now we need to reform and rethink from home and change the concept in order to set a different narrative. Politics should not even touch the edge when it comes to traveling; after all, human beings are free spirits. We learned from birds that nature does not conceal borders, irrespective of people’s color, texture, and their daily life.
Which Pawn Do You Want to Be
Even in chess, the pawn is the sacrificed factor. But does that make the pawn a weak one? It shows bravery, knowing that it will be hunted first, yet it stands still in every match. The pawn starts the match, and without the pawn the match would never begin. And when the pawn pushes through to the other side, it ends the game with its name on the throne. Now the choice is yours. Out of all the pawns, which pawn do you want to be? The one that procrastinates and complains, or the one that works hard enough to win that big dream of yours.
