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Robert Fisk's World: The world may be one but you need a visa to get around it
Rich countries give you tiny stamps while poorer ones plaster a whole
page
Saturday, 13 June 2009
Independent/UK
Ernest Bevin, I think it was, once said that in an ideal world, you
could buy a ticket at Cannon Street station to anywhere in the world
and travel there without a passport. My father actually believed this
was the case before 1914; it wasn't. Even to sail to Beirut, you needed
a piece of paper from the Sublime Porte. I guess the European Union,
with the Schengen Agreement, is now closest to Bevin's aspiration ` but
you still need an identity card or a passport to cross many EU
frontiers. And the madness of foreign visas haunts all us journos.
Even to cover yesterday's Iranian elections, it took two weeks of
desperate whingeing by yours truly to line up a visa for Tehran.
Countless calls were made from London to Tehran and by me to friends in
Tehran who had friends ` or friends of friends ` in the Iranian Foreign
Ministry and the Ministry of Islamic Guidance (yes, Orwell should have
lived long enough to hear about that one) before the visa finally
arrived in Beirut. It was produced less than 15 minutes before the
embassy was to close, and only two hours before the last flight from
Lebanon to Iran prior to the elections.
"Have a great time in20Iran," the diplomats cheerfully told me. They
meant it. I like them. But visas are heart attacks on a page. I have
spent hours ` nay, days ` of my life sitting in the visa offices of hot
and overcrowded embassies in Beirut, sweat trickling through my hair,
pleading with diplomats for visas to countries I didn't want to go to.
In the Iran-Iraq war, a visa to visit the battlefront could be a
one-way trip. Sometimes the Iranians issued only two-day visas ` to
show us their latest victory over Saddam's legions and then get us out
before Iraq started its counter-offensive.
My favourite was Saudi Arabia. Repeatedly, and always in broiling
summer, I would be invited to Riyadh or Jeddah to observe some new
political reforms (almost always abandoned within weeks) with which
they wished to curry favour with the West. It was an American colleague
who told me how to avoid this. For on every Saudi visa application,
there is a box, ominously marked: "Religion". Well, I was Church of
England wasn't I? Protestant. Christian. And the visa would arrive.
But if I left the box empty, the Saudis would assume I was Jewish and
the visa would not arrive. And I'd be sunbathing in Beirut while my
colleagues headed off to an inferno of Saudi summer days. Of course, by
the time Saddam invaded Kuwait in 1990, I was ready to declare myself a
fully-fledged Wahabi to get to Dhahran.
I still remember turning up at the Saudi embassy in Beirut and handing
my visiting card to the press counsellor. "Robert Fisk, Middle East
Correspondent" was printed in English and Arabic. And the
English-speaking diplomat looked at me quizzically. "What is 'Middle
East'?" he asked. Jesus wept.
It is a fact universally acknowledged that rich countries will usually
give you tiny stamps in your passport while poorer countries ` or
anti-Western countries ` will plaster a whole precious page of your
passport with elaborately embossed visas, Take Tajikistan or Iran or
even little Armenia. The Taliban used to give me full-page visa
stickers with "In the Name of God"" printed at the top. After Hamid
Karzai's post-American government took over, the same Afghan embassy in
Islamabad would give me identical visa printouts ` after scissoring "In
the Name of God" off the top.
Long ago, on The Times, a foreign editor sent me off to Chad. Visas
were easy. You went to the French embassy in London and they stamped in
a visa for France. And then a French diplomat would write "Chad" in
biro over the top. And off you'd trot. The Empire wasn't striking back.
It was still obviously running Chad.
The fatal word "deport" has been heard by many of us scribes ` even
when our visas have been legally issued. I once got a visa to Tehran
during the Iran-Iraq war from a friendly diplomat who wrote "religious
pilgrim" in the box for profession.
I got three days covering Saddam's long-range rocket attacks on Iran
before a little man at the aforementioned Ministry of Islamic Guidance
summoned me to his dark office and announced: "Some people of the
Islamic Republic came here. They were angry. You have 12 hours to
leave." I did, driven to the airport by the Irish ambassador. All is
now changed, changed utterly ` apart from the fingerprints taken at
Imam Khomeini International Airport (do they share them with the
Americans?).
The Turks reneged on my visa in 1991 when they objected to my report on
the looting of blankets by Turkish troops from Kurdish refugees. All
true, of course. And didn't Turkey want to join the EU? No point in
arguing. But I had to comfort the sullen detective accompanying me from
Diyarbakir to Ankara when we flew into turbulence. He was frightened.
He had never been on a plane before.
Yes, I know it can be a pain in the arse for others to get a visa to
London ` and in the past I've watched some of our lovely visa officers
treating applicants like scum ` but my favourite memory was at San
Francisco International Airport, where Homeland Security spotted all
the pariah visas in my passport.
"Have you ever met a terrorist?" one of them asked me with a frown.
Yes, I said. I met Osama bin Laden and I met Ariel Sharon. They were
concerned about the bin Laden admission. But they were terrified of the
political implications of discussing Sharon and terrorism. "Have a nice
day, Sir," the guy with the frown said. And stamped me through in three
seconds. There must be a lesson there somewhere...
Rich countries give you tiny stamps while poorer ones plaster a whole
page
Saturday, 13 June 2009
Independent/UK
Ernest Bevin, I think it was, once said that in an ideal world, you
could buy a ticket at Cannon Street station to anywhere in the world
and travel there without a passport. My father actually believed this
was the case before 1914; it wasn't. Even to sail to Beirut, you needed
a piece of paper from the Sublime Porte. I guess the European Union,
with the Schengen Agreement, is now closest to Bevin's aspiration ` but
you still need an identity card or a passport to cross many EU
frontiers. And the madness of foreign visas haunts all us journos.
Even to cover yesterday's Iranian elections, it took two weeks of
desperate whingeing by yours truly to line up a visa for Tehran.
Countless calls were made from London to Tehran and by me to friends in
Tehran who had friends ` or friends of friends ` in the Iranian Foreign
Ministry and the Ministry of Islamic Guidance (yes, Orwell should have
lived long enough to hear about that one) before the visa finally
arrived in Beirut. It was produced less than 15 minutes before the
embassy was to close, and only two hours before the last flight from
Lebanon to Iran prior to the elections.
"Have a great time in20Iran," the diplomats cheerfully told me. They
meant it. I like them. But visas are heart attacks on a page. I have
spent hours ` nay, days ` of my life sitting in the visa offices of hot
and overcrowded embassies in Beirut, sweat trickling through my hair,
pleading with diplomats for visas to countries I didn't want to go to.
In the Iran-Iraq war, a visa to visit the battlefront could be a
one-way trip. Sometimes the Iranians issued only two-day visas ` to
show us their latest victory over Saddam's legions and then get us out
before Iraq started its counter-offensive.
My favourite was Saudi Arabia. Repeatedly, and always in broiling
summer, I would be invited to Riyadh or Jeddah to observe some new
political reforms (almost always abandoned within weeks) with which
they wished to curry favour with the West. It was an American colleague
who told me how to avoid this. For on every Saudi visa application,
there is a box, ominously marked: "Religion". Well, I was Church of
England wasn't I? Protestant. Christian. And the visa would arrive.
But if I left the box empty, the Saudis would assume I was Jewish and
the visa would not arrive. And I'd be sunbathing in Beirut while my
colleagues headed off to an inferno of Saudi summer days. Of course, by
the time Saddam invaded Kuwait in 1990, I was ready to declare myself a
fully-fledged Wahabi to get to Dhahran.
I still remember turning up at the Saudi embassy in Beirut and handing
my visiting card to the press counsellor. "Robert Fisk, Middle East
Correspondent" was printed in English and Arabic. And the
English-speaking diplomat looked at me quizzically. "What is 'Middle
East'?" he asked. Jesus wept.
It is a fact universally acknowledged that rich countries will usually
give you tiny stamps in your passport while poorer countries ` or
anti-Western countries ` will plaster a whole precious page of your
passport with elaborately embossed visas, Take Tajikistan or Iran or
even little Armenia. The Taliban used to give me full-page visa
stickers with "In the Name of God"" printed at the top. After Hamid
Karzai's post-American government took over, the same Afghan embassy in
Islamabad would give me identical visa printouts ` after scissoring "In
the Name of God" off the top.
Long ago, on The Times, a foreign editor sent me off to Chad. Visas
were easy. You went to the French embassy in London and they stamped in
a visa for France. And then a French diplomat would write "Chad" in
biro over the top. And off you'd trot. The Empire wasn't striking back.
It was still obviously running Chad.
The fatal word "deport" has been heard by many of us scribes ` even
when our visas have been legally issued. I once got a visa to Tehran
during the Iran-Iraq war from a friendly diplomat who wrote "religious
pilgrim" in the box for profession.
I got three days covering Saddam's long-range rocket attacks on Iran
before a little man at the aforementioned Ministry of Islamic Guidance
summoned me to his dark office and announced: "Some people of the
Islamic Republic came here. They were angry. You have 12 hours to
leave." I did, driven to the airport by the Irish ambassador. All is
now changed, changed utterly ` apart from the fingerprints taken at
Imam Khomeini International Airport (do they share them with the
Americans?).
The Turks reneged on my visa in 1991 when they objected to my report on
the looting of blankets by Turkish troops from Kurdish refugees. All
true, of course. And didn't Turkey want to join the EU? No point in
arguing. But I had to comfort the sullen detective accompanying me from
Diyarbakir to Ankara when we flew into turbulence. He was frightened.
He had never been on a plane before.
Yes, I know it can be a pain in the arse for others to get a visa to
London ` and in the past I've watched some of our lovely visa officers
treating applicants like scum ` but my favourite memory was at San
Francisco International Airport, where Homeland Security spotted all
the pariah visas in my passport.
"Have you ever met a terrorist?" one of them asked me with a frown.
Yes, I said. I met Osama bin Laden and I met Ariel Sharon. They were
concerned about the bin Laden admission. But they were terrified of the
political implications of discussing Sharon and terrorism. "Have a nice
day, Sir," the guy with the frown said. And stamped me through in three
seconds. There must be a lesson there somewhere...