Mary O'Leary examines the politics of the passport.
For many people, passports and visas are an afterthought, just simple tools which help you to travel the world and explore new horizons. Ask anyone with an EU passport and they’ll describe the efficiency of travel between European countries and the western world. Shortly-planned business trips and spur of the moment vacations to most countries are as easy as booking a flight.
This advantage, however, is one only privy to those lucky enough to live in countries with powerful passports. Those unlucky enough to be born in countries without “powerful passports” are not granted nearly the same freedom to travel and are often isolated from much of the world.
Though an essential part of modern day traveling, passports as we know them are a relatively new phenomenon. Throughout history travel permits have been a staple of travelling throughout specific parts of the world but never has a travel document been truly as worldwide as the passport. First agreed upon by the League of Nations, the modern passport was a response to the mass influx of immigrants to western nations following World War I. Many of these western countries had wanted to, by their own assertion, determine and reject immigrants deemed a threat to their own country’s ideal ethnic hegemony. Countries such as the United States even passed domestic legislation limiting visa distribution to certain ethnicities, such as “immigration quotas”.
Yet the planet has continued to globalize, and non-western countries are no exception. Students, workers, tourists, and immigrants from non-western countries have continued to travel the world even with the difficulty that comes with getting visas and suffering passport restrictions. Their identities and means of movement are often directly tied to whichever passport they possess, and it is by their passport that other countries determine if they are trustworthy enough to enter their borders.
Rabeya Boshree, a Bangladeshi UCD student, described the lengthy process it took for her to get her student visa. Bangladesh, like many smaller countries within the global south, does not have a strong passport and due to Ireland’s lack of embassy in the country, getting a visa itself is incredibly difficult. Instead, her and fellow Bangladeshi people must pay a service provider to bring their documents to the Irish embassy in India where they can then be processed.
“The fact that my place of birth alone determines how I’m treated at a border – forced through layers of scrutiny, endless checkpoints, and constant proof of worth – reveals a deeper inequality,” says Rabeya. “When citizens of those same countries can enter mine without such barriers, this isn’t just bureaucracy: it’s a form of discrimination that draws invisible lines between us.”
Many students, both at UCD and around the world, face similar challenges in an effort to get visas to study abroad. The process, at least in Bangladesh, can take anywhere from 15 days to 2 months, making it near impossible to travel abroad on short term notice. Very often these visas get denied or simply do not arrive in time for a student’s abroad program. Rabeya herself experienced one such case, with her having to give up a 2-week study program in Cairo after not receiving her visa to Egypt in time.
Travel for these students without powerful passports can also be a psychological divider between them and their classmates. Whilst friends and colleagues can travel to Scotland or France during breaks, other students would still be waiting on their visas weeks after the trip has already ended. It creates an obvious divide not just between classmates, but communities as well.
How powerful someone’s passport is, very often directly reflects how much a country is to perceive certain groups of people as hostile or dangerous. This of course inevitably influences the public perception of certain ethnicities who are unfairly categorized in this way. Thus, adding another layer of anonymity within communities who already have preconceived notions of immigrants and non-western people in general.
Passports and modern forms of travel designation allow for countries to keep track of their citizens abroad and the number of non-citizens within their borders, but the system itself grants certain countries far more influence over this system. As the world globalizes and travel becomes more effortless, the issues regarding this system become far more blaring. Only by working to remedy these issues can our planet create a fairer and more undivided system of travel.