Tuesday, July 29, 2014

My Passport Is Not A Curse - I'm Not A Terrorist

I can't understand why it takes more than 33 calendar days (and counting) for me to receive a Schengen visa, even when the organization I'm affiliated with has sent a Note Verbale to the foreign ministry of the country in question, and was passed to its embassy .. Needless to mention that I'm not a terrorist, have a couple of earlier Schengen visas, a UK student residency. Despite all this, European and North American countries exercise absolute dumb silly foreign policies against people like me. Citizens of such "classy" countries should know what their countries' foreign practices are like, at least those who know that Egyptians or Arabs aren't going to smash their countries into pieces once they land in it.

And for these "scared" governments, don't worry, I  will not seek asylum or try to stay illegally, I'm not even going to immigrate, if you think your countries are like a paradise for me! I can't even think what European visas will be like in a year or two after all this right-winged anti-immigrants movements and policies!

My Egyptian passport has become more of a curse to carry around the world, I've been denied visa before in 2011 for no reason from the Canadian embassy except my travel history, and I refuse be treated as a third class world citizen.

Humans have the right to travel as long as they don't have a criminal record (speaking of this, Mandela was on the US terrorist watch list until 2008 ). Shame on the world borders, visa systems, foreign policies, and shame on our own countries regimes' corruption and oppression that put us in this situation in the first place. Shame on a world where you can't exercise your basic rights of moving around it, where you have to prove that you're not a threat to the world system in order to travel. Shame on ALL OF YOU and ALL OF US..
 SHAME!