Tag Archives: Passport

The Uselessness of the Lebanese Passport: Lebanese Band The Wanton Bishops Refused UK Visa

We pretend fleetingly that the situation of the Lebanese passport is acceptable. Sure we have to wait a while to get our visas. Sure we get preferential treatment at airports sometimes. Sure we sometimes get special queues reserved for us. But it’s the way things are.

A friend of mine who was traveling to the United States was pulled aside during his layover to be questioned. They immediately recoiled when he told them he was in a possession of a permanent residency.

My best friend went to hell and back trying to procure a visa to go to Europe for nothing more but touristic purposes where he’d spend his well-earned money and return.

Our passport is the world’s most expensive and grants is enters to so few countries we’ve come second to last position. And we are all victims – except the politicians who should work on fixing the situation but are so pleased with their special passport that they couldn’t care less about us poor commoners.

The latest casualty in the ongoing Lebanese passport massacre are local band The Wanton Bishops who were supposed to participate in a festival in the United Kingdom and who had their visa application to the UK rejected as per their tweet:

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I guess those visa rejections our passports amass are exactly what’s needed to make us stand out in the crowd of those who book airplane tickets and fly away. They’re exactly what is needed to know precisely what those embassies we apply to think of us.

Ease of bureaucracy, who needs you. Plenty of opportunities, who needs you too. But hey, at least we’re proud to have some parts of the country on terrorist lists everywhere.

The Visa Situation for the Lebanese Passport

It’s bad people. Really bad. Remember when I was complaining about Lebanon being one of 39 countries that has to wait 10 days on average for the Schengen visa? If you don’t, then here it is.

It turns out the situation is much worse than having to wait 10 days for a Schengen visa. We, as Lebanese, can access 33 countries without needing visas. 33 sounds appealing? Well, the #1 countries in the world, Denmark, Sweden and Finland, can access 173 countries.

In a 2011 study, conducted by Henley & Partners, Lebanon ranked 97 out of 110 countries and behind countries such as Iran, Egypt.

In fact, in a 2010 study conducted by the same company (check it out here), we are also behind North Korea. And it doesn’t stop there. We are also on brochures that tell travelers about Lebanon being one of the countries with the most visa restrictions.

 

I have to ask though: why is the situation this bad? Other neighboring countries, who share our geographical location and the whole baggage of the Middle East, have a better situation that we do.

It could be that our Ministry of Foreign affairs is doing a horrible job, which I think is true. I mean, have you heard that “minister” asking the president to halt in filing a protest against Syrian violation of our land pending investigations? When you have people like that in charge of these types of relations, where do you expect to get?

Or could it be that all those other countries simply refuse to permit headache-free entry for Lebanese travelers?

I would tend to think it’s the former – that governments throughout the years have been and are doing such a bad job with foreign relations that with each passing day our passport loses whatever negligible value it had. And it’s actually very sad.

What’s the best passport to seek out in case you want to go anywhere you want and still retain your Lebanese citizenship? It seems like Sweden is a good fit. Denmark doesn’t allow dual citizenships.

A word for our minister of foreign affairs though, the citizens of the country that he has no problem getting up in a fit for whenever they violate our country can access 142 countries. Just saying.