Humiliation at embassy counter

Our own experiences with embassies back home are notorious, especially the American embassy with queues formed before dawn snaking their way down Marli Street. Tales of rejected visa applications abound, with hundreds having their lives devoid of children, spouses, mortgages judged too valueless to be worth returning to, the clerk behind the desk declaring them an immigrant risk thanks for your money, next.

The lesson starts long before the actual interview, with applicants divided into those who can afford the application fee, those who can’t really but are able to scrape together whatever price is being charged at that point in time and the final, most unfortunate subdivision, those who to whom the fee is too exorbitant, who can’t come up with the money or can’t afford to risk having their application rejected and the fee unreturned.

The lesson is simple, really. Those with some power to wield will do so at will, usually and almost certainly over those who possess very little or none at all. It’s the economic equivalent to nobody wanting the smallest boy on his team or nobody wanting to be friends with the girl with the old and washed out uniform.

Many years ago I dated a guy from Venezuela whose sister possessed two Bachelor’s degrees and her Master’s. She was fluent in four languages, spoke six and worked as a translator in a private German firm. She was married to a doctor and had a son of school age. Her application for permission for a month long holiday was rejected on the grounds that, according to the immigration officer, most Venezuelans don’t ever return because they have nothing worthwhile to return to. She had cursed the officer in Spanish, then in English — imagine you come to work in my country but I must learn your language she had spat out at the man — and had flung her bank statement on the floor and walked out. Her bank statement showed her holiday fund contained over US$2,000.

A few weeks ago I stood in the Austrian embassy watching the imbalance of world politics played out. An African couple, probably Nigerian, in native gear and imperfect English were pressed up against the glass partition that separated them from the blonde clad in a fluffy white sweater. Her seat was pushed far back from the table, so much so that she had to stretch forward to pick up the documents they placed on the little metal tray at the bottom of the glass division that she then pulled towards her. As they became more desperate they pressed up closer against the glass. The closer they got the further away she wheeled her chair. They were told their application would have to be considered and to call back the following week.

The next applicant was a Japanese woman dressed in grungy, but expensive designer jeans. She pulled her papers out of a somewhat dusty but definitely original Gucci handbag, a perfect example of that studied carelessness that is the true luxury of the rich. She was approved, told to return in a few days time.

Next was a Chinese woman, who in broken English sought to explain she wanted to go to Austria for a few days to visit her husband then next to Holland to start a "job of work." "Go to the Dutch embassy for your visa," she was told and dismissed. "No, but I have to visit my husband before I start my job of work." "No, I think you are lying," the blonde said, "I think you want the visa so that you can remain in Austria with your husband. Visa denied."

For the next 20 minutes the woman begged and cried, revealing all her personal business to the woman behind the glass wall and to us who stood behind her who couldn’t help but hear that she needed to visit her husband to get money to start her new job, that she hadn’t seen him in over five months which was the last time he was able to visit and now they were going to be further separated. She was told to let her husband send a letter of employment, proof of address, bank statement and his passport.

The woman pleaded that by the time she got those things it would be too late to start her job, far less for visiting her husband. She produced the letter from the Dutch company confirming her employment offer, her husband’s letter of invitation, birth certificate and money while I cringed at the accusations of lies the immigration officer threw at her.

"Why doesn’t she just give up?" a guy next to me asked. Simple. She didn’t have a choice.

In the end the Chinese woman, born in the wrong country, defeated by language and culture, was told she would get a visa for three days. Successful at last she gathered her various forms and thanked the woman who had humiliated her over and over again. She had met her objective. But at what price?

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