Philosophy Now Forum

Hello everyone,

I wondered if in this age of the internet, email, social media, not to mention of increased internationalization and possibly terrorism as well, countries could still justify maintaining actual physical embassies abroad:

(1) It may seem just wrong to let your country's diplomatic officials to be exposed to undue risks such as being injured, taken hostage or even killed all because the government may want or need an embassy in a particularly "dicey" country.


(2) If it is the case that part of an embassy's mandate is to "look out" for their nationals who are abroad in the country in which the embassy is accredited, in the case of "those countries" that were particularly repressive and where "human rights" is a rather "foreign" concept, it may seem just wrong that any so called "internationals" could call upon their country's embassy for assistance while the "nationals" may not have anyone in their corner to intercede on their behalf. It may be "just me" but in a way I think that if anyone was planning to travel anywhere, it should be a case of "you pay your money and you take your chances" and as for the particularly repressive countries, people should treat them like fairly controversial topics and "not even go there."


(3) Embassies may also take money and resources that could also go to other worthwhile causes such as domestic poverty, people born with different physical and other "challenges," the elderly, students, and even the poor in "emerging" read: "developing" countries.


It is interesting to hear everyone's take on this matter.

Yeah that's all very well but surely the CIA need a nice base of operations in troubled areas from which to do whatever mischief they do to mess things up more. Aside from having a presence it also means if anything dire does happen you can always talk directly to those in power without having to go through less reliable sources.

Having an embassy means you have your finger on the pulse too, it's about intelligence although tbh most intelligence agencies are an oxymoron.

As far as embassies supposedly "having your back" if you are in trouble overseas, I wonder how much anyone is willing to bet that if someone is wrongfully imprisoned in a "hell hole" that passed for a prison in another country, their country's embassy officials were more apt to think "meh, let's not do anything about their situation for their detention is justified" than they were to put the foreign government on notice that "(insert the name of whatever country the person happened to be from, here and its embassy won't tolerate the outrage of the continued UNJUST detention of that particular "insert the name of whatever country the person happened to be from, here" national and they request that they immediately be released into the custody of the embassy." Maybe the Iranians are right on this point that the embassies are "DENS OF SPIES" in the sense that they may be too busy spying on other countries to act on behalf of any nationals who are in any sort of difficulty or peril abroad.

The internet does not substitute human physical contact and human direct experience. The jobs of embassies is to interact with the local culture, and not through a medium. Along with consulates they serve also the function of serving visiting people from their local country, along with political representation, and both these require direct contact with people... how safe would you feel if the representative of your country was thousands of kilometres away?

An embassy does not use substantive resources either, and most countries only have consulates in most other countries, and sometimes no representation at all... a consulate btw can consist of purely a consul and his secretary, or no secretary at all.

I agree with both of the above posts, it certainly clear that you need to be there to really see what is going on as I said: finger on the pulse, and you need a diplomatic means that is at hand to another government to prevent potential crisis, on the other hand Iran is also right they are a den of spies nonetheless.

Modern politics don't you just love it.

In the olden times they'd just send some people who were religious over to monitor the heathens, and those monitors would try to convert people but were basically there to pass information back to their government or church. It was of course seldom tolerated, but it did go on, the spies of the past came in the guise of the Church most often. And not only that whichever Church would commonly dictate to countries dangers of invasion and have huge influence on foreign policy, I think if you have ever seen Henry V, read about the politics of the hundred years war and the crusades, you can see how the church spent hundreds of years basically trying to maneouver Europe to its ideals, what is sad though is it basically had to abandon every one of its ideals to do so. Which is not surprising any large organisation often uses its politics to prevent other political machinations, what is surprising though is it took so long to create the separation of chruch and state, and that only goes to show that in the power struggle for hearts and minds, those who are in power would never give it up. Eventually of course "modern" philosophy preached such separation but it surely must be an embarrassement to most people it took so long..?

I was thinking if anyone had a particularly good experience with their country's embassy for example the embassy officials promptly stepped in to have them released if they were unjustifiably imprisoned overseas for example, "more power to them" and I also thought they would at least have the obligation to "bear witness" for anyone who was still languishing in unjust imprisonment in cases of countries where "human rights and civil liberties were unfortunately still a rather foreign and alien concept" by supporting some group like Amnesty.

As far as the spies are concerned, I think it may be no wonder that some countries may have it in for reporters / journalists these days, since it may be possible that some spies could actually use being a journalist for their cover.

As far as Canada is concerned, there were recent attempts on the part of Parliament to pass a law requiring Canadian embassies abroad to ask foreign governments what a Canadian national who was arrested and in their custody was charged with and if there were no charges or only "trumped up" charges, the embassy would be required to request that the individual in question be released into the custody of the embassy and I find that in some respects that such a law is an idea whose time has come.

You adhere to the law you are in, and to the rules there. However, in certain circumstances, extreme measures should not be tolerated. Executions or 50 years in jail or excessive use of force or lack of proper legal proceedings... all these should be matters one should be able to negotiate to find a more tolerable treatment that doesn't cause very excessively bad treatment in the perspective of the foreign country.

Some countries are really nazis on the rule of law... like the US or China or Russia. A couple of years ago a Norwegian citizen was jailed for something like 10 years for driving in the wrong direction presumably trying to hit somebody when there was no evidence for this other than the local population being totally out of their mind and beating the driver and everything. It was like a wild west almost lynching how the legal case was carried out. Didn't look like proper justice at all, purely based on speculation and group paranoia. The Norwegian authorities chose not to interfere in that case, because the punishment wasn't something like 50 years or execution... but I think that was wrong. The case just looked wrong to me, and that this was a classical case of the "tyranny of democracy" which Aristotle spoke... where just because there are more people the carrying out of justice is in their favour.

For driving in the wrong lane I think it'd be fair to give him 6 months perhaps, nothing more. And I think much more doubt should be put on his alleged attempt at hitting someone which he denied, and the person who beat him up should be sentenced to jail for violent assault, it certainly was not a case of self-defence. But this case aside.

In some countries you might get executed for all sorts of things, like infidelity... and there the foreign authorities must exercise their influence to make sure a minimal punishment is undertaken, or alternatively spending jail-time in Norwegian and a permanent banishment from the country in question. The later would be a much preferred choice.

On second thought, this may be my whole take concerning embassies, on one hand I'm with those who say everyone ought to heed the maxim "While in Rome, do as the Romans do" and on the other I wanted to raise this question or "did everyone feel safer while abroad if their country and its officials were particularly quick to go to bat for them should they fall victim to a real injustice (for example some foreign official coerces them into signing papers that were written in some language that they couldn't read like Farsi or Arabic for example and the next thing they knew they were "locked up abroad" in some hellhole that passed for a prison on some "trumped up" charge or other.).

On edit, If anyone didn't believe me about the "injustice" part maybe they should ask a group such as AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL about it.

It may also be "just me" but I thought in a way that traveling abroad ought to be a "you pay your money and you take your chances" sort of proposition or people would have to learn to accept the idea of traveling at their own risk and to paraphrase John Kennedy (though I am Canadian and not American) "ask what they could do for their planet and ask not what their planet could do for them" in terms of things such as civil liberties and human rights.

On edit, what I meant was there should be equal treatment for both "nationals" and "internationals" and no special treatment for "internationals."

Proud Cosmopolitan wrote:It may also be "just me" but I thought in a way that traveling abroad ought to be a "you pay your money and you take your chances" sort of proposition or people would have to learn to accept the idea of traveling at their own risk and to paraphrase John Kennedy (though I am Canadian and not American) "ask what they could do for their planet and ask not what their planet could do for them" in terms of things such as civil liberties and human rights.

On edit, what I meant was there should be equal treatment for both "nationals" and "internationals" and no special treatment for "internationals."

Well in some regard internationals need special treatment because they don't know the country, and it's unreasonable to expect everyone to know every country they travel to. In fact, it's kinda absurd, since you usually have to stay in a country for a long time before you know, but you couldn't get to know it if you can't go there in the first place because you don't know it ^^

I'm sure the best thing to do to prepare for a trip is to research what country / countries you are going to beforehand and hopefully that research would save you from having to "throw yourself on the mercy of your country's embassy" in any situation since you would at least know some of that country's laws (for example in IRAN if you are a female over a certain age you would have to wear a "hijab" and a "manteaux" ) for the research you did beforehand would hopefully keep you from getting into any trouble. Here is another good question or what were you to say do or think if you were unjustly held in Tehran's Evin prison and your country's embassy officials managed to get you released into their custody but the Iranians whose detainments were equally unjust had to continue to languish in prison and face possible torture???????????????????????

Another related question could be about what about other foreign nationals whose country's embassies didn't exactly "give a hang" about them?

On edit: Here is another good question or what were you to say do or think if you were unjustly held in a prison of any particularly repressive country and your country's embassy officials managed to get you released into their custody but the nationals or citizens of that country whose detainments were equally unjust had to continue to languish in prison and face possible torture?

Proud Cosmopolitan wrote:Here is another good question or what were you to say do or think if you were unjustly held in a Tehran prison and your country's embassy officials managed to get you released into their custody but the Iranians whose detainments were equally unjust had to continue to languish in prison and face possible torture?

I'd say if I went there to battle with Iranian domestic policies I'd do so. If not I'd not. Fighting for myself is not the same as fighting Iranian domestic policies in that regard.

Proud Cosmopolitan wrote:Another related question could be about what about other foreign nationals whose country's embassies didn't exactly "give a hang" about them?

They'd be fucked up if something happens to them. I think you are asking about the embassies though, and not about the people, since that doesn't make sense. About the embassies I'd say they have multiple purposes and eliminating one does not eliminate the reason for an embassy to exist.