For promotion, transfer, complaint, even protection from political fallout, our politicians have turned to their foreign friends. It should not come as a clap of realization that foreigners have a strong hand in our internal business.

There have been many protests. Sensitive people have made sensitive comments, criticizing foreign interference in our domestic politics. I have never said anything, written not one word against this pathetic trend. I was optimistic like the sensible parents of grownup daughters. If the girls knew how to behave, the boys couldn't touch them.

Last week, however, when the European troika came to town and some of our politicians met them in the German Ambassador's residence, it shattered my optimism. An embassy is the sovereign territory of a foreign country on our soil.

As per the Vienna Convention of 1961, so is the ambassador's residence. In effect, our leaders went to discuss the sovereign issues of this country in the sovereign territory of another country. Now I am convinced if girls are taken to coquetry of age, the inevitable has to happen. It doesn't matter if girls go to boys or boys come to them.

First of all it was wrong of the German ambassador to invite our politicians to his house, and it was equally wrong of our politicians to go there. The meeting could have happened in the Election Commission, in the party office or in a hotel.

Of course, politicians can always go to foreign embassies for National Day celebration, reception dinners or other ceremonies. But this was not the same thing by all means. Here our politicians wanted to take guidance for domestic politics from foreign visitors.

Nothing is more solemn and sovereign than the political decisions of a country. How we conduct our elections and when we do it, how long we wait before lifting the ban on indoor politics or how we treat our criminals who plundered this country should be our business. Of course, nations have allies like people have friends. A few suggestions and advices are always welcome.

But not at the level foreign diplomats are sweating for us. They are running between top politicians, top government officials, top businessmen, top brass in the army, and the media is following them like paparazzi chasing celebrities. The question is why and how do they get so much access and attention? Is it because they give us money? Or is it because they know better?

Well, a tiny country like the Solomon Islands had expelled the Australian ambassador in 2006. In 2005, when the Head of European Union Delegation had given an ultimatum to the President of Kenya, the government immediately protested asking all foreign diplomats to keep within the principles of the Vienna Convention.

One can give scores of examples to remind that when foreign diplomats are in a host country, they ought to walk the line. They are our guests and we are bound to treat them with certain immunities and respect.

But guests aren't allowed to walk into the bedroom and tell the host how to make love to his wife. In any self-respecting country, foreign diplomats will be first warned and then expelled if they meddle in internal politics. Then, our case is different. We invite guests to the bedroom and wear their company like a badge of honor. Foreign friends, foreign guests adorn us, adding special luster to our evenings and events.

I don't intend to go into the sentimental mumbo-jumbos of how we may be locked in the mindset created by two hundred years' of British rule. May be we are a nation of xenophiles. We love foreigners, anything foreign and not long ago an omnipresent ambassador used to cut ribbons for everything from fried chicken joint to boutique shop.

We could be the world's most hospitable nation if not for our obsequious manner. Foreign diplomats are not our custodians and we aren't their protectorate. And leaders of a country should uphold that spirit to protect the dignity of their people.

But they aren't alone to blame for it. Recently a demissioned ambassador visited this country and he met with the advisor for Foreign Affairs. Our media took excessive interest and published the news with a photo of the meeting.

One of our former prime ministers often sought foreign assistance to right the wrongs for her. We don't know if she ever realized that leadership is a respectable position, which is embellished by the confidence of people. Anyone who is installed in power by an outsider (even by George Bush!) is never a leader but a foreign stooge.

In 1860 British and French forces sacked and pillaged the emperor's summer palace and some areas around Beijing. They refused to withdraw until the Chinese court had agreed to receive ambassadors on terms consistent with Western practices amongst other concessions. Until then the foreign diplomats were required to prostrate themselves before the Chinese emperor, which was found humiliating by the West.

Going back to last October, the parallel is an irony. Our politicians were sacking and pillaging their own country while prostrating themselves before their foreign masters. Recently, a former state minister sang like a canary under interrogation. He gave us revealing information that some of our leaders took money from foreign governments. One shudders in shame how they dragged the honour of this country in the mud.

Last week it was the familiar scene of eating out of foreign hands. I would like to ask everyone, please stand up on your feet and act like citizens of a sovereign state. Those foreign hands will not go away until they look foreign to us.

Mohammad Badrul Ahsan is a banker.