Confessions of an Asian World Traveler
Following the uncovering of the London terror plot to blow up planes, life’ s gotten a little more difficult for the average air traveler, and more so for the “middle-eastern looking” ones. While extra security is warranted, a nd even welcome, I do worry about the new “Salem Witch Hunt” that’s emergin g amongst passengers, where passenger paranoia can cause a couple of studen ts on a holiday to be evicted from a plane.
Having traveled by air a fair bit, and across various parts of the world, b ased on my profile, I expect to get additinal scrutiny at airports. I am In dian, and therefore, for the chromatically challenged, I could qualify as ” middle-eastern looking”. I generally travel light, with hand baggage only. Most of my flights are booked last minute, as I generally don’t plan in adv ance. The bulk of my baggage is electronic goods- laptop, cellphone, iPod, voice recorder, three cameras, two lenses, USB card reader, and various wir es, chargers and associated parapharnelia.
I’m used to being checked by security. I was stopped by security just prior to boarding a flight from Istanbul to JFK, and questioned for twenty minut es by security personnel, who finally let me go after scrutinizing all my w ork papers, my business card, and all prior air tickets and hotel reservati ons. In Kunming, China, where I was the only Indian on the plane that came in from Laos, a customs official decided to try using all the skills he’d l earnt in training on me, and scrutinized every single article I owned, and asked me about each and every item he found, why I was in China, how long I planned to be there, etc. etc. I’ve already mentioned in this blog about h ow authorities in Jamaica and Amsterdam convinced me that its better to be clean shaven when traveling.
I don’t complain when stopped. In fact, I feel more confident that security procedures are working, when I am stopped for additional scrutiny. I find it worrying when the security official does NOT ask me to open my laptop or iPod. Or when he opens only the front flap of my camera kitbag, and not bo thering to open the other two flaps where I have another camera, USB card r eader and other stuff stowed away. I would complain, however, if I was boot ed off a plane because the person next to me felt I was suspicious, because I looked different from him, or spoke in Bengali, which being non-European , could be mistaken by the phonetically challenged to be middle eastern as well, to my mother on my cell phone just before the closing of cabin doors, to let her know I was on the flight, or if, my inadvertant gesture of pray er, a casual hand movement from my heart to my head, a mixture of Hindu and Christian gestures that my non-religious sub-conscious mind inculcated as a child, turns out to be a signal for someone of my not-so-holy intention o f blowing myself up.
I know its hard for someone not to harbour such suspicions- its human natur e. I will admit, when the news broke of the students being booted off the f light in Spain because of “dress inappropriate for the environment”, I seri ously considered, for a moment, whether to wear my Hugo Boss suit on the fl ight, instead of my usual summer wear of jeans and kurta. I also felt glad I wasn’t muslim, even though “Amit” and “Ahmad” sound similar to the untrai ned western ear. And then I wondered- if I feel this insecure being non-mus lim and non-middle eastern, what about the travelers who are muslim, and ar e middle eastern, and not terrorists? i.e., a profile that fits 99.9% of mi ddle-eastern, muslim travelers.
Even I have been led to double standards. I will also admit, that when I se e someone young and middle-eastern in line at security or check-in, I do gi ve him more attention. I remember in Bangkok, standing in line at departure , with two young Saudi gentlemen. They wore flashy gold rings, necklaces et c., and had in their hands large stuffed animals. Instead of standing patie ntly in line, they were jumping from one line to another, trying to find th e shortest one. While their trying to find the shortest line was annoying, and they looked horribly out of place holding stuffed animals, neither I, o r any of the other passengers around, felt that we should take the law into our own hands and insist that they be removed. You’ve got to figure that t he security personnel probably have the same fears as you, and will take th e necessary security measures.
Which brings me to the point of this long rambling post- Tightening of secu rity, leading to inconvenience and questioning, is welcome, and maybe even necessary in this world. But passenger paranoi, fed by an over-zealous medi a, only leads to creating an environment of suspicion and fear which leads to nowhere.
I wonder what would happen if the next terrorist to be arrested and convinc ted turned out to be Caucasian or Oriental in appearance?
