Customs
Travelling isn’t what it used to be. In fact, it isn’t ANYTHNG like what it used to be. Time was when you could set out from Dover without so much as a passport. Today we are all treated like potential terrorists.
I am getting fed up with having to half-undress before increasingly rude airport staff. Of course I realise that it is worse for them than it is for my poor naked self, but if you suggest any objection to this sort of treatment of course you are automatically branded as a terrorist sympathiser by the officials, police and your fellow passengers. Subsequently, as an enemy of the US and a threat to all mankind, life can only get harder for you. You are regarded as a threat to liberty, when surely the threat to liberty is this very treatment you are being indiscriminately meted out with? Indeed, it is liberty that the whinger is defending.
It’s not the actual checking I object to. Obviously, as is so often pointed out to me, ‘It’s better that being blown up’, but why do they have to be so rude? When a woman of a certain age, in possession of what can only be termed a ‘muffin’ waist, is obliged to lift up her top to remove her belt, revealing her worst attribute to a line of impatient businessmen, she feels vulnerable. This is not the moment to slap a box in front of her face and demand that she puts all her keys, mobile phone, jewellery etc into it.
Next the laptop computer, which is potentially a terrorist tool, apparently, and they now tell me has to be sent through the laser machine separately. I have to go back. Several police with guns are now shouting at me, and I have to keep repeating to myself the mantra we British keep in stock for such circumstances, ‘They are only Johnny Foreigner, remember they are only Johnny Foreigner’, the idea being to maintain one’s appearance of superiority at all costs. This is when my trousers fall down.
There was a time only black people got treated like this. How often had I in the past walked by while my darker-skinned brothers (but never sisters, why is that?) were subjected to ritual humiliation and body searches, so I suppose it is a good thing that we are all equally disdained nowadays.
Everyone knows that when you shout at a child, they become inept and clumsy and start dropping things. It’s the same with adults, especially in the position of inferiority to all-powerful officials who, let’s remember, have been known to imprison, torture and release without charge innocent people in recent times. This means that we too, who after all are only trying to go on holiday or help the cause of international trade with our companies, tend to drop things when we become frightened, not least our trousers. Let’s keep everyone calm and feeling in control by a change of attitude. It wouldn’t cost anything to just relax people, already nervous and tired, by a pleasant and calming word. Something along the lines of,
‘Don’t worry. Take your time, Madam, we appreciate your efforts to co-operate.’
Maybe then we will have a bit more respect for the liberty we are supposed to be defending.
552 Words
Jill Rees
18 September 2008
Tags: ariport security, jill, liberty, terrorist threat, Travel, travellersRelated posts
Tags: ariport security, liberty, terrorist threat, Travel, travellers
September 23rd, 2008 at 11:58 am
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