All Muslims and/or brown-skinned people should arrive at the airport 6 hours prior to their flight for advanced screenings. For your convenience please follow the “Brown’s Only” signs to the nearest interrogation room.
LONDON – As airport security tightens, checkpoint lines grow and tempers fray amid fears of devastating airborne attacks, more and more Britons are calling for the use of profiling to decide which travelers should be singled out as possible threats.
Advocates say it’s common sense: elderly women and families with young children pose little risk. Opponents argue it’s an ineffective policy which will alienate Muslims and â?? in the words of a senior police officer â?? create an offense of “traveling whilst Asian.”
“Any measures introduced have got to be intelligence-led and not beard-led,” said Shahid Malik, a lawmaker with the governing Labour Party. [source]
Man I’d better get my hair dyed, start crapping my face with some Fair and Lovely and preferably change my name! Just in case…
Ya sadeeqi, if it were not for the problems it will stirr, they would be very happy to make this ‘brown-only’ sign.
Also, they already run a ‘brown-only’ screening process, but indirectly, under different names and through creative approaches. I tried it, ask me.
Sorry, I gotta agree with the authorities on this one. If you’re middle eastern in appearance or by your passport you should expect some extra scrutiny. El Al does it and they haven’t had a problem in a very long time.
Meanwhile, when are muslims going to step up and stop what’s going on in the name of Islam? Instead of just putting up the usual “they’re not real muslims” platitudes, why not work to prevent this kind of thing? Why have I not heard the British muslim community praising the man who infiltrated the would-be bombers? The man should be hailed as a hero, and I’ve heard nothing about him other than he warned authorities to act now. He’s a British muslim and he truly represents what Islam should be about.
What about fair skinned and modern looking muslims? How will they be discriminated against?
rocketray, the issue here was the discrimination of dark-skinned people through race-guided surveillance of the people. why do you start this old dicussion about how muslims should condemn terrorists? should any muslim or tanned person be wearing anti-terrorism-stickers on their foreheads now? you think that helps?
please consider this issue in depth. i assume you are not muslim or brown-skinned, so i suspect you haven’t got any experience of what discrimination of your race/origin feels like. put yourself in the discriminated people’s shoes, and maybe you will understand the dangerous consequences of “government-supported racism”. i try to explain my reasoning:
a) the surveillance of a specific group of people has one reason: efficiency. narrowing down the target group makes security cheaper. you could scan even the average english white trash, but people think that would be a waste of time. so it’s money the government is trying to save with this method.
b) the consequences would be that people in general might be more subject to fears of muslim or dark-skinned people. allowing such a political climate is a great hazard to any country. it doesn’t only make those who are discriminated feel bad, but it might have a bad impact on economy, causing money and jobs to be lost. and if people that the english government should integrate into their country are already made feel awkward, these people will continuously lose their will to integrate. this again might cause a creation of subculture among immigrants, which is putting young people with no love for the english at risk of being recruited by terrorist groups.
the innocent muslims of europe, those who condemn terrorism, and those that you accuse of not condemning it loud enough, are our only chance against terrorism. we should make them our friends. make them understand us, and make them feel like a part of our society. then there will be much more chances to be saved from terrorism.
opinions like yours are found often, but please remember that you might indirectly be the supporter of future terrorism by making rushed changes to our society.
The Britons aren’t just “trying to save money.” They’re using resources in the most efficient way possible. By resources, I mean time and agents. If there are 10 agents at an airport, and they can check 5 people per hour each, it would only be a waste of time and personnel to go after people who pose no threat at all.
I can put myself in your shoes. If I was brown-skinned, I wouldn’t like this either, but it has to be done.
There is only so much the government can do to promote integration. For starters, abolishing their ridiculous socialist systems, but that’s another topic for another time. People don’t “lose their will to integrate” because they are being profiled at airports. They lose it in when they consider the nations they live in decadent and immoral. If you’re a radical Muslim, why would you want to integrate into a society where women, gays, and religous minorities are allowed freedom and dignity?
Profiling goes after people who have already been radicalised, it won’t radicalise people on its own.
RocketRay, Muslims around the world have constantly condemned terrorism but no one hears them. Terrorism has affected us more than it has affected the western world. More of our people have died at the hands of terrorism than have died in new york, the uk and madrid put together. Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia and on and on.
But if you think the 1.6 billion muslims on the planet are still to blame..then i’ll bring it up at the next meeting
Christians aren’t blowing up planes, neither are the Jews, hell even Satan Worshippers don’t blow them selves up. Forget the skin-tone, anybody with a Muslim-sounding name should expect extra scrutiny.
Nas, no, Muslims do not condemn the bombings… sure a hand-full of brave souls do, but by and large NO.
thanks, there are 1.5 billion of us, only a few sick individuals intend to blow themselves up. If all of us did then the airline industry would have a problem on its hands. and yes there are many condemnations and just because CNN doesnt report it doesnt mean they dont happen. Practically every Islamic organization in the Islamic world and in the western world publically condemn any attacks. Egyptians, Jordanians, Indonesians (to name a few) have all protested in response to terrorist attacks on our own soil. And if you call hundreds of thousands of people marching in the street calling on the death of bin laden and zarqawi as just a hand-full of brave souls then you’ve got pretty big hands.
Nazar, forget about the citizens who you claim are radical and do not integrate, what about Muslim travellers in general? it’s called collective punishment and it’s a slippery slope.
nazar,
i agree that the issue of integration is a whole new discussion and maybe not one for this thread. but i think that nas is right about the collective punishment. what i tried to get at was not the integration issue, but the change of political climate. but i assume you accept that change of political climate to the worse, since you expect the safety for citizens in england to increase.
this is where i disagree. the character of terror is improvisation, just like organised crime. and maybe these publically announced strategies against terror don’t work at all, because now every terrorist can read in the newspaper they’re being checked by their looks. they will probably adapt, and the security in england will be no better than yesterday. but the political climate might be worse.
these new strategies are strategies for the emotional security of the english citizens. but the real war on terror is fought with an effective secret service, which has to research more than just people’s looks anyways. so is this new security method really effective? will it change the situation in england for the better? will the uk be less victim to terrorism just because they put their public guard up?
Maybe AL-Qaeda should start recruiting white skins radical muslims!
It is seriously silly argument to descriminate upon security measurement just for skin color, or a person’s name! Why do the whole Arabs and Muslims have to pay for the actions of few terrorists?! We are getting punished from both sides, the western world and the terrorists side!
There is no certain criteria for a terrorist! So far they have been youth middle eastern looking, but anyone can be a threat! If they want to add more security, they shouldn’t descriminate. We don’t have to pay for what others do just because we follow the same religion or hold the same skin color!
Nas, what stops a foreign terrorist who is a Muslim from boarding an airplane with the intention of blowing it up or highjacking it? How is it “collective punishment”? No one is punishing anyone for anything. Most terrorists are Muslims, there’s no getting around that, and I know it’s a shitty deal, but some precautions just have to be taken.
Florian, tell me, exactly how will the terrorists “improvise”? Will they change their name? Well, maybe they would, but it doesn’t matter what your name is, you will be targeted if you look middle eastern. It’s very hard for al-qaida to recruit white people, and the majority of terrorists will be middle eastern in the near future. The Israelis use extensive security measures in El Al airport, and thus far, there has only been one successful highjacking, in 1968.
I’m open to the idea that the terrorists will perpetrate terror through other methods than blowing up airplanes, but at least we can take away that threat. It would be a great help.
The political climate may indeed be worse off for it, but if they (the Britons) are going to base their anti-terrorism efforts on the “political climate” and people’s feelings, they might as well start calling Britain the Islamic Republic of Britain and introduce sharia law. They are fighting a ruthless enemy, and the only way to win is to be ruthless.
Nazar, the discriminatory act of profiling all Muslims as potential terrorists is collective punishment on an entire people for the acts of a few. Being called out of a line up in an airport for being brown is collective punishment.
RocketRay, Muslims around the world have constantly condemned terrorism but no one hears them. Terrorism has affected us more than it has affected the western world. More of our people have died at the hands of terrorism than have died in new york, the uk and madrid put together. Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia and on and on.
The Big Pharaoh disagrees with you.
opinions like yours are found often, but please remember that you might indirectly be the supporter of future terrorism by making rushed changes to our society.
So, you’re saying “be more sensitive” and I won’t cause terrorism? Meanwhile muslims like Amedinejad (sp?) call for Israel to be wiped off the map, and do other muslims dare speak out against him? Muslims are hardly practicing sensitivity from what I’m seeing.
The muslim community must change from within to stop terrorism and get a better shake in the west. Stand up for what’s right, regardless of who they are! If the French shunt you into muslim ghettos, stand up for your rights and demand equal treatment and opportunity. Meanwhile, when someone in the muslim community commits an “honor” crime, stand up and make the perpetrator face the law. Stamp out stuff like that. Quit blaming the Jooz and the west for all your problems. Identify what’s right, what’s wrong, promote the former, and fight the latter.
RocketRay, The Big Pharaoh disagrees with me?! well i guess thats it huh. 😀
Why don’t americans protest iraq anymore like they used to?
Why donâ??t americans protest iraq anymore like they used to?
We’ve got an election coming up in November. I think we’ll be making a pretty emphatic statement then. God, I hope so. I don’t like travelling and having to apologize for our Monkey-In-Chief.
RocketRay, but why no more protests in the streets with all the masses for every time your commander-and-chief did something stupid like start a war? why dont americans protest over every death and every policy and at the same time apologize for it
Nas, you can call profiling whatever you like, but the bottom line is that you would have to be totally oblivious to consider old people and kids as likely to be terrorists as young Arab men.
As for why more Americans don’t protest Bush, I think most Americans actually support or aren’t completely against Bush. Take the war, for example, 66% of Americans supported the liberation of Iraq, and right now a majority, though a smaller one, doesn’t want to leave Iraq.
im not calling profiling whatever i want, profiling is profiling. either way, call it whatever you want but to single out an entire people based on the color of their skin or religious affiliations is absurd and decriminatory by all definitions.
as for protesting, the majority of americans want their troops back home. bush’s approval rating is at an all time low with only 33% actually approving of him. there are more people in america now willing to admit the war on iraq is useless then ever there were ever before. so why don’t americans protest the war any more? apathy?
Look Nas, I’m brown-skinned and I’m Pakistani. I know that the London bombers were Pakistani except for one guy, and the recent plot were committed by Pakistanis who refuse to integrate and contribute to their society.
I’m not complaining about profiling because a majority of the world’s terror attacks are committed by Muslims themselves. Beslan, 9/11, 7/7, 3/11, the bombings in Mumbai, 11/9/05, Istanbul, Casablanca, etc., have all been done by Muslims and we need to do more to quash extremists from our society, but unfortunately, we are too busy protesting over stupid cartoons or whining about the Jews than to give a shit about the rise of extremism in Muslim societies.
Besides, Muslims in the UK are the most anti-Western according to a recent poll by The Guardian IIRC. Hell, I think if they hate their country so much, then why don’t they get out? They can’t seem to acknowledge the fact that many British are not interested in Islamic law and they do not want to succumb to Talibanic rules, and you know Nas that there are a lot of Muslims in the West who support the Taliban and believe they have done nothing wrong.
Danial, once again, I have no disagreements with that. Nevertheless the majority of people who are Muslim, Arab and/or brown-skinned, should not be subjected to profiling because of extremists. If anything it only alienates more people and encourages the same extremism you and I both wish to see disappear from our region.
Nas, I agree with you on profiling, but it’s a sad reality that we, the normal Muslims, have to endure through.
It also doesn’t help when these British clerics continue to praise the killings of civilians in Britain nonetheless.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/21/world/europe/21london.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all
We need to keep a leash on our own animals first before commenting on others, and it goes both ways IMO.
Danial, no it’s not a sad reality…you don’t just submit to something and say it’s a sad reality, oh well what can we do, we deserve it.
I understand the need to fight extremism, it has as you said before harmed muslims more than anyone else in the world. However to expect everyday people to be subjected to profiling because they played no role in fighting extremism is quite frankly an idiotic expectation. It is the arguement for profiling every white skin person in the world because a bunch of white skinned people are occupying iraq and the rest of them didnt do enough to protest it. to say we must all suffer because of the extremist policies of a small group of us is the same arguement those very extremists use to justify events like 9/11, that all americans must suffer for their government’s foreign policy.
It is very sad to still hear expressions like “66% of Americans supported the liberation of Iraq”(I quoted Nazar), because it implies that the author either believes in the truth of a liberated Iraq, or that the author does not mention explicitly that the liberation of Iraq was no true liberation. The Baathist regime is gone, and now other sharks and wolves are moving in. People are killed for being either Sunni or Shiites, so free speech seems to not have reached Iraq yet. Wasn’t that what Americans planned to bring? This is no liberation. But I guess in a discussion you can’t always specify like “66% of Americans supported the liberation of Iraq which in truth was an invasion based on fake knowledge and manipulation of the masses”. Hey, maybe if you people weren’t so scared about long sentences, maybe then more Americans and other world-citizens knew what they really went to Iraq for. I think this little difference in wording things is what can cause fights, protests and eventually wars.
You make a very good point Danial, and I admire your courage and self-criticism. You seem to be ready to take discrimination and profiling as a sad side-effect of terrorism. Maybe you are right, and I am glad you don’t glorify profiling as the easiest way to identify terrorists without collateral damage. I think that makes all the difference, because people like you seem aware of the dangers connected to such profiling techniques and therefore are ready to work with with new problems that might arise. But you don’t reject it, because to a certain extent you feel just as committed to the English community as the Pakistani community. This is a spirit that I wish Europe could have a little more of, both muslims and non-muslims. But you know what shows that this might not work? The US and the Britains started a war based on lies, they ignored the human rights, they act as an aggressive lobby with its own selfish interests. But they are not getting profiled at airports. They even train their soldiers in European countries. Why do Europeans allow this?
I hate pessimism, but it seems to boil down to that no country is acting in a “ethically correct” way, they all have their own goals, and no problem killing a few thousand over their own interests. Now Nas and Danial, how can we help our countries to turn from a mad dog into that ideal human society that respects life?
florian, thank you for your kind words.
See, one thing I don’t understand is the Pakistani community and the vast differences between the ones in America and the ones in the UK.
In the UK, Pakistanis have been flocking there since the end of WW2, and you’d figure that decades of staying there would make them widely accepted in British society. It is quite striking since many of the first migrants were hard-working people who just wanted to give their families a better life. Now look, they suffer high unemployment rates, they leech off of welfare, they don’t want to work, they’re like black people in America who constantly blame the white man for their ills, even though it is their choices that are to blame for the most part.
Contrast that in America, where Pakistani immigrants are more recent, majority of them coming in the 80’s. Many of them were skilled and college educated as well, so within that short time, they managed to become extremely wealthy and well integrated into American society. If you go to the heavily populated areas of Pakistanis like NYC or Chicago or even Houston or southern California, you would notice that many of them do not live in ghettos nor do they rely on idiots like Abu Hamza al-Masri as the British Pakistanis do.
To be fair though, Britain is a bit more racist than America is, but then again, you have Indian Muslims and Hindus faring economically well in the UK so it must have to do with a victimization complex many Pakistanis in places like Bradford and Yorkshire hold.
And also, Nas has done his fair share of being critical towards the extreme elements amongst Muslims so I think it is unfair to criticize him on that front. I respect Nas because he is well balanced and doesn’t feel the need to cowtow toward one side over the other, as other bloggers do, be they Islamist or secularist(BigPharaoh, sandmonkey.org, etc.).