Profiling

I have been away for a tour in Belgium and the Netherlands and could not keep up with a lot of recent happenings in the world. The London terror plot saga produced much media buzz however the liquid explosive threat now seems to be exxagerated. The new cabin luggage rule created much outrage amongst the travelers put in a lot of misery.

Today a Pakistani American women was detained in the Tri-State Airport in Huntington, West Virginia, USA and around 100 passengers were evacuated from the terminal on bomb scare. She was carrying a container with liquids which the authorities claimed "not permissible and very suspect as a bomb." It is an issue for debate whether these cry wolf situations are really securing human lives or letting the terrorists win scaring a hell lot of people.

Believe me a lot of people are being disturbed by all this. Now there is a talk in the US as spelled out by conservative radio host Mike Gallagher:

It’s time to have a Muslims check-point line in American airports and have Muslims be scrutinized. You better believe it. It’s time.

The problem is you can’t detect a Muslim by the color of their skin or their appearance. There are white Muslims, black Muslims, Asian Muslims, Arab Muslims, and Muslims of every color and ethnic background. Sepia Mutiny ironically suggests that authorities can check the male foreskins; however this will not be effective on women as on the above case. Sepia Mutiny has also added more hilarity to the matter with additional suggestions to screen potential Muslim terrorists.

One of my acquaintances (a Bangladeshi passport holder) who recently visited Canada told an unbelievable experience of his. Passport holders of some South Asian countries including Bangladesh, Pakistan, Afghanistan and some Arab countries were told to drop their passports in a sack hold by an air hostess and had to wait in the Aircraft. After a while they were called and escorted to a separate immigration counter one by one.

Talk about discriminatory treatment, its not new for Muslims or the people of some parts of the world. But how long people in the West will be willing to carry the weight of an armor disturbing normal life in spite of diffusing the threats by solving the problems?