Does one have to be a victim of something to really have empathy for it. My partner is European, and of course, it needn’t be said that she is hardly someone who holds any candle for any thought that race is a factor in anything. This morning, we were watching the news, or rather, I wanted to a glimpse of Manmohan unfurling the flag or something at Red Fort, when the news started flashing that Shahrukh Khan had been detained for about two hours at Newark Airport.
Now, lets get the usual caveats out of the way – our rhetoric of secularism and equality is often just that – Indian private society is supremely racist towards Muslims, and Indian government is officially not, but in practice ends up being so. This does not excuse bad behaviour elsewhere. And our officialdom can be arbitrarily mean to anyone – not that this compares, but I was once threatened, with all seriousness, with 14 days quarantine at Bombay airport because my yellow fever certificate did not have my name filled in twice – for which there was bizarrely space. I had travelled on that yellow fever card since 2001, this happened this year – so I was actually flabbergasted.
But, as always, I digress! My partner said – they must have had some information on someone named Khan! My reaction was pure indignation. Information on Khan? How poor is their information? That’s like saying there is a Muslim terrorist out there, likely, but not a reasonable justification for questioning every Muslim out there. Are we to depend on the arbitrary and ill-informed discretion of a frontline immigration officer. I hope not. It is unjust, because its underlying premise is racist. After Timothy McVeigh, all white men from the Midwest were not subject to any additional scrutiny. And it betrays the shocking poverty on Indian intelligence – if they can’t tell one of the biggest movie stars in the world, and I believe a Muslim whose name recognition matches Osama Bin Laden, then I think they should just give up on targeted questioning, and throw darts at boarding passes on the board to determine who to question. Any potential terrorist with a modicum of intelligence and capacity would show up with a innocuous passport and a non-Muslim name.
And here is a lesson for India – do not complain about profiling abroad, and do it at home! It smacks of hypocrisy, and makes us humbugs!
Now, lets get the usual caveats out of the way – our rhetoric of secularism and equality is often just that – Indian private society is supremely racist towards Muslims, and Indian government is officially not, but in practice ends up being so. This does not excuse bad behaviour elsewhere. And our officialdom can be arbitrarily mean to anyone – not that this compares, but I was once threatened, with all seriousness, with 14 days quarantine at Bombay airport because my yellow fever certificate did not have my name filled in twice – for which there was bizarrely space. I had travelled on that yellow fever card since 2001, this happened this year – so I was actually flabbergasted.
But, as always, I digress! My partner said – they must have had some information on someone named Khan! My reaction was pure indignation. Information on Khan? How poor is their information? That’s like saying there is a Muslim terrorist out there, likely, but not a reasonable justification for questioning every Muslim out there. Are we to depend on the arbitrary and ill-informed discretion of a frontline immigration officer. I hope not. It is unjust, because its underlying premise is racist. After Timothy McVeigh, all white men from the Midwest were not subject to any additional scrutiny. And it betrays the shocking poverty on Indian intelligence – if they can’t tell one of the biggest movie stars in the world, and I believe a Muslim whose name recognition matches Osama Bin Laden, then I think they should just give up on targeted questioning, and throw darts at boarding passes on the board to determine who to question. Any potential terrorist with a modicum of intelligence and capacity would show up with a innocuous passport and a non-Muslim name.
And here is a lesson for India – do not complain about profiling abroad, and do it at home! It smacks of hypocrisy, and makes us humbugs!
posted by The Argumentative Punjabi at 12:27 PM
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