On an autumn day of September 2001 I arrived at Heathrow Airport, London from Algiers for the first time in my life. Only two weeks after the 9/11 events, the arrivals terminal looked very busy with passengers forming a long queue the spun like a snake around metallic posts, although in hindsight the long queue may be due to the strict controls being applied in the paranoid post 9/11 world of air travel. Barely a teenager, I was quite excited at the opportunities that lay ahead but very anxious at the prospect of being interviewed by border control, having heard plenty of horror stories. Legend has it that many people were interviewed rudely, held here for hours and days only to be rounded back home at the soonest available flight. I had applied and was granted a visa, but the visa application itself said that getting a visa is no guarantee for being accepted.
The atmosphere at the queue was unbearably tense. Security guards kept going back and forth moving people to interview rooms. The hall had numerous windows with one-way mirrors suggesting that all passengers are being watched. I waited patiently for my turn and made sure that I stare at no guard or mirror – yes, I was quite scared. Being of mixed Berber and Arab heritage, I look unmistakably middle eastern, brown of the North African variety, but not necessarily like the 9/11 hijackers. But you never know, we always all get lumped in the same bag, even Sikh and Indian people were racially abused and shot at after 9/11.
At the end of the queue stood a steward directing passengers to one of several border control desks as they become available. When it was my turn he looked at my posture, looked at my hand holding the green Algerian passport, and asked me to come to a small queue he held behind him. I discovered that I was joining several other passengers all of the same prototype: young, brown and male. An old Algerian in a suit in the “normal” queue got furious at the steward and asked him to clarify the treatment. I understood from the gestures of the steward and what few words I could pick up that it is “policy”. The old man still moved around angrily demanding answers and asked for the manager. I thought he was a noble and brave man but I was scared that he will get rounded up for defending us.
Meanwhile, our queue moved unbearably slow. Out of all the control desks one was dedicated to us. Once my turn came, the steward pointed me to the desk, at which sat a typical old British man with white hair. The old man lifted his forearm up, then with his back hand facing me he gestured with the index finger for me to come to the desk. The gesture was clearly made to intimidate me, but having the typical Algerian hot blood his manners made me more confident and gave me a rush of adrenaline to prepare for a shouting match that I thankfully restrained myself from getting into.
At the desk, language problems immediately manifested themselves. He looked at me in the eye from above his spectacles as he asked me something in English which I spoke very little of, so I just replied with my broken English: “I do not understand” in a je m’en fous way. I could hear him mutter a frustrated “Jesus Christ” as he held his head in his hand, flipping my passport with the other. Upon realising I was Algerian he asked me in French “Where is your Visa?”, I spoke French so I gave him the page number. Then came the flood of questions: how long are you staying? where are you going to study? for how long? where will you be staying? Who is waiting for you at the airport? do you have a French passport? and so on. Flipping through my passport, he phoned somewhere, from his gestures I assumed that he was establishing the authenticity of the passport. I stood there for over 15 minutes, then he stamped on my passport and asked me to join an adjacent room for a “medical” check.
Another queue at the room, again those being queued were of the same prototype. The “medical” check involved another examination of the passport and asking a few of the previously asked questions. The last question was whether I took vaccinations as a child, to which I replied in the affirmative. At baggage control, somehow I was again singled for a “random” check, which was quite thorough. I had a small bottle of high quality honey confiscated and was referred to have a “check” on my file in case the same “offence” was committed again, but somehow another staff asked me to just pack up and go, finally into the country. All in all, getting through border control took 3 hours of stress, and I am told I had it easy.
Throughout the next eight years I was more or less subjected to the same treatment (minus the special queues) every time I flew into Heathrow. Flying out always had me removing my belt, my shoes, nearly routinely getting singled out on the side for a thorough body check. Once I was pulled into a room where I had a border control officer “quiz” me about various subjects: What I thought about Islam and Bin Laden and other questions of that sort. I could barely hide a mixed face of frustration and laughter throughout the “interview”.
This profiling is, to me, too real not to assume it is not systematic. Some random checks may pick up the odd non prototype conforming passenger, but I have a hard time believing that all old ladies, young girls and businessmen were subjects to the same treatment. Therefore forgive me for chuckling and sadly shaking my head whenever one of these racial profiling debates flare up. In a discussion with some of my English white friends, some think that it is not a big deal and that I am not being targeted. This makes almost pull the lethal “but you’ve never been black or brown so you don’t know” card.
The profiling is already done in practice, and is undoubtedly codified in some internal memos as recently discovered in the United States. The question should not merely be whether racial profiling should be done or not, but whether 8 years (or perhaps more) of it have prevented terrorist attacks and whether the moral costs justify the small or non existant security gain. It need not be said that for all the profiling that I and people like me were subjected to in the UK, it is British men that caused the 7/7 bombings in London. These people would normally whiz through the specially marked EU border control desks at Heathrow. Any suggestion of racial profiling for British people in the UK or for Americans in the US will be laughed out of court. For a would be terrorist, the problem of getting citizenship of the target country of attack is a side issue. History shows us that no amount of bureaucratic paperwork prevents ideologically motivated attacks. Security measures are just a smoke screen that serve to discourage the target countries from seriously thinking about their acts on the international stage and the hate they generate.
But here is the cracker though: suppose that racial profiling was “officially” approved, and that the next attacks (god forbid) are committed by a non racially profiled attacker. The embarrassment this potential scenario would cause to the authorities is unthinkable. It remind me of the embarrassment, frustration and total loss that the French experienced through the Algerian War 1954-1962.
At the start of that war, Algerians took to the mountains to fight against the French military. The French stepped up security measures and installed checkpoints everywhere. The Algerian fighters countered by wearing their wives’ clothes to get past the controls. Then in the Battle of Algiers, key to the Algerian attacks were Yassef’s girls, totally european’ised and blending well with the white Pierds Noirs, some of them even took a habit of flirting with security guards as they got though their checkpoints to plant bombs everywhere in Algiers. When the French lost the war they discovered that all along numerous white French and Pierds Noirs, men and women alike helped the Algerians all along and were instrumental in moving key Algerian fighters around the country and for organising money collections for them.
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January 7, 2010 at 00:35
jonolan
You’re Muslim; of course you’re against America focusing its security efforts on Muslims. It would hamper the Muslim terrorists too much.
No Muslim should be allowed to travel to or within the Civilized World without being vetted by security personnel. If none of them can do so, the threat is largely eliminated.
Got a problem with that? Fix it by cleaning up your own population.
January 7, 2010 at 05:39
M. BEY
I am Algerian and English – born and brought up in the UK —–I watched my father go through the same problems all the time he was using his Algerian passport to travel. For many years he had refused to apply for a British one despite being able to do so , until the hassle just became too much. He skin colour is such that he can pretty much pass as a European – so the trouble he faces has diminished significantly now that he uses the Red passport!. I can tell you however,that when you wear Hijaab , regardless of your British passport we are immediately picked out. Recently, I traveled to Switzerland and both going in and out I was immediately asked to step aside by the police for a body search/pat-down etc. I asked the police woman why this was happening and she replied -smiling I might add-
– ‘ don’ t take it personally, we do it to all you people with that (pointing at my headscarf)’ —-
‘ so its automatic when you see a head scarf?’ I asked,
‘ yes its automatic’ she said.
Algeria has been cited as one of the countries for which people traveling to and from it ,will undergo much more intense security scrutiny- something we all have to look forward to in 2010!
By the way you might find this article from the New York Times interesting – a number of experts discussing whether or not profiling actually works – the overall impression is that you can’t just target brown people and expect to get a result – proper intelligence and organization is needed to make this work. For the moment , they just want to be see to be doing something but they are neither using their time nor their resources efficiently and Muslims and Arabs in particular are going to suffer as a result.
http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/04/will-profiling-make-a-difference/
PEACE
January 7, 2010 at 20:03
MnarviDZ
“Therefore forgive me for chuckling and sadly shaking my head whenever one of these racial profiling debates flare up. ”
That was my exact reaction after a friend sent me an email about it.
Your story is indeed something we all experienced and still experience every time we cross a border, so the random checks were already systemic on us. One of my visits to the UK was 2 days after the 7/7 bombings and you can imagine the 2h I spent in a side office with 5 officers interrogating me.
There are two aspects to the question:
The USA has the right to protect its citizen by any legal means it feels necessary, and racial (or sometimes social) profiling is one of them. But I agree this doesn’t work and they would better close their borders to any visitors. They would just have to deal with their own killers/terrorists.
Plus the security measures have always loopholes. In one American airport, passengers weren’t allowed to wander with their baggage, so you drop them at the airport entrance (a zone accessible to anyone) and someone gathers them and takes them to the right terminal. And then they dare ask you the “have you left your bags unattended?” question!
In that same airport, the police agent “randomly” selected me and asked me even about my grand-parents.
Anyway, I still wonder how they are going to deal with the typical terrorist as defined by “experts” (someone born and brought-up in the West, holding a western country citizenship, educated, sympathetic, with western culture, hard to detect)…
The second point is about the targeted countries. I heard KSA, Libya and Nigeria complained officially about this measure. Algeria’s ambassador in the US said he will complain after he receives an official notice from the state department. But shall we see a more significant reaction? I personally doubt it.
Taking the example of Algeria, I think this American measure (which I bet will be followed by other states) is not the most “serious” one. When Morocco closed the land borders and installed the visa after the bombings in Marakesh (caused by French citizens), Algeria reacted and used the famous reciprocity principle.
But when in the 90s the French isolated specific terminals (with a high concentration of soldiers) for Air Algerie’s passengers, we saw no real reaction from Algeria. I haven’t heard of any reaction either to how our nationals are treated sometimes in the airports of countries such as Tunisia or Syria. So why would Algeria react to the Americans’ measure?
We see here it is all a question of politics and the citizens’ dignity comes second at best. Even the American list is also related to politics. Remember that Clinton’s administration offered to Syria to remove it from the Terrorism-supporting states list in exchange of a dialogue with and recognition of Israel. And lol@Cuba in the same list.
It is a pity that the DZ/US $2 billion arms deal was signed…
January 14, 2010 at 10:41
Amr
Not just Sikh and Indian people were racially abused and shot. The brittish police executed a brazilian electrician in the London tube. I mean… If you going to have racial profiling… Don’t you want to start by employing someone who knows the difference between a brazilian and an arab?
January 14, 2010 at 13:22
bentAljazair
That is the problem for you. You mean if that Brazilian electrician was an Arab, it would have been OK to kill him?
February 13, 2010 at 07:57
I am muslim and proud
jonolan,
I think the cleaning should be done in your dirty society.
You kiled people all over the world.you invaded every land and country and you claim “Civilized”
Sham on you…
June 21, 2010 at 09:07
Mr Nacir Guettech
The Westerners, when they finished with the Red Communism enemy, ex “the Soviet Union”. Absurdly, turned to the Green one the Islam . Fictionally, upon to their philosophy cursed by the jewish pro-anglo lobbies. Begun, from the ancient altered old books, in the hebrew language. Previously, falsified the descriptions unlike, as the Promised Land in the new Continent (America) In anticipate been guessed, as they will make out of it a big civilization, a favorite people to the Lord, a country protected from Above, and the distorted judio-christianism, it’s the only one as a real religion. Also, the great israel a Holy Land, just to be for the zionism inhabitant people only. Nearly, seventy per cent of the Americans and their alliances, fooled thoughtless to that deceives of doctrine. Wrongly believed the True Religion Islam, somehow picked from their denaturized cults, they forgotten the inventions of the judas before, following the foundation of the trinity after. Imaginatively, created by the Roman Emperor of ex Istanbul, constantino. By contradicted the story of the Mormons the true followers of the Prophet Jesus (pbh). Either, the methods of His Worshipping like the Purity, the Prostration, and the Fasting periods, also the Teaching of the Oneness, to His and Our Almighty God an early Islam, and the Announcement, of the next and Last Prophet after Him, ( to the Fulfillment of the Divine Messages). Officially, on the lost original Sacred Books Torah and the Bible before got the denaturazed. Anyhow, in the recent decade, negatively the war against the Islam started, unfortunately not even one of the Arabic or from the Muslim Countries, defensively stands up (the weakness, due to the almost abandonees of the Mandatory of the Glory “Quran”, and the Commendatory of the “Sunnat”. Emotively, the more We cross Our True Faith ” Islam “, thereby the more other fake cults steps ahead. Resulting, most of all the disasters fallen on the Muslims World. Because, for not Warning and Preaching enough, about the Truthfulness, surely which is our duties, over to the unknowing of the divers unbelievers polytheists (mushrikeen) on the unforgiving major sins ” shirk ” ). Fundamentally, by propagating upon the Monotheism (Tawhid) as a Sign to the World. On the other way, the egoistic civilization which are: by inflicting the destabilizations worldwide unlikely various wars, the facility of the Bank investments an accounting nest, to the third world countries corrupters, of the stolen state funds. Generally, caused the miseries to so many Nations. The promotions of the immoralities (the violence and the depravities) to the peoples around the World, by big haram shirk’s conspiracy, with the unseen evils (the shayatin). And the preoccupation, regarding the spread fast realization, of the Unique Authenticity True Religion “Islam” over the concern Globally. Legislatively, a pure Science, to all the problems in general. Inappropriately, disapproved by these advanced countries. Uncomprehendingly criticism on the Islamic Concepts. Apparently, by looking, at their misleading structures, clearly, are in satanic slaveries. The unperceptional degradation of the women true grace. Appositionally, on the higher level of the Male’s surrounding rank, out of the Female roles. (Naturally, they are able in needs of valuable Works, specifically concerns Societies matters only. Exactly, where the Almighty GOD wants them to be respectfully). Also, immodestly, as teasing objects, for the advertising businesses, the show events, and the fashion trends. Either disrespectfully, manipulated on the provocative shape dresses (the quasi-nakedness liberation). Dramatically, causes major sins, generating, the aggravated indecent lusts, the transmissible diseases, illicit pregnancies, the celibacies left out of the disproportion monogamy, the toll divorce rates, the single parents, the disorders, the infidelities, and the melancholies et… . Badly, nearly, than half of the population born outside wedlocks, and far worst, other percentage unlucky does not even knows their biological fathers, or their own real children. Strangely, by loving the dogs more to their own proper kids, (escapism). Tragically, in some west countries the yearly deficit spending amounts on the dogs alone, is more than almost the budget of one poor third world country. Regarding, the Dogs Animal’s sensible overestimate attachment. Therefore, domestically has to be kept, and cared with the normal treatment outdoors, reasonably at the nature of the impurities dirt , the contamination of epidemics, and the odd visional rapport of the invisible evils (shayateen). Gratefully, the Dogs existence purposes, are : for the rescuing – shepherding – and the surveillance. Logically, are better exciting with the natural environments. Again, the growing perversion of the unnatural weird gays, the criminalities, the intoxication consummation products, the unslaughters and the pork meats, mainly causes many sicknesses. Evenly, the greed of the corruptions, the conflicts, more and more… . Finally, the mockery misconceptional freedom, of the others untrue religions and sects, methodically, the ignorance of the shirks, as a gateway to the satans, expanding the divisional hatred, human disasters, and the natural catastrophes. The Truth of Islam, Universally, it’s the only Key Solution to the Mankind entirely. Mr Nacir Guettech. Constantine Algerie.
June 21, 2010 at 09:11
Mr Nacir Guettech
The Westerners, when they finished with the Red Communism enemy, ex “the Soviet Union”. Absurdly, turned to the Green one the Islam . Fictionally, upon to their philosophy cursed by the jewish pro-anglo lobbies. Begun, from the ancient altered old books, in the hebrew language. Previously, falsified the descriptions unlike, as the Promised Land in the new Continent (America) In anticipate been guessed, as they will make out of it a big civilization, a favorite people to the Lord, a country protected from Above, and the distorted judio-christianism, it’s the only one as a real religion. Also, the great israel a Holy Land, just to be for the zionism inhabitant people only. Nearly, seventy per cent of the Americans and their alliances, fooled thoughtless to that deceives of doctrine. Wrongly believed the True Religion Islam, somehow picked from their denaturized cults, they forgotten the inventions of the judas before, following the foundation of the trinity after. Imaginatively, created by the Roman Emperor of ex Istanbul, constantino. By contradicted the story of the Mormons the true followers of the Prophet Jesus (pbh). Either, the methods of His Worshipping like the Purity, the Prostration, and the Fasting periods, also the Teaching of the Oneness, to His and Our Almighty God an early Islam, and the Announcement, of the next and Last Prophet after Him, ( to the Fulfillment of the Divine Messages). Officially, on the lost original Sacred Books Torah and the Bible before got the denaturazed. Anyhow, in the recent decade, negatively the war against the Islam started, unfortunately not even one of the Arabic or from the Muslim Countries, defensively stands up (the weakness, due to the almost abandonees of the Mandatory of the Glory “Quran”, and the Commendatory of the “Sunnat”. Emotively, the more We cross Our True Faith ” Islam “, thereby the more other fake cults steps ahead. Resulting, most of all the disasters fallen on the Muslims World. Because, for not Warning and Preaching enough, about the Truthfulness, surely which is our duties, over to the unknowing of the divers unbelievers polytheists (mushrikeen) on the unforgiving major sins ” shirk ” ). Fundamentally, by propagating upon the Monotheism (Tawhid) as a Sign to the World. On the other way, the egoistic civilization which are: by inflicting the destabilizations worldwide unlikely various wars, the facility of the Bank investments an accounting nest, to the third world countries corrupters, of the stolen state funds. Generally, caused the miseries to so many Nations. The promotions of the immoralities (the violence and the depravities) to the peoples around the World, by big haram shirk’s conspiracy, with the unseen evils (the shayatin). And the preoccupation, regarding the spread fast realization, of the Unique Authenticity True Religion “Islam” over the concern Globally. Legislatively, a pure Science, to all the problems in general. Inappropriately, disapproved by these advanced countries. Uncomprehendingly criticism on the Islamic Concepts. Apparently, by looking, at their misleading structures, clearly, are in satanic slaveries. The unperceptional degradation of the women true grace. Appositionally, on the higher level of the Male’s surrounding rank, out of the Female roles. (Naturally, they are able in needs of valuable Works, specifically concerns Societies matters only. Exactly, where the Almighty GOD wants them to be respectfully). Also, immodestly, as teasing objects, for the advertising businesses, the show events, and the fashion trends. Either disrespectfully, manipulated on the provocative shape dresses (the quasi-nakedness liberation). Dramatically, causes major sins, generating, the aggravated indecent lusts, the transmissible diseases, illicit pregnancies, the celibacies left out of the disproportion monogamy, the toll divorce rates, the single parents, the disorders, the infidelities, and the melancholies et… . Badly, nearly, than half of the population born outside wedlocks, and far worst, other percentage unlucky does not even knows their biological fathers, or their own real children. Strangely, by loving the dogs more to their own proper kids, (escapism). Tragically, in some west countries the yearly deficit spending amounts on the dogs alone, is more than almost the budget of one poor third world country. Regarding, the Dogs Animal’s sensible overestimate attachment. Therefore, domestically has to be kept, and cared with the normal treatment outdoors, reasonably at the nature of the impurities dirt , the contamination of epidemics, and the odd visional rapport of the invisible evils (shayateen). Gratefully, the Dogs existence purposes, are : for the rescuing – shepherding – and the surveillance. Logically, are better exciting with the natural environments. Again, the growing perversion of the unnatural weird gays, the criminalities, the intoxication consummation products, the unslaughters and the pork meats, mainly causes many sicknesses. Evenly, the greed of the corruptions, the conflicts, more and more… . Finally, the mockery misconceptional freedom, of the others untrue religions and sects, methodically, the ignorance of the shirks, as a gateway to the satans, expanding the divisional hatred, human disasters, and the natural catastrophes. The Truth of Islam, Universally, it’s the only Key Solution to the Mankind entirely. Mr Nacir Guettech. Constantine Algerie.