Racial discrimination. I mean profiling.
As was well reported at the time, a flight due to head from Malaga in Spain to Manchester here in the UK was delayed as two passengers became singled out solely because of their physical appearance. A whole six passengers kicked up a fuss and refused to board the plane when they deemed the passengers to be ’suspicious’.
What could these people have possibly been doing in order to arouse such strong concerns regarding the safety and security of the flight? Well, they were speaking what some of the six thought was Arabic. Oh, and they were Asian. Apparently this weak combination is sufficient enough to have British citizens publicly evicted from a plane, humiliated under armed guard, and interrogated.
I can completely understand that the threat of terrorists plotting to destroy [in some reports] up to twenty aircraft is one that can cause more than a little concern, but at what point does this allow us to discriminate an entire race of people and remove their civil liberties merely because they share the same coloured skin as suspected terrorists? With ETA still being operational perhaps we should ban all Spanish citizens from our flights, and those Irish cannot be trusted either with the threats from the IRA over past few decades.
What I find all the more perturbing is that I am not necessarily exaggerating; that incident has proved not to be a freak occurrence. Just last week Amar Ashraf, a British pilot, was asked to leave the plane and subsequently questioned by armed police. Though the airline never officially stated why this happened, he is right to feel humiliated and demoralised and states that he was singled out based on his Middle Eastern appearance. Neither he nor the two young Asians on the Malagan flight were charged with any offences, terrorism related or otherwise.
No matter how sincere this profiling is said to be, with some stating that it will actually make Asians safer, its benefits are unconvincing and I feel in the long term will merely further alienate a disenfranchised people from British society. All it shall stand to do, as it is happening already, is give Asian people a sense that they are under constant suspicion not just from the police services, but the British public as a whole. In limiting the rights and freedoms of Asian people, in socially isolating them with a brush of fear and generalisation, we intensify the hatred of existing Islamic fundamentalists toward the intolerance of the West, whilst making their campaigns of recruitment ever more effective and effortless. If anything we should be trying to counter these current perceptions and limit the impact of any terrorist threat, for just a threat alone brought our entire air transport system to standstill for a protracted period of time. We can never be completely safe, and discriminating against Asian people will not amend that fact.
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4 Responses to “Racial discrimination. I mean profiling.”
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I totally agree with you that the situation was handled with a bit more paranoia and gusto than was necessary.
I don’t understand how anyone can mistake an Asian for a Middle Eastern individual. There are literally HUNDREDS of obvious clues aside from the fact that most Asian languages sound VERY different than Arabic.
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