Posted on 06/14/2002 7:07:09 PM PDT by knighthawk
I have been fingerprinted and racially profiled. As we wrestle with ways to prevent another September 11, I remember both incidents well.
I was fingerprinted when I lived in Japan. As a foreigner living there, I had to make my way to the police station to get my gaijin (foreigner) card. I filled out a form, had my picture taken and was fingerprinted. One of the fingerprints appeared on the card and very occasionally I had to show the card to police, but only very occasionally. "Don't lose it," I was warned, "and make sure you hand it back in to the police when you leave for good."
I found it amusing more than anything. I was younger and didn't really contemplate the implications. I giggled as my Japanese Jack Webb pressed my fingers into the ink pad, imagining him telling me "just the facts, ma'am" in Japanese. Others I knew were offended at the fingerprinting. Still others didn't get fingerprinted, such as my housework-obsessed, highly unpleasant German roommate. The fact she was spared the fingerprinting bothered me. Was it nostalgia for the Axis, I wondered.
The racial profiling took place in Israel. I was working in Turkey and took my holidays there. On the way back to Istanbul, I was pulled out of the check-in line at Ben Gurion Airport and asked to follow two young men, both of whom had enormous guns. (What was I going to say, "no"?)
I watched as they opened my luggage and picked through every last item. The only thing they looked at twice was the plastic bag full of artificial sweetener packets I had stolen from various Israeli restaurants and hotels. "Impossible to find in Turkey," I said. They snickered, asked me to remove my boots, tried (unsuccessfully) to remove the heels, handed them back to me and then sent me out to the tarmac accompanied by a soldier. I asked him what gave. He told me they were checking all young women with Norwegian passports, or with a parent born in Norway, because they had news that some Arab terrorist or other had a Norwegian girlfriend helping him smuggle and blow things up. I've dated some cads in my time, I told him, but I would never (knowingly) date a murderer. And, I added, what happened back in the terminal was humiliating. I know miss, he told me, and we're sorry. "That's why we let you keep the Sweet 'n' Low." Fair enough.
Racial profiling makes at least a bit more sense than identification cards. The first month I lived in France, a bomb went off in a department store in Paris. It was put there by an Arab terrorist who lived in France and had a "carte de séjour" as all foreigners in France must. While the French police are free to stop people on the street and ask for "vos papiers" the only time I was ever stopped was when I was out with Moroccan friends.
My most memorable experience as a foreign resident was when I taught in a high school in Turkey. Filling out my alien card I found that for "status" my options were "married," "divorced" or "virgin." None of the above, I told my vice-principal. He advised me to choose "virgin." But I'm not, I said. His mouth said "that doesn't matter," but his eyes said "of course you're not, you western trollop." For "religion" I was even more confused. "I'm an atheist," I told him. "Don't say that," he said, looking worried. "And don't say you're Muslim unless you are. And don't say you're Jewish, even if you are. Just put Christian."
Having lived in four different countries, and having travelled to many more, I can say with certainty that little of what is being proposed to increase security -- particularly once people are already here -- is without flaw. But even if I think ID cards are particularly useless, at least I have proof that for a full year of my adult life, I was a Christian virgin.
I've got to tell you, I read your post and closed the thread, then found myself giggling insanely. Some humor, usually the best kind, just sort of sneaks up on you.
Easterm atheist trollops are OK.
It's the Western atheist trollops that are unsavory.
Please read my posts more carefully and don't generalize
my statements to include all atheist trollops.
The legal term is Spinster.
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