The “Khan” effect

Judging by what happened yesterday, I would say US Airport Officials want us to believe that regardless of background or qualifications, anyone with the last name of “Khan” could possibly be a potential terrorist wanting to blow up all of America.

While news channels in different countries portrayed the event – the detention of Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan – as either “humiliating” (as per the Indian media) or “a dramatic over-reaction” (as per the pro-American news channels), what this really shows is how fundamentally flawed the American so-called counter-terrorism intelligence really is.

I mean firstly, not only did they manage to attack and invade a sovereign country under the pretext of non-existent Weapons of Mass Destruction (does anyone even remember that anymore?) and defend that claim for over a year, but when the truth finally did come out in 2004 – that, in fact, there really was no WMD and that the intelligence was seriously flawed – they conceded that damage was already done. And that they now had stay in order to “stabilize” a country they originally invaded on stupid intelligence.

And coming back to the present, now because Mr. Khan is a global celebrity with good political connections, he was just ‘taken aside’ for questioning and released with the full support of the Indian Embassy 2hours later.
But I shudder to think what would have become of the more common Khan – one who is not so well connected to people in high places.
Would he have been held for days, maybe weeks for the “secondary questioning”?
Or maybe even sent to Guantanamo Bay, just like the countless other innocents languishing for years there, held without any charge?

Regardless of whatever “its-all-for-security” reasons anyone gives, if a computer turns up someone’s name just because of their cultural or religious affiliation without any other basis, it shows how pathetic the whole system really is. I mean seriously, do they program those things to turn red and sound alarm bells just because someone’s NAME sounds funny?

For that, they might as well put up a sign that says,
”People named Khan, Muhammed, or Abdullah not allowed without additional verification”.

And if that’s how they are going to keep their citizens safe anymore, they really shouldn’t call themselves “The Land of The Free” anymore.

Update, 24Aug:
After extensive reading, I find out that there *is* such a thing as a "No-Fly List" in the United States and Canada, detailing names - and nothing more - of passengers who are, quite simply, not allowed to fly. Over time, this list is rumored to have grown to over a million names (although this claim is officially denied) and poses significant hinderance to the common person who unfortunately happens to shares their name with someone on the list.
In such cases, the person is expected to prove that "I am not him/her" using a variety of identification methods, and apparently almost always leads to delays/missed flights for such people.

The Blame Game

(Technically, this post should’ve actually been on Broken Fishtank which is the usual place I write stuff like this, but I just did a post there yesterday and I don’t want it to sink to second place already.

This is going to be a long post; and a serious one. If you’re busy now, please come back and read it later. But I do implore you to not skip paragraphs)


I’m probably the last guy on the planet to write on the recent Mumbai attacks, nearly two weeks after the whole thing was over; but in a way it got me thinking about a lot of stuff we seem to take for granted…including who we routinely blame for it.

First off, the politicians who are a bunch of idiots and we all know this. In fact, we know better because we’re the ones who put them up there in the first place, so in a way, we’re to blame for it.

And who can forget the “Deccan Mujahideen” who supposedly claimed responsibility for the attack…and then the media went into overdrive with home-grown terror.
Until someone was intelligent enough to expose this as a bad joke by some prankster, every news channel in India (and even CNN, but I don’t count that) was sure it was the Deccan Mujahideen based on one pathetic Email anyone could have sent.

…why?
Because Muslims were the bad guys. Muslims were the terrorists. Muslims were the people who like to blow up stuff.

Quickly, give me a no-hard-feelings answer: what’s the first image to pop into your head when you hear the word “terrorist”?

If you get an Osama-bin-Laden-look-alike with a turban, a long beard, wearing a robe, you’ve hit home base – along with a million others.

Now here’s where it starts getting confusing, because if you look at the one picture of the terrorist we’ve seen far too times on TV, there was no turban, the guy was wearing a black tee, cargo jeans and (gasp!) no beard. And then you have this other report that the terrorists apparently had stashed up 3days worth of food; chicken and liquor!

The chicken part, I buy, but alcohol?
I’m no expert but I’m guessing you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure who the only terrorists who don’t drink by principle – as opposed to not drink before an attack – are!

Now I’m not denying or alleging anything, but for all we know, they could have been college-dropouts or unemployed graduates taking out their frustration to the world…and the fact remains that no one still knows who the attackers were or where they came from or what they wanted (despite what you see on TV) but what makes me mad is that we’re quick to again blame the Muslims for it.

And again, why?
Because hey, if it’s not them, who else could it be?

In fact, a while ago during another bombing, an Indian news-magazine ran a story with the racist headline: “All Muslims may not be terrorists, but all terrorists are Muslim”.
Note here how the LTTE, The Naxalites, the IRA of Ireland and the FARC of South America all suddenly cease to become terrorist organizations just because apparently in someone’s mind; only Muslims do all the dirty work; with the dislodging clause that, “well, maybe not all of them though”

And thus, effectively alienate part of society by calling them the bad guys, throwing the blame on them and view them with suspicion at every turn in society.

No, it does NOT feel nice to be looked at as part of the problem and a potential terrorist when you have nothing to do with it.

In short: terrorists are our common enemies…and you can’t fight them by blaming a community or a country or a religion for it and alienating them.
Regardless of whether they are “jihadists” – that’s the usual term; or RSS extremists – we’ve seen this in the Melagon attacks; or by the United States – which pokes into Iraq, Afghanistan and pretty much the rest of the world; call a terrorist a terrorist.

And unite to fight them.