The ‘terrorist’ look:

One of my uncles who lives in Boston prepares himself every time he reaches the US Immigration to be pulled over by security for questioning. Wearing heavy gold chains around his neck and wrists and carrying a briefcase, he felt he was identified for questioning because he fitted a certain profile, maybe of a drug dealer.

A journalist colleague who often got pulled aside by US security for questioning believed his wayward beard and unruly hair gave him a certain profile – he suspected a Communist look – whatever that is.

But neither two have been pulled aside for a while as US and Britain security seem to be on the look out for those who fit a new profile; that of a ‘terrorist’.

I don’t know what a terrorist looks like but according to people who have been pulled aside lately, taken into the back rooms for questioning, pulled off planes, received long, intense and suspicious stares from strangers – their names, the way they dress, the way they look or even speak automatically place them into the category of a ‘terrorist’ profile.

Trinidad and Tobago police and immigration officials and even the media in the twin-island seem to be caught up too in labeling people who look a certain way.

A case in point: Last October, Umar Mohammed, who migrated to London from Trinidad at a young age was arrested by security at the Crown Point airport in Tobago while awaiting his flight to return home.

He was charged with having two knives in his luggage which he checked in with the airline. After appearing before a court in Trinidad to answer the possession charge and given bail, Mohammed, who sports a clean-shaven head and a full, bushy beard was re-arrested and taken into custody where he was kept for three days.

Apparently, police found some Islamic literature and Kajol powder, used as an eye make up for women in his suitcase and became rather suspicious that the latter in particular could be an explosive chemical-base ingredient.

His pictures were splashed on every front page newspaper with terrorist label in the headlines.

During the three days, police leaked that Mohammed might be connected to the mid-2005 terrorist bombings in London. Scotland Yard police hunting down the bombers landed urgently in Trinidad to question him.

During his three days in custody, Mohammed, a devout Muslim complained to his lawyer that although he was fasting, police officers would often sit and eat in front of him and some called him a devil during their interrogation.

Cleared by Scotland Yard, Mohammed was then released. It turned out that there was not even an inkling or an iota of evidence that connected Mohammed to the London bombings.

As for the possession charge of having the two knives, a magistrate last month dismissed the case as the police failed to disclose material evidence to the defence after months and months of adjournment during which Mohammed ran up an expenses travelling bill to and from London to attend the hearings.

With all the publicity locally and internationally, Mohammed’s attorney Nyree Alfonso said her former client was now regarded by global law enforcement as a “person of interest” who would be subjected to additional security procedures.

In the aftermath of the 9/11 plane-crashing incidents in the US, Muslims in America complained about being harassed, attacked, insulted, lost jobs, demoted, spat upon – because they happened to believe in the same God that Osama bin Laden worships.

Guyanese journalist Edwin Ali, a mild-mannered Muslim living in Florida was moved to write a book on ‘Muslims in America After The Catastrophic Tragedy of 9/ll’ because of the hate that was suddenly being perpetuated against Muslims including those from the Caribbean.

The recent drama in London – and I’m not sure whether to call it a foiled ‘plot’ – where Scotland Yard arrested close to two dozen Muslim men and women for allegedly being involved in a conspiracy to blow up US-bound passenger planes – seems to have heightened the paranoia among non-Muslims and Westerners in particular.

A few examples: A 28-year old British Muslim airline pilot hauled off a flight from Manchester to Newark just before take-off. Amar Ashraf, born in Wrexham, North Wales, believes his removal was down to having a “Muslim-sounding name.”

Some passengers refused to board a Manchester-bound flight from Malaga because they thought two men of Middle-Eastern appearance who were wearing heavy clothing and looking at their watches were behaving suspiciously. The men were ordered off the plane and questioned by police.

Last week, an airport terminal at Tri-state airport in West Virginia was evacuated and a Pakistani woman questioned by the FBI after security checks wrongly identified liquids in her hand luggage as being explosive.

Dr Ahmed Farooq, a Muslim radiologist from Winnipeg, Canada, was escorted off a United Airlines flight in Denver last week after reciting prayers that were regarded as suspicious by passengers. And the list goes on.

US House Homeland Security Chairman Peter King has endorsed requiring people of “Middle Eastern and South Asian” descent to undergo additional security checks because of their ethnicity and religion and that airport screeners shouldn’t be hampered by “political correctness,” according to the US Newsday newspaper

Discussing the recent revelation of an alleged plot in England to blow up U.S.-bound airliners, he was quoted by the paper as saying, “if the threat is coming from a particular group, I can understand why it would make sense to single them out for further questioning.”

Wow!!

The debate on whether ethnic and religious profiling is a legitimate law enforcement tool is still not a widely debated issue in the international media.

But it surely must be a humiliating and demeaning experience for a group of people including Umar Mohammed to be targeted because they fit a particular ethnic and religious profile.

Such is the reality of life in the world today.

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Safe elections, Guyana

Good luck to all candidates contesting tomorrow’s general elections in Guyana. Whichever party wins, my own hope is that they can take up the challenge of seriously dealing with some of the priority problems facing the population such as racism and crime.

Guyana is a land of endless economic possibilities with its natural resources such as gold, bauxite and timber. There’s also the possibility of a solid tourism sector in the South American country which has some of the world’s most beautiful flora and fauna, beautiful landscapes, animals and creatures of interest, as recently seen on the Animals Channel.

Also with its vast arable lands, Guyana has a major role to play in the Caribbean Community by becoming the region’s food basket.