AIRPORT SECURITY!

(Photo Source:Internet)


I had flown in to London early morning from George Bush Intercontinental airport in Texas, a southern state in the U.S. The airport had a subdued aura with sleepy-eyed passengers making their way through the long queues at arrival. The 'citizens' - E.U. country members – had slightly lesser queues, while progress was slower in the ranks of the 'rest of the world'. An airport staff member moved back and forth giving orders in loud voices. It was deja vu. I closed my eyes claustrophobically. The lines in front of me strongly resembled the ration rice shops in my hometown Cochin where men and women turned up for their portion of government subsidised rice. At Bush and Gatwick it was not rice. It was security we were buying with the long queues. From bureaucratic and often unquestionable authorities. The day before, I had noticed with shock signboards at the George Bush Intercontinental airport in the U.S. that ran along these lines 'No arguments with airport security staff. You could be arrested if you do.' Bags, laptops, passports and even shoes went through the X-rays. The theme repeated itself at Gatwick where security personnel questioned everyone endlessly on their purpose of visit. The passengers looked tired, but did in mute resignation whatever was demanded of them. I wondered if anyone reflected on the degree of control the security staff seemed to project. What possibilities of additional signboards lay ahead in future if people did not question this seemingly unchallenged power? I remembered reading an article on BBC of how new surveillance technology could aid airport staff to “strip you bare without removing your clothes.” When would that be legitimised in U.K?

I finally got past the security and got into the arrival lounge at Gatwick, dumped my luggage in one corner of the airport seat and turned around to make a call. It was time to phone my friend and tell her to come pick me up. I shifted from my luggage a little as I chatted with my friend. A guy who was walking past me stopped and yelled, “Whose bag is this?'' I stopped midway through speaking to my friend and gestured to him that it was mine. He was not content to let it be and screamed at me, “You know you are not allowed to do this. You cannot leave your bag unattended.” I rolled my eyes and gave him a cold stare. He left me alone. But it set me thinking again. There were dos and don'ts and it seemed I had not yet mastered them. Why wouldn't he scream at me, I thought, it was obvious I was not to move even an inch away from my baggage. Weren't the airport security staff announcing continuously, “Please do not leave your baggage unatteneded”? It seemed I had almost committed a criminal offence, I mused in wonder. How had straying a few inches from your luggage become a criminal offence, shouting at fellow passengers become legitimate and machines that screened past your clothes become airport talk?

There was a lot in it that many would take as necessary precaution, I reminisced as I sat down next to my luggage. Airport security had become top priority for the Bush and Blair governments' 'war on terror'. Security in U.S and U.K. had been tight for a long time, even before 9/11. In the U.K. the IRA had set a pattern of terrorism that residents were familiar with. But the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York proved that the security provided had not been enough. More fear resulted in more perceptions of risk. The perception was that terrorism had made travel in U.S and U.K a risk. More proof was to come for those who wanted to see risk everywhere. The 7/7 attacks on London tubes and buses proved it. The failed car bombs at Glasgow airport in Scotland put another stamp on it. Many thus consider tightening of security at airports a necessary precaution to preventing future terrorist attacks. In fact, the U.S.A Today recently carried an article which showcased how a few of the 9/11 victims' families gathered to congratulate the airport security staff for their vigilance.

So what did the governments do? In the U.K. the Blair government dedicated thirty million pounds annually to tighten up the airport surveillance technology alone. The present prime minister Gordon Brown recently affirmed this policy, 'I think people will have to accept that the security has got to be more intense.' Technology has stepped up to meet the government's demands. The surveillance technology in most demand is biometrics – the technology to check your fingerprints, eyes and face to see if you are who you say you are. Metal detectors and x-ray technology are not sufficient anymore. News portals set off rumours about plans to install machines that could see through one's clothes. The argument was that it would prevent the necessity of actual physical searches. Another system of control is the CIA's bill of hit-list names were given to all security staff in the U.S. If your name resembles any of these, you can be assured that you will be screened more rigorously by the airport staff.

This pattern is comparable to what has been happening in Maldives for the last few months. The small group of islands off India was shocked by a bombing at the Sultan Park in its capital Male on September 29. As a result, the Maldivian government has tightened up security at the Male airport. My Dad who travels often to Maldives on business, had pointed out to me that it had made travel difficult. 'I've been coming here for the past 15 years and I have not seen such heavy security and questioning,' said Dad. 'But why not? If it guarantees my safety, I am willing to go through heavy security checks,' he had mentioned to me. Like my Dad, many think that the risk of terrorist attacks while travelling has to be dealt with tight security control at airports. Whether in the U.S, U.K or Maldives.

I found a parallel between what was happening in the U.S., U.K. and Maldivian airports and what I had read in a book called Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity by Ulrich Beck. The German author says that such heightened perception of risk was a condition of modernity. It is only in late modernity that people have become highly self-reflexive about possibilities of risk around them. Risk is perceived everywhere - in the environment (climate change), science (nuclear weapons), food consumption (bird flu, mad cow disease), sex (AIDS) and even breathing (SARS)!

I don't think that it was not that risk wasn't present in previous eras. But it was not expected of the whole society and its institutions to have much control over factors that brought risk. For example, in Indian philosophy, succumbing to risk was attributed to fate. Now with technological progress and more and more institutionalisation, risk societies, Beck mused, demanded various institutions and technologies to take the place of fate.

The casualities of such heightened perceptions of risk and institutions and technologies raised up to prevent it are many. The first casualty of this heightened perception of risk is humour. No one could anymore take a joke about planes crashing into high-rise buildings. In fact many travel websites, including one I had browsed for security tip details – airsafe.com – warned passenger that humour was not an option. 'Do not joke about having a bomb or firearm in your possession,' they cautioned. But other serious ones follow. In India, many friends complained to me about not getting past the radar. “We are not terrorists. We are just engineers. We need to go do our work in the U.S and U.K.,” they muttered in disbelief. The common man had become suspect.


(Queue at Gatwick
Photo Source: Internet)

As I looked at the lines of passengers behind me still in the long queues I was reminded of philosopher Michel Foucault. He would not have hesitated to describe the people as submitting to a strange post-French Revolution characteristic called 'governmentality'. It just means that you have given your given your government too much control. Virtual risk, as Beck would see the terrorist attacks since it is still not the most serious threat to British, American or Maldivian citizens, has led to the real risk of too much government monitoring and power to dictate normal day-to-day life. A sort of nanny state. In fact, the governments have succeeded in making its citizens believe that what the government demands from it is legitimate. The government has set the agenda of heightened perceptions of risk, and the people have merely followed the government's agenda.

But I had to admit that many do not agree wholeheartedly with the government's policies on airport security. A few among the crowd, such as the ones who expressed their comments on BBC's online news portal after it reported heightened airport security after the Glasgow bombings, did raise their protest. The few pointed out that the U.K. government was putting too much emphasis on airport security regulations instead of changing its 'evil' foreign policies and building bridges of peace with other countries. The other protesters, ironically include airports in U.K. who have to foot the bill of the 150 per cent increase in security spending after 9/11 due to increased restrictions and demands imposed by the government. Unlike U.S. and many other European countries, the chief financial burden of heightened security restrictions fall on the U.K airports, costing them 'almost a quarter of their income' and cutting out their profits.

But government control remains a part and parcel of life, unquestionable and bureaucratic. A recent proof of the U.K. government's power was the The Department for Transport announcing, inspite of legal threats from Ryan Air, Virgin Atlantic and other airlines, that it will not go back on its security regulations which were tightened again following the attempted attacks at Glasgow airport. Foucault and Beck seem to make sense, I thought as my friend came to pick me up. So much of what Beck said about modern man's attempt to gain more and more control over virtual possible risk seemed to be coming true in the case of airport security. But this heightened perception of risk has sadly led to a state of governmentality, as Foucault described it. Bureaucracy is the word, I confirmed in my mind, as I took up my bag and thankfully left the airport.