Via Fran in the Eurotrib breakfast thread comes this piece of joy in the Independent:
Seth Stein is used to jetting around the world to create stylish holiday homes for wealthy clients. This means the hip architect is familiar with the irritations of heightened airline security post-9/11. But not even he could have imagined being mistaken for an Islamist terrorist and physically pinned to his seat while aboard an American Airlines flight – especially as he has Jewish origins.
[…]
In Mr Stein’s case, he was pounced on as the crew and other travellers looked on. The drama unfolded less than an hour into the flight. As he settled down with a book and a ginger ale, the father-of-three was grabbed from behind and held in a head-lock.
[…]
Mr Stein said: “The other passengers looked and me and said, ‘What did you do?’ It was so humiliating. The fact is he [the police officer] was told I was OK and should have left me alone. The airline had a duty of care. I’ve got to travel to the US soon, but I’m paying an extra £500 to travel in business class.”
American Airlines apologised to Mr Stein, who was born in New York, but withdrew an initial offer of $2,000 compensation on the grounds it would be an admission of liability. In a letter dated 30 May, the airline said it had done everything possible to try and protect Mr Stein.
Mr Stein is all lawyered up now and going after the airline, and it turns out that the “police officer” wasn’t who he said he was.
he was targeted because he was using an iPod, had used the toilet when he got on the plane and that his tan made him appear “Arab”
Passengers thanked his assailant. It is now not only acceptable but praiseworthy to assault random people on planes for looking sort of Arab – the paper lists other instances. I already think carefully what books I throw in my bag when I’m flying – maybe I don’t need to pack that book on the Arabic alphabet, eh? – and my joke about being worried about flying to London with my farmer’s tan seems a bit less funny now. This is the path to hell.
Now, somewhere, there is someone reading this, shaking their head and sighing that I’m hysterical and scare-mongering. Just like we were scare-mongering about abuses in Iraq, or secret prisons or torture being legalised or any of the other advances towards fascism in the US and its spill-over into Europe. What does it take to establish a pattern? Do you actually need to see gas-chambers before we’re allowed call this by its name? At what point will you admit the danger we’re all in? Arabs wearing red crescents? Homosexuals being herded into camps?
It probably won’t go that far, unless the economy tanks badly and the regime needs someone to blame. Just a relentless chipping away at the rule of law until it becomes so corrupted as to be meaningless.
The optimists had better be right that the US elections in November can fix it all, because otherwise we’re in for a long dark couple of years.
