The Interrogation
By Mathew Maavak
(This part deals with my ordeal at the Forth Worth/Dallas airport. The racial profiling continues. This time, things weren’t funny. My reaction wasn’t either).
As I boarded my America Airlines flight to Dallas, I had a premonition that something will go wrong. Maybe, it was the story of a Muslim woman, and many others like her, who were strip-searched at US airports. It didn’t raise the same indignation as the “pre-terror” era detention of an ethnic Chinese tycoon, who turned up on national TV to mock all that “freedom” in the US. The unverified story was - and such things couldn’t be officially verified then - that he kicked a guard at the US airport before a diplomatic offensive secured his release. He is now a corporate criminal on the lam, and all enquiries in the Malaysian parliament were stonewalled until everyone lost interest. Now, we are keeping all our finger and toes crossed, regarding our brand new leader with cautious optimism.
The AA flight was a thorough disappointment for one used to hearing about the consumers’ paradise yonder. The interior and flight service was as good as the legendary Aeroflot. Yup! Come to think of it, the premonition must have been sparked by the old battle-axes on board, who, with the exception of a tall Japanese American and a Southern belle on the wrong aisle, seemed impatient for Halloween. It’s easy to peal your eyes away in such situations and find a 1,000-page book more seductive throughout a 12-hour journey.
When the plane landed, I was not in a very good shape. A sleepless 24 hours, a biological clock gone berserk and a trans-Pacific nicotine withdrawal will frazzle any journeyman, particularly at a US airport. I kept looking left and right for a smoking room, and after the terrain was sensed “unfriendly,” a quick checkout became priority. The immigration counter wasn’t that long. An interpreter was ready to help out first-time Japanese visitors. The ambience was unnerving; I found eyes peering into my direction. Long before landing here, I theorized that blacks never had it so good in the post-Sept 11 days of racial profiling. Malaysian Chinese, once treated with extra suspicion at US embassies and airports for their sweatshop and snakehead stereotyping, stand a better chance of getting 10-year US visas while the rest of Malaysia thinks the embassy has stopped issuing them. My “golden brown” complexion, a trick of lighting conditions, was now uncool. I was right. Black passengers breezed through customs. They were cocky and happy. I wanted to paint myself with that military night camouflage. Or even something white. The airport was staffed by lots of “minorities.” Has Santa Anna made a comeback?
The officer who checked my passport was pleasant enough, but found my name strange. I could have told him that it was .probably the last vestiges of a nearly extinct Semitic tradition (Luke 1:61). I also wanted to tell him that my clan had that surname for more than two millennia, going back to a time when a certain Matityahu could have been similarly waiting at the gates of Rome, and like then, any screw up spelt trouble.
Try telling a Texan that, mate!
A well-known activist would echo that later.
Something flashed on his screen and he became uncertain. He wanted to waive me through, dithered momentarily, and enquired of an Oriental officer who replied, “don’t take any chances”. I wanted to re-arrange his face, make the eyes rounder, nose sharper and the hair blonde. If you read Part 1, he might secretly like the end result. “Terrorists,” if they were out there, would have taken note. Plenty of potential East Asian recruits available with the right names and features to fool any Texan, and it doesn’t take much to do that. Still, nothing has happened. The “bad guys” are either not smart (Sept 11?) or not out there as universally depicted (Sept 11?).
A man obsessed with back-up plans comes prepared. I told the officer I was a journalist and “was expecting this.” He was startled. “You were expecting this?” Yup! The word ‘journalist’ sent up some alarm. I could hear it bandied about. Mr L. Raymond, a senior white officer came by and maybe it was visual relativism, but he sure looked Germanic to me. I was advised politely, to stay “calm” as otherwise things could get problematic. The blinding rage must have been evident, the air of defiance and indignation a contrast. Two Slavic women inside were in state of trepidation. The others were from “Third World” countries, preponderantly neither black nor white, something in between. Most had been herded in like frightened cattle.
One exception was a man my age who had a passport marked with a distinguishing cross. His features were Teutonic but had dark hair and a pallor. Were Swiss banks acting difficult, again? Our man was bemused, and had the expression of one transplanted from a place wealthier and better in every respect to a barbarian land rich only in lethal munitions.
Maybe that’s why he was also politely cautious, as the moron handling his case could have innocently mistaken Switzerland for Swaziland. That’s pretty much how the world regards America, its foreign policy and Texas, though there was a huge map on a wall to correct this misperception. The Swiss would know what Stucke meant. I wanted to hail him over in a German or two, but decided to spare the 30 something guy nimble-witted questions like “Have you once been a member of the Nazi party?”
(US Visa application forms traditionally came with some reference to that, even in Kuala Lumpur). German-educated Mohammed Atta must have written Nein! with a clear conscience. Such “routine enquiries” does net a terrorist now and then.
At one side was a mockery called the Consulado de Mexico. A primary school classroom in Chennai might be better furnished.
I slouched down to my usual, irreverent position. Someone caught my attention He was enjoying a modicum of power, snapping “amigo” to his own kind. Either Freud or Jung might tell you that those descended from the countless rapes of conquistadors will one day sublimate similar passions to other weaklings. Those with a glorious past they can call their own, have the hubris or ability to battle many odds. Not always, but they stand a better chance, as vicissitudes are better understood, its memories and myths kept alive. Such people might reflect that they could be born say, on either side of the Green Line, that their lineage can be traced to a famous king and a woman from Jericho. Toss in some Good Samaritan aid from Muslims and it finally sinks in. Tribalism sucks, and observation, not taking emotional sides, is a form of bliss.
If you think this is a boast, take a hard, honest look around you. Does this show there is something called ‘racial superiority’? The answer is when you treat people like criminals, or take advantage of their defenselessness, they sooner or later become one.
And on and on the madness goes, coloring our perception of the world.
So, Sigmund Matt, sit back and enjoy this menagerie. It might help you score a point or two in a future thesis. Now let’s see, you can start off with the debate over affirmative action. Or would you prefer ‘psychic retardations in the evolutionary process’…?
There are times when you do snap up; when you feel betrayed by the “poor, downtrodden minority” you regularly sympathized with. American “intellectuals,” who boast of their activist past, but always had an escape hatch, will not quite talk about this. With the right turn of fate, they could have been spewing venom of another kind in Tel Aviv, instead of anti-Zionism in New York.
Try checking out someone named Vladimir Edelstein. Find out his attempt at aliyah, the name he goes under right now, and what he later became famous for. Intellectuals can confidently state, with hindsight, that the man was an ass anyway…
I snapped up coz Mr Amigo noticed me. He swaggered up in true Texan fashion, and tried to spook me with a little of what he must have faced after crossing that barbed wire fence into the promised land, barefooted, instead of a round the world flight in Californian shoes.
“Where are you from?” I told him. “Can you sit up straight, so that I can hear you!” I thought I had that mild hearing problem. He wanted to know everything, the people I was visiting, how they were related to me etc. Without wasting time, I told him I was a journalist and knew US diplomats well back home (not really true. I met the winsome former US ambassador once. As for the rest, I have only heard of fascinating Christmas parties, where Venus not Christ was celebrated).
I deduced, correctly, that he would now back off, after my business card tallied with my old (visa-stamped) passport’s entry for “occupation.” His battle instincts and social graces must have been formed at the scenic Nezahualcoyotl. My first contact with the minority in the American South was not pleasant but as stated earlier, I already had a theory. The bubbas would come later.
Henceforth, everyone in that room was a Cro-Magnon, semi-evolved cretins who only understood force, not reason. This was not the first time I was getting crap from the “poor, dispossessed minority” and Mr Amigo was burning one of the last straws. It’s one thing to be pained by their torturous existence; it might be another experience to live under their mercy. When I leave Texas, there will be no more ethnic empathies. Every man will be judged for what he is worth and I wouldn’t want to hear any neo-colon garbage anymore.
For the time being, my colon was more important and the only probiotic strain that worked was thousands of miles away in a Kuala Lumpur fridge. So, I had to use the loo, for which two officers, one armed, the other a woman, were assigned to tail me to the gents below. I think I invited one of them inside to allay any fears, which could not possibly have helped matters much. Inside, I lit up my cigarette, and felt the soothing relief of nicotine for which I must thank the conquistadors. Plumes of white haze may blur your vision, for a moment, but they do wonders for clarity of thought. Rage would now turn into perspective, future postures set.
There is no better track to adopt than telling the truth. Or more of it rather, thanks to the culturally-challenged apes outside. Texans may call this bluff, as they think of the world in terms of poker. You only need to raise the stakes. Bestial minds can only be tamed by a hunter’s arrow, though the aim and timing should be right. In the US though, the arrow symbolizes defeat, of racial supremacy, not genocide. And brute force can never understand people who can invert concepts like intimidation, threat, shame, etc. Those are meant for others…
Opprobrium counts, but that’s too big a word for the likes of George W. Bush and Karl Rowe, even after committing high treason around that time. Ain’t that a crime carrying the death penalty? ‘But this is Texas!’ were the resigned words, I would hear later, that would ring in my mind. Here you have one destructive, worthless lot wasting away their equally worthless underlings. Perfect! This must have been inspired during ‘prayer’ time as Texans still place their faith in Bush. Gahd knows, many know, that Langley is seldom after ‘bad guys’, just ‘good money’. There will never be a shortage of ‘bad guys’ but ‘good money’ can be an ephemera, the lickspittles tasked even so…
My washroom reveries were interrupted by a brusque command. “No smoking in the loo!” Seasoned smokers should take this in their stride as someone in the next cubicle could have already contracted asthma, and sensing opportunity, could sue the airport authorities for untold physical and psychological trauma, winning $30 million and the 2004 Stella award. This was the America we joked about everywhere.
When I came out, I apologized. “Sorry, just puffed a fag in a jiffy.” It sounded British, and fake. The nonplussed lady mumbled something incoherent in a Hispanic accent. I was escorted back to the corral, but the Stucke in line before and after me had left. The only ones there were armed anthropoids; the prettiest one twitching her holster but never making eye contact with me. I took it that this wasn’t a deliberately intimidating habit. There must be plenty of B-grade Latin American versions of Playboy around. I reflexively jingle coins when I think of money; others might fiddle guns.
Raymond was quite an exception. I could hear the growing perplexity and muffled words that escaped his cubicle. “It’s all in here,” his hands gestured irritably at the screen. I take it that my visa was strangely in order and there was no record of any “terrorist act” or war crime. Guantanamo would have to wait.
Armed officers would poke in; I saw heads turning in my direction, the word “journalist” escaping their lips. There may be real concern now, after two hours of cross checking records from various sources (the windows appearing on the screen seemed like they were from different systems).
It then came down to that interview. Raymond disappeared, after mollifying me with an Apa Khabar? and a few other Malay phrases. A black officer was placed in charge. He took down my details, and the names, phone numbers and addresses of all the people I am meeting and where. My credit card numbers were taken down – easy for tracking but I don’t think that quite works with me. A few details of my parents were required. When my mother’s age was asked, I replied, “She has been 55 for the past 12 years or so.” The officer burst out. It was an original but not a joke. For the next few minutes, both interrogator and suspect would pool their resources in approximating an old lady’s year of birth. I think we did fine, considering that I was a late child, the amount of gray on my mother’s head and so on. The officer was disarming. It could be that I like Chris Tucker.
In between the questions, he kept saying, “Hey, I know how you feel man.” The flights kept coming in, I presume, as it was only past 4pm. I was still the only one in that room. My fingerprints were taken, my eyes scanned and I was asked to take an oath, with my right hand raised, declaring my benign affections to the US government (I could have just signed a statement declaring my answers were truthful but like I said earlier, my government of that day must have tolerated these things). The rage was now masked by a ping-pong volley of jokes. I casually asked the origin of this enquiry. ‘Oh, it came from the Justice Department.’ Between the laughter, this was repeated at least twice.
Interesting! But that can be denied later, forever. The numbers I had furnished were checked, but no one picked up the phones. My friend Nathan, who was waiting patiently at the airport, had unknowingly switched on the silent alert. “Sorry, man.” I saw the writing on the wall; indefinite detention and another trip to the loo, the one inside the sanctum sanctorum not meant for unauthorized personnel, unless your gut is going to fall out or be wrenched out. Every defiant look I got was doubled and returned. My eyes slowly swept over the set-up inside as I sauntered to the washroom. This time, there were no injunctions over smoking and I took my time to light up a few sticks. You don’t impose such restrictions on a detainee who had a “date of departure” stamp on his passport, the same one as his date of arrival, quite near a stamp spelt “NSEER”. The date of departure was clumsily cancelled later. But if you are Japanese, there is a less likelihood of ever getting this seal of approval.
When I returned, Nathan answered my distress call. “I am suspected of being an Al Qaeda terrorist!” The officer chuckled, took over, and assured, “nothing man, everything is all right.” There would be no instant deportation. I genuinely liked this guy. I was asked to report to the immigration office in Seattle – my last port of call – within 30 days and was told I could go. But not without my pounds of flesh, and I wanted a tiny morsel, now!
An explanation was demanded of the senior officer. Raymond turned up. He was apologetic, his tone firm, shrugging “this was routine.” My voice raised a trifle, despite never having seen so many idle guns at one time in my life. I showed him a list of countries on the wall, the citizens of which were required to undergo this grotesque routine of belly dancing while I got the bellyaches. The states were Libya, Syria, Saudi Arabia, and Iran and Iraq.
I came from an ally in this global ‘war against terror.’ Logistically, there was no way this ersatz SS Unit could handle first-time arrivals from a Riyadh flight alone. You can’t even hold 10 men (how many passengers are there in an average long-distance Boeing?) for four hours in this cow pen. He didn’t lose poise.
There was “an enquiry indeed’ but he brushed aside any reference to the Justice Department. “We are never told who orders” these enquiries. He seemed like a reasonable man doing his duty, and probably kept a lid on some of the lunatics under him. Historically, this is not new. A fair-haired SS combat officer will be intelligent and calculative. There is a method to his violence. The non-Deutsche SS brute below him generally preferred the easy way out, cudgeling his way through other’s brains. In Texas, this analogy is alive, a beauty of bilingualism, not really of racial superiority, which we shall explore in a coming piece.
I took leave, went down, collected my main luggage and rolled the trolley towards the departure gate. The men in uniform stared, nodding knowingly at each other, all quite Hollywood. Just when I was about to check out, another one put up his kitsch cowboy bravado. Anthropologically, I’d place this specimen closer to hominoids, having a likeness to fossilized remains found anywhere between the Yucatan peninsula and Kansas. Another straw burnt here.
He drawled off a demand to surrender some agricultural declaration form. It is of national security interest to prevent anyone from bringing exotic orchids into the country, all after being suspected of things much less malign.
I finally met Nathan outside. He kept assuring me that these things happened, especially when you are visiting the “states” for the first time. Reasons were explored to which I gave him one poser. “My hand luggage was never checked. I could have been carrying anything inside there.”
And he would keep saying, “that was indeed strange” for the next few days. “And why would the Justice Department be interested?” Others would think the same way... I was rattled.
The next three days would be spent telephonically sulking over my ordeal. My American friends sighed, saying “But that/this is Texas”. They sounded like a self-explanatory age-old adage that should be preceded with the words, “You idiot!”
I will also meet exceptional Texans. Jung is vindicated here.
Nov 16, 2003
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