Paranoia, Transformers, & the Free State

[Thies was published before at Desi Critic which is also one of the places I write in]

Recently at the Heathrow airport, there was this incident of an airline traveler who was asked to change his t-shirt because it featured a Transformer robot carrying a gun — a robot with a gun that apparently posed a threat to flight safety.

So the long list that includes safety razors and toothpicks (“Stop! Take this plane to Libya or…er…we’ll shave your brains off!!”) has been updated to include items as innocuous as T-Shirts and (heaven forbid!) chequered lungis.

Now seriously, how exactly do they rationalize adding printed tees into the list of items banned during air travel? What to they think? That mid-air, Megatron would metamorphose from the T-Shirt, hijacking them away in search of the Cube or would he demand destruction of all hard detergents? I am sure some bloke with a wild imagination and an overdose of Transformers can be blamed for it.

The actions of the free world (read the U.S.) since 9/11 have been predicable, disturbing and laced generously with paranoia. Patriot Acts and War for Democracies, Aggressive Diplomacy and extensive Bipolarization…Above all; the transformation of even mundane tasks that transverse across borders into something that makes even the seasoned partisan shudder. Let it be airline travel, visa interviews, IRC, Blogging or Freedom to wear a T-Shirt.

The fat cats fail to realize that what their actions based on an overzealous protectiveness is fulfilling the terrorists’ agenda more than their own. What they achieve with one tiny blast is realized tenfold or hundred fold (depending on the location, Indians shrug it off and Americans respond with fixing the third shotgun in their cars gun rack) by the seismic waves of restrictions, gagging, acts that inevitably follow. What they need is not blanket bombing of these into the unsuspecting populace. Indeed, it would well serve them to remember that even the actual blanket bombing was a ridiculous failure. They need to craft precision surgical strikes based on the strong core of intelligence gathering and extensive cooperation among the countries of the free world. Alas, the power-hungry politicos across the globe know that these do not work as well as their scare tactics in filling up their ballot boxes and hence try to disregard them.

Only Israel, secure in its Jewish nationalism and having (almost) selfless democratic machinery managed to do this successfully. Spiriting away Nazi war criminals from Argentina and demolishing the whole terror apparatus behind the Munich attacks using kidon teams. This resoluteness and ruthlessness, which Goda Meier possessed, needs to be imbibed in our leaders for them to react constructively.

Till then let us keep our Batman underwear and Shaktimaan Parle G biscuit packs at home while travelling.