I often travel between Canada and the United States. Typically, I am asked to line up involuntarily at the immigration counter to be interrogated by the officers. The Canadians and the Americans ask exactly the same questions. Where am I coming from? Am I married (for I have brown skin)? What do I do? Where do I live? What is my name? Where will I be staying? How long will I be there for?
The extremely clever minds of the officers process my tone and responses to decide whether I am a terrorist or not.
In Canada, I am often greeted as “Sir.” And when I am tired — after a 20-hour flight — they show some understanding. I expect none of this in the US. In the US, the herd is constantly shouted at to keep them well-behaved.
It is hard to think that these are actually our (public) servants. But given that an individual cannot really change much, one’s knee-jerk reaction might be a preference for the Canadian way.
I prefer the American way.
A long time back I was mugged when crossing a park in Manchester (UK). They addressed me as “Sir” and were extremely polite. When they found fifty pence in my pocket, for I was broke and hungry those days, they returned it and promised me that they would never stop me again. Then they let me go. Lacking perspective, I was lost and confused. I never reported this event. Were they not nice guys? They could have beaten me if they wanted to. At the same time, I was overwhelmed by an unknown, cloudy anger. How could someone who calls me “Sir” have the right to detain me? How could they touch me, physically molest me while showing respect toward me?
Twenty-five years after the destruction of the Berlin Wall, we are proud of the world without it, but now there are many more such walls all around us.
Had they not been nice, at least I would have left sane, with my mind clear, unclouded by conflicting emotions. I would have seen them clearly as robbers.
Do you remember the Internal Revenue Service? Would you not feel clearer about what they did if they did not call themselves a service? No one in his right mind considers it a service department and mostly it incites anxiety, even among the most “law” abiding people.
How many people experience any interaction with “peace officers” without fear?
When I get told what to eat, and what I can do or what I cannot do, should I feel warm about the caring nannies or should I worry about how, through a nice facade, they take over my liberties? Moreover, they attempt to confuse me through Orwellian language and the application of laws that claim to do good to me exactly when harming me.
I prefer the mental clarity and reduced frustration that come from a robber being clear that he is a robber.
Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Western world has become increasingly less free. All our lives are now fully documented and filed in obscure databases. In Canada, if you have a certain savings account (called a tax-free savings account), you don’t even have to file any tax documents. The revenue agency gets all the relevant information directly from the bank. If they don’t like how you run that account, they issue an assessment based on what the bank tells them.
We are repeatedly told that this is all for our own good.
Twenty-five years after the destruction of the Berlin Wall, we are proud of the world without it, but now there are many more such walls all around us. It is merely that we don’t see the walls as clearly and find ourselves confused even if we can see them, for they don’t have the rough facade that the actual wall had. We are presented instead with cuddly, warm, fuzzy facades.
I prefer the American immigration and the real walls. At least I see them for what they are. At least they don’t assault my sanity and confuse my understanding of morality.
I prefer that when I am raped, it is done in a way that I don’t enjoy.
