Enemy at the gates, security checks won't kill terrorism

Every time a terrorist blows himself up at a public place, rest of us lose a little freedom. Inch by inch, the basic freedom of movement is appropriated by the State in the name of security. As if air travel was not fraught with limitations of various kinds already, the Brussels airport explosions will likely add more restrictions on your freedom now. The Schengen visa may vanish, the borders within Europe may re-emerge and as an immediate fallout, baggage screening may advance one step: before the entry gates.

Till some terrorist, frustrated at not being allowed inside the terminal building, will blow himself up right at the entry gates. Then, will the State move into your house before you leave for the airport? Or maybe when you purchase a ticket, they will screen you? This has no end, or, say, beginning.Those who want to kill people in transit will continue to kill people on crowded roads or in hotels.

Or in shopping malls. Or the Metro where the crowd outside will be more inviting for a terrorist than the crowd inside the station or the train. As it is, you cannot enter a hotel or a shopping mall without being frisked and your belongings X-rayed. I have been frisked at a hospital, yes, a hospital. I had to exchange my mobile phone with a numbered token at a wedding, because a VIP was to bless the couple. In fact, I saw some really important people happily surrendering their mobile phones.

When I enter my office complex, my car boot is checked every time I get in. I come here every day. This is the new normal. The only place I am not frisked is home and I am not sure how long that freedom will last. We have accepted this because we live in a society that has been in panic mode for a long time.

We are conditioned now to think it’s normal to be frisked when you enter a public building. We believe we are safe. May I say we are not! We are just scared and we want a sense of security.

Planes at the Delhi airport are evacuated so regularly it’s not funny. Some man calls up and says there is a bomb in Flight X. The security establishment goes into a tizzy. People are evacuated swiftly. The plane is thoroughly checked. Nothing is found. This is repeated after the next call. They find nothing again.

You can’t take a matchbox inside a plane because of the security apparatus, but the same apparatus believes the hoax caller’s claim that somebody planted a bomb right inside the plane. People responsible for security check have no belief in security check, but full belief in the hoax caller. Do they know something that we don’t? Do they know that their elaborate arrangements is a hoax and that all this is actually not fool-proof?

If a terrorist manages to smuggle in a bomb in spite of so many checks, why would that terrorist or his sidekick then bother to call up and inform? Has there been a case where a plane was not checked in spite of a call and it exploded mid-air? Have you noticed that each time the terrorists succeed, they don’t call in advance? The reason for the extended security restrictions and regular flight evacuations is: Why take a chance?

Yes, why take a chance with so many lives on board? There is no arguing against it, though George Carlin, talking about airport security, said flying is taking a chance. Flying in an aluminium can at the height of 30,000 feet and above is always a chance.

So is going to a shopping mall. If you have noticed the security at shopping malls, you would know they check the boot but always ignore the passenger seats and stuff underneath them. There is a person with a mirror on wheels that looks skywards. That mirror is slid under your car’s engine. At some places, they also lift the engine bonnet and inspect the engine very knowingly. That’s not security, that’s a sense of security. Since the state has failed to provide security, it gives us the sense.

Just an assurance that the place is sanitised, while it is not. It’s the same with hotels. The person on the X-ray monitor checks for anything looking like the bomb they have seen in movies. Nothing else. I have never been asked or seen someone being asked to open his or her bags. It’s as dead as routine is. The guy monitoring the screen may well be asleep.

Then just to be sure, they want you to keep your mobile phone in a plastic basket, lest that should explode. And they give it back to you and say thank you. Same for your iPads. And key rings and coins. If you have a coin in your pocket, the man with white cotton gloves on asks you to show him the coin. He knows it’s a coin. All very politely. Because coin-sized bombs are a thing.

A circular recently went out to domestic airports saying passengers do not need to keep their laptops and tablets in separate trays during security check. Because, well, it was never necessary. It was just the security-obsessed, clueless bureaucracy telling you to unlock your briefcase, pull your electronics out, keep them in a separate tray and then collect it later.

Because once you work for your own security, you will feel safer. And suddenly, they decided to let the unnecessary be unnecessary. But thanks to the Brussels blasts, it will become necessary again.

The fear and anxiety of flying will be compounded by newer safety measures now. Airports will be on high-alert, like Brussels had been for four days. Yet, it did not matter. As for the suicide bombers, well, they will strike at someplace else if they fail to enter the building.

Since they do not care about living and the living. Their ultimate joy is in dying because they don’t want to go to heaven with their bodies intact and enjoy the free wine and fine women. They want to live a useless, joyless, purposeless life even up there and be eternally bodiless. As for you, they will leave you feeling unsafe. Everywhere you go.

The State will follow you, and the terrorists will escape.