Thursday, April 24, 2014

Are Canadian Border Agents Islamophobes?

First, some definitions: 

An Islamophobe is one who fears Muslims, not one who is critical of Islam. Islamophobes are typically "dhimmi's": Those who feel subservient or beholden to Muslims for fear of offending and garnering their wrath or character assassination by ill-informed media.

During my recent trip to Canada passing through a Canadian border checkpoint, I observed a peculiar and disheartening event. Others may categorize it as Canadian kindness as if the Canadian Chamber of Commerce is running their customs and border security operation.

Here is the event - you be the judge:

As the bus stopped at the Canadian border checkpoint all the passengers disembarked - except one. The duly departed dutifully delivered their passports to the Canadian agents inside the nearby customs building. After we all pass muster we are inexplicably sequestered for another 10 minutes until the "exception", accompanied by a couple of border agents, finally enters the building. We overhear the questions and answers exchanged between the straggler and the agents.

The straggler is a 20-something year old Iraqi named Muhammad Hasad or Hasan. He claims he accidentally dropped his passport into a crevice at the front of the bus where he was sitting and couldn't retrieve it. The border agents inspected the crevice and observed what looked like a passport lodged deep into the opening but couldn't retrieve it either without dismantling the bus. So after answering a few more questions and showing his drivers license, the young Iraqi (most certainly Muslim – how many non-Muslims are named Muhammad?) was allowed to proceed into Canada without his passport.

On our way back to the bus I enjoined Muhammad with the comment that losing his passport like that must have been embarrassing. He responded in agreement and offered that things like this seem to happen to him. He said that he is just coming to Canada to visit his mother.

There was another 20-something male individual with a similar Iraqi accent chatting with Muhammad during the entire 14-hour trip. I wonder if he, too, was visiting his mother.

So, all the rest of us dutifully secure, preserve and display our passports, believing they are essential to enter a foreign country while a likely Muslim who fits a terror suspect's profile to a "t" is given a free pass. The time and effort we spent to secure our passports: $50 to $100. An individual fitting a terrorist profile not needing one: Priceless.

Was Canadian border security merely showing kind hospitality, or  were they being dhimmi's, fearful of offending a foreign Muslim?

We are seeing a new form of “profiling”, which in fact is “reverse profiling”:  The profiled person is excused from suspicion while the rest of us are suspect.  How often do we see this occur at airport screenings?

And which segment of our population do we now officially excuse from suspicion because of our fear of offending?  Pick one:

  1. Boy Scouts
  2. Presbyterians
  3. Tea Partiers
  4. Democrats
  5. Muslims

If you picked any except 5, you are probably a government bureaucrat.

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