No fly, why?

Where does security end and absurdity begin? It is very difficult to quantify one from the other. The offloading of a Middle Eastern family from a US flight on grounds that the 18-month-old baby was on the ‘no fly’ list is a sterling example of the system working only too well. Although the human factor is the cause of several errors of judgment, its being sidelined so totally as a component in the equation also induces the death of logic.

When humans on duty become automatons and seek the sanctuary of rules and procedures with no capability to exercise common sense the situation only worsens dramatically and enters the realm of Alice’s nonsense. Was there nobody on duty who was empowered to make a sensible on-thespot decision on the matter that an 18-month-old child could not,on its own, be on any ‘no fly’ list? It is the difference between treating a passenger travelling in grief and another travelling to a sunkissed island on vacation.

Should not a service have the flexibility to give preference to one over the other? Similarly, between the crew, the pilot, the staff of the airline, the security at the airport and the bumbling foolishness of the hi-tech systems, could there not have been a call taken that reflected the better side of human nature along with obvious logic and still maintained the parameters of security. That the mother was wearing a hijab has to have had a bearing and it is naïve to pretend that the stereotype in today’s world does not have to pay a price. The same unit, replaced by a WASP equivalent with a baby on a ‘no fly’ list would have been accorded a different protocol and given a benefit of doubt that was refused this couple. The unfortunate part is that the people who failed to exercise sensible discretion can be placed under any sort of inquiry but they will not be penalised because they will find enough protection under the law and the wide scope of the Homeland Security Act. How can you find them wrong under these laws when they acted according to the very same laws? That is why whenever such an incident occurs and people are offloaded because of a sixth sense or a hunch or what is a prejudice there is no consequence. Khaleej Times