The Ritual Humiliation of Airport Security
Amidst the flood of absurdities and violations known as ‘the pandemic’, much has been lost to memory. One BBC headline from March 1st 2021, for example, will read like new to many people: “Covid: Japan asks China to stop anal tests on its citizens.” The procedure, the article helpfully explains, involves inserting a cotton swab 3–5 cm, or 1.2–2 inches, for those wondering, into the anus before “gently” rotating it back out. The fact that, in the third paragraph, we are informed that China has “largely brought the virus under control” is of course purely incidental – only a literary scholar would read that as any kind of endorsement. Mercifully, we might console ourselves, excesses of this kind are unique to generational ‘emergencies’ and far-flung dictatorships. From the comfort of the ‘free world’, as we used to boast, there is little to worry about.
On closer inspection, however, we find that such stories reflect something essential about everyday life in the 21st Century West – that the entire “Covid regime”, as the German journalist Aya Velázquez calls it, did not spring from nowhere but merely made explicit what had been there all along. Airport security offers by far the best example. With its routine body scanners, bag searches and – soon – biometric border checks, it is only slightly less invasive than China’s cavity probe. After the taboo-breaking experiences of 2020–2022, is it really so hard to imagine anal swabbing as a future condition of flying? Would it even face much resistance?
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I have a decent watch and earlier this year, I was asked to put it in a open tray to go through the scanners. I ignored and walked through with a less hitler type on the other side. On Saturday it was the same. That is becoming another thing that needs resisting it seems.
I’ve never owned more than a Casio W86.
Durable, reliable, waterproof to 50m if you don’t press any buttons underwater, lasts forever on one battery, even has a light, an alarm clock, and a stopwatch. And cost just £9.99. This range is the terrorists’ favourite, the world over.
Needless to say, I always remove it and it travels independently to its ritual humiliation in its own, dedicated, grey plastic tray.
I intentionally spread my belongings across many trays. Belt in one, computer in another, left shoe, right shoe, wallet, passport, half sandwich, you get the picture, as many trays as possible. And I try not to tidy up after myself. I also do a lot of slow moves, stretching, yawning, and I like to ask a lot of questions about what it’s all for this time, is it men with beards wearing dresses in caves in Afghanistan, or a cough, or something else?
The W86 is discontinued M A k. Sadly.
Like you I do my best to be uncooperative through Airport security. I never remove watches, belts, shoes etc unless told to, I never tidy up after a ghastly experience at Liverpool Airport a few years ago. I try my best to be politely truculent.
Hit em with your stick, Hux 👍😂
Also leave my liquids in my suitcase, this usually brings on a (obviously deliberate) time consuming manual search and admonishment (except in Italy where quite rightly they’re not bovvered, and in Germany where eventually found an empty 9×21 brass case, which they stupidly seemed quite excited about.
As I always leave an extra hour or so on top of the mandatory 2 hours that’s fine I play their stupid game as politely and uncooperatively as possible.
One thing I have noticed at Heathrow and stanshit especially is how few of the security staff are actually English and most of them seem to revel in their power.
A foretaste doubtless of our future.
Again, in Italy it is totally different.
The flaw with that approach is the goons who do the screening really don’t GAF how long you take, or how many people behind you you delay and inconvenience. It’s only the poor saps who have the misfortune to be behind you in the queue who suffer.
Well, not really. There are lots of parties at airports who want the whole thing to happen as quickly as possible. If it starts to take too long again, difficult questions will have to be asked and difficult decisions will have to be made. Time is money. If we slow it down, it’s more likely that the airlines (for example) will lobby the government to scrap all the “keeping you safe” crap, so they can keep their focus on the real business of keeping you safe at 33,000 feet above effective sea level.
Follow the money.
Just checked my watch – it’s a Casio W-94H.
The flaw with that approach is the goons who do the screening really don’t GAF how long you take, or how many people behind you you delay and inconvenience. It’s only the poor saps who have the misfortune to be behind you in the queue who suffer.
I am certain all the people behind you would like to say a big thanks for your childish behaviour. When people simply stop travelling by air, the airlines raking in the millions might get off their backsides and demand an end to the harassment of their customers. Meanwhile cut back on your air travel. They will get the message.
I find the occupants of Bristol airport security most obnoxious , Edinburgh comes close, Heathrow we’re awful, my trip through Exeter airport was unpleasant. Italy they are usually charming, as with Austria. Even the Dutch are OK
Manchester is full of Little Hitlers. The women are the worst (sorry, Mogs, but my last three trips through that monstrous hellhole have been so). Leeds is OK, but they do tend to be a bit shouty. Stansted, ugh, the problem there is its sheer size.
Beziers, Girona, Barcelona, Perpignan, Carcassonne – still treat you kindly, one fellow human to another.
Why’re you apologising to me specifically? Is that because I’m demonstrably the only female on here with a functioning pair of lady balls, who is neither coward nor complicit with the DS Boys Club?🤔 We’re all allowed to share our observations. It would just never occur to me to reduce every scenario down to a divisive ‘male vs female’ blame game. Being a “little Hitler”, much like any human personality trait, is not sex specific.
I guess I’m just a person who sees people as individuals, warts and all, and doesn’t resort to tarring large swathes of the population with the same brush so as to confirm my bias or push an agenda.
I single you out because I know that my anecdotal observation will motivate you into working to write another excellent comment 😂
Increase the peace
Hey, I pride myself in being the only woman poster who goes down like a bowl of cold sick with many men on here.🍲🤮 Badge of honour.😇
Hehe. Keep doing what you do, Mogs. Your comments are always interesting, well written, and you dig up some valuable little bits of information that would otherwise pass by the likes of me.
Cheers, mrbu.😁 I’m here to air my views, no matter how they might be received, not to conform or people-please.
The way I see it, peeps have 2 options: scroll on by or cope.🧘♀️
It’s not the people, it’s the system that is dehumanising.
The Spanish airports are genuinely fine, they tend to have a weary, disinterested CGAF approach to the whole process.
Maybe that’s because of the Third World Ethnic Staff at those UK airports.
Bristol and Exeter are two of the “12 Cities” targeted by Muslims for takeover, after which they plan to spread out into the countryside, already started by building mega-mosques in rural areas, such as the one in Cumbria only 5 miles from Britain’s nuclear submarine base at Barrow-in-Furness. Very convenient for armed drones and such…
The absurdity is that:
1.) Legal travelers are screened, checked, searched, scanned, interviewed at several points during their journey.
2.) At the same time, illegal migrants are allowed to enter and stay without any checks and restrictions.
In the passport queue I tend to make lots of loud remarks, such as asking for directions to the express line for rubber dinghies, or enquiring if anyone has any of those orange lifejackets to speed things up a bit. Most people just stare blankly at me. I do get the odd laugh.
As I parade up and down endlessly between the ‘Disney-eque’ barriers at Manchester airport, I tend to adopt the identity of a sheep and bleat “Maaaaaaah” very loudly. Makes me (and some others) laugh.
Ah, my wife and I both do that in any mass-processing situation. We’re a flock.
UK Authorities are now conditioned to be ‘weak on the strong and strong on the weak’ in every area.
If you are a law abiding, house and car owning tax payer who plays by established societal rules, them I’m afraid you are fair game to the police/council/institutions and quangos.
The best way to ruin a holiday, is to got to the airport. There are plenty of nice places
in the UK.
I agree. I firkin detest airports.
On the whole airport security has far more reason to exist than any of the Wuhan Flu restrictions. Many lives have been brutally lost through terrorism, and through using aviation. But, it is important to remember that we have all this airport security because of one religion.
So why don’t they just screen Muslims?
You could say the same about women, btw. When was the last time a woman blew up a plane?
Or children.
Or people over the age of, I don’t know, 60?
Muslim women in full burkas are WAVED THROUGH ON THE NOD.
That’s assuming they are women under all those layers.
Airport security story #1: Some time ago, I daringly carried a tube of toothpase in my hand luggage while going through Heathrow security. Some woman took it out, handling it as if it was going to explode on the spot. “This is a liquid!” she informed me, to which I repied “No, it’s toothpaste and not liquid!” She then x-rayed it separately for one more time, put it into a transparent plastic bag to render it harmless and told me “I’m just doing this to keep everyone safe!” I thought of a couple of replies to that – Do you think toothpaste has no emotions? – but prudently kept them to myself. Airport security story #2: A bottle of Zippo lighter fluid is a dangerous good which may not be carried in hand luggage. A Zippo lighter is a dangerous good which may not be carried in hand luggage. Replacement flints for Zippo lighters are a dangerous goods which may not be carried in hand luggage. A disposable lighter filled with pressurized gas which contains a flint identical to those banned from hand luggage and which – as opposed to the Zippo – can actually explode may be carried freely… Read more »
Agreed. There are good reasons for security and the resulting security has to applied with good reason. To complement your stories here are two more. There was a radio phone in primed with the question ‘should there be more airport security?’ Nearly all of the callers were saying that we needed more security and then a caller who identified himself as an airline pilot expressed the opinion that it was the type of security that was important and not the amount. He recounted an incident where he was going through security, as a pilot and they confiscated his water. He asked a supervisor as to why they did that as he was going to be flying for some hours in a dry cockpit. The reply was “because you might take over the aircraft.” He replied that he had every intention of doing that. I don’t recall what the response was but I’m guessing his response made no difference. On another occasion, a friend with a Private Pilots License flew himself to Norwich, for an expensive cup of tea in the terminal. When he went to return to his aircraft security insisted he went through the scanner. He protested that he… Read more »
Maybe their rational was that he could take some prohibited items with him airside, for others to pick up later?
I have argued that airport security is dehumanising and completely unnecessary many times with people. The only retort I get is that they consider it necessary to be safe, which doesn’t disprove the point, just explains why they accept the humiliation.
What is also missed is that it it is dehumanising of the people carrying it out because it forces them to treat everyone like criminals (until proven otherwise by their system). Including grannies and small children and just thousands and thousands of ordinary people they know full well are not going to blow up a plane. The security staff are systematically denied their capacity to think foe themselves in even the most basic terms and reach the most obvious of conclusions.
Airport security is just yet another way in which modern society forces us to behave like mad people thereby making us all a little madder ever day.
Long ago in the 70s I christened metal scanners Yassers in honour of Arafat and his PLO terrorists,who gave us some of the earliest hijackings along with the PFLP.
Strange world now with its weekly anti-Jewish protests by Hamas supporters.
Islam again.
Islam and socialism are the twin scourges of the world.
on a recent trip to Alicante I was told to stand in front of an automated machine with my passport, and to remove my glasses. A couple of minutes later the same attendant came to ask why I’d not done anything. “Because I can’t see what the machine is telling me to do without my glasses on”.
that might be the biometric thing i used to do too , then found out you can opt out ,much better.
has anyone else opted out recently?
I like your style. If I have time I relish obeying signs to the letter. The gents’ loo in my local cathedral has a sign on the exit door that reads “Now wash your hands”. It’s very hard not to get stuck in a loop of handwashing and nearly exiting.
On the subject of airports, my wife’s digital passport never works. After queueing for the machine she then has to queue to be re-admitted to our own country.
And yet the rulers think digital ID will work. Fat chance.
One assumes that possession of a digital ID will nevertheless quickly become mandatory for travel.
The authorities know full well that Digital ID will not work but that is not the point, what matters is the process. It doesn’t work so some people are detained or even arrested – tough, a lesson to everyone, comply or else. Plus it paves the way for other random assaults on liberties such as medical checks, bank account investigations; there will be any number of further additions to the security checks precisely because Digital ID doesn’t work. In reality it is never intended to work. All about the process.
And it’s also all about politicians/lawmakers being able to provide their mates with ample opportunities for grift in return for an under-the-table brown envelope containing the previously-agreed cut of said mates’ profits from said grift.
Well done to Dr. Thomas Crew and the DS for exposing this outrageous violation of human rights as “Ritual Humiliation”, one of the primary methods of mind-control. It follows the Communist motto “TARGET THE RESISTERS”, in this case, White People, while Muslim Women in Burkas are routinely waved through on the nod. Does anyone remember reports from the US years ago when this “airport security to prevent terrorism” first started, and staff were actually doing anal probes with their gloved hands on White American Men, after deliberately setting off the “alarm” on the machine as the men were passing through it? Do you remember that staff were also caught waiting for beautiful white women to approach, and then kicking the machine to set off the alarm, so the staff could body-search the women? This is still happening, as a neighbour once said, “I don’t understand why my wife always seems to set off the alarm and get searched & patted down, but I never do!” I pointed out that it was because his wife was a beautiful blond, and targeted by the staff. Do you remember that staff were also caught sniggering and making lewd comments while viewing the nude… Read more »
Especially entering…
I am so glad I no longer fly. I preferred going by ferry or the Chunnel anyway.
That’s OK but that doesn’t work for crossing the Atlantic or going to somewhere like Australia?
Are ‘Important’ people such as the royals, government officials, hangers on and mates etc subjected to the same rules as the unwashed, mere mortals, I wonder?
I don’t suppose for one minute they will be complying – or expected to – with the new regulations to undergo finger printing and eye / facial scans before being allowed to enter foreign climes. It may / will be suggested / accepted that doing so may / will compromise their security if ‘wrong ‘uns’ got a hold of their personal data, perish the thought…and do not forget the indignity they will suffer if being herded like cattle, that won’t do at all!
Occupants of rubber dinghies and those hidden in vehicles to cross the non-existent borders are excluded, of course, from the ‘rules’ the common folk have to endure.
The commoners – the ones, ya know, who keep the country afloat due to being stripped of anything being seen as wealth, by ever increasing taxes, man-made rules and regulations- all in the interests of the greater good, of course…
I loath the process and don’t like being treated like a number.
And in general airport security could really do with a course in customer service. Smiling, being polite and interacting nicely with people would make it a lot better, also for them.
I still shudder at the numbers who stepped forward and offered their arms to be jabbed with BigPharma slurry so they could go on holiday 😳
…and not forgetting the infamous budget airline’s misleading advertising campaign ‘jab and go’ 😧
The fact that everyone goes through the same process is just a reflection of progressive blank slatism writ large. They know that only certain folks are likely to be a bit bomby but they just can’t admit that as all their multi culti nonsense is exposed.
It is all intentional. I try to always schedule my flights around Sept 11 as all Americans are still scared to fly that day. Ever see anyone dragged oh by homeland security? No, me neither. It is a farce. We know it, they know it.
The entire process is pure theatre and meant as a deterrent to Alan’s snackbar types. I don’t believe they ever expect to actually find anything. Unless you have a pacemaker, what’s wrong with a full body scan? I’d rather that the alternative you describe.
The security staff at Heathrow are little Hitlers – infused with a sense of power but largely brainless. Cross the channel in a dinghy, fine; forget to declare 5cl of after-shave, then you are in serious trouble. Usual bureaucratic overreach.