Note to self: Watch out for misspelling racist as raciest to not loosing losing impact of letter.
In response to these letters. Lets see if they print it ....
TO: Mail at UKMETROI love the way racists always defend their arguments by calling the opposing argument PC and the opposing arguers do gooders. I’m sure the letter today must have known his arguments were raciest, otherwise why withhold your name instead of standing by your statement.
Of course the arguments are totally false. All racial profiling does it make it easier for the terrorist. In fact if I was a terrorist mastermind I would be rubbing my hands at glee at the panic and knee jerk idiotic reactions going on. Racial profiling does two things. (1) It makes
recitingrecruiting new terrorists much easier, as who likes being singled out when innocent. Easier then to recruit terrorists by pointing towards the obvious oppression. (2) It makes it easier to bomb planes. I mean if you know they are singling out Muslim looking Asians, you use a non Asian looking Muslim. The more you tighten down one aspect of security the easier it is to avoid. The only profiling that will protect us at airports is fully random checks that distinguishes no one by anything more than a random number.Of course once you make airports too secure, it’s easier to bomb busses, or trains, or buildings or anything else you haven’t devoted money to. Solve the problem at source not at target. You could start by not singling out a group of people and treating them worse.
1. matthew
Note to Adrian: you really should learn how to spell ‘losing’, so as not to lose the impact of your ‘notes to self’.
2. Destructor
Also I think it’s already quite easy to recite new terrorists. Recruiting them, on the other hand…
3. annie
Bravo! I concur!
4. Adrian
Typos corrected.
5. Gordon
I think we’ve all missed something here.
Are you saying you actually SENT this to The Metro? Good god man, are you a mental? Ohh wait, you sent in a letter to The Metro, you MUST be a mental.
Honestly, I thought all their letters were made up.
Good point though, but I wouldn’t expect them to print any responses that agree with you.
The Metro - The Internet, printed.
6. Nuge
Hurray! Something interesting!
Points to consider
1) Racial Profiling is not a new thing.
2) Racial Profiling is a good thing.
Adrian, regardless of how well you believe people should be treated and how much you believe in equality, there is a group of extreme people who, in their malformed minds, seek to destroy and kill people like you, me and millions of innocent people. I’m sure your designer labelled, iMac toting, commercialised backside would be high on their list.
From the evidence of previous terror attacks, the group of people responsible have an almost identical demographic profile. I bet we could all draw your stereotypical terrorist.
Until places of mass congregation (e.g. an airport) become “too secure”, an element of risk management should come into play. Obviously, we must extend searches beyond the “target” demographic (for both security and equality purposes) but there is true value of being cautious of people who match a demographic associated with wreaking murderous chaos.
Being continually stopped and searched at an airport would not make me turn into a terrorist. It would encourage me further to take an active role in my community, work with the police to banish and criticise pro-terror movements within it and finally remove the stereotype associated with my people.
7. D
Ade has a long standing relationship with the Metro. Many is the morning I spot his name in the letters column.
Infrequent is the day I see he had a successful blind date through them though.
8. Destructor
Infrequent is the day I see he had a successful blind date through them though.
Ha!
Being continually stopped and searched at an airport would not make me turn into a terrorist.
Well it might not make YOU into a terrorist, but since human intelligence is the best way to prevent terrorism and that can be best gathered through sympathetic community support, you might consider thinking of ways not to alienate the community best suited to providing that intelligence. It might not make you a terrorist, but it might make you feel you’re a stranger in your own country.
Anyway, racial profiling is clearly already in effect, even if just at an unofficial level. You don’t think my Indian friends have had to put up with loads of additional hassle at airports ever since 9/11? But if you make profiling the standard, Adrian is exactly right, you’re just giving terrorists a big fat hole to walk through- not looking like the standard profile.
9. Adrian
Nuge racial profiling is not a good thing.
Risk assessment is.
Risk assessment says that the percentage of people of an actual race who are terrorist is very small. Lets say a wopping number of the Muslim people in the UK are terrorists Lets say 1000 of the 1.6 million are. And 1000 is a massive over estimate. The reality of actual terrorists I would probably peg to be less than 50. Remembering that being angry, hating America, Britain and non Islamic people doesn’t make you a terrorist. Just angry. It takes a lot more to turn someone to mass killings and suicide.
So lets say their are 1000 terrorists. That’s still less than 7 hundredths of a percent. (and at 50 it’s about 3 thousandths of a percent). That’s a fricking tiny number to be racially profiling on. Especially if you are now creating a massive gap for the far bigger bunch of people who are not in that profile to walk through. Like say a Real IRA bomber …
The augment that the current (and I stress current) crop of terrorist fit a racial profile is fine, from the respect of learning which community to engage with. There are only two ways to successfully stop terrorism. One is to entirely eliminate every terrorist. This is nearly impossible, and with respect to the issue at hand, I would say totally impossible.
The other way is to engage them and subsume them into the political engine and social context with which they exist. This is largely the success that Ireland has had. Israel’s only times of success against terrorism has been when they engage with the opposition in this fashion. Pity a Jewish terrorist who didn’t fit the racial profile put an end to this.
Nuge, I suggest you have never been hassled or abused or picked on for being “White British”. If you were hassled every day for being a potential terrorist, you would not go back to your community to resolve this but turn on your abusers. History would back me up on this. At no point picking out a community in the name of security ever worked.
What’s next rounding up people and putting them into camps, for being a certain profile? (America did this around WW2, and this has been done a lot throughout history, and has not made the world any fucking safer).
I’d also refer you to the last paragraph in this quote.
The moral high ground is tough. It’s hard to say “we’re better than this” It’s harder to say “we will stand up for our beliefs no matter what you throw at us”, it’s hard to say “I will not victimise the majority for the actions of a few.”
But you can take this approach and it does work. Ask Gandhi.
10. Adrian
And I would have said all that in my letter to the metro, had I thought they would have printed it.
I stand by my statement, racial profiling is racism. And it doesn’t make anything any more secure.
11. Destructor
Also, lest we stop seeing the forest for all these trees, everyone should read this. I’m all for being on the safer side of sure, but what was actually prevented by all these measures? Is there an ‘upper limit’ that we’re prepared to accept on our lives (and others, as Adrian rightfully points out) before we say: “Well actually this isn’t worth it to avoid a potential bomb attack?” Should we all just stop using the tube?
12. Nuge
The other way is to engage them and subsume them into the political engine and social context with which they exist.
Bah. Lefty nonsense. You’d still have these nutcases crying jihad every five minutes.
I stand by my statement, racial profiling is racism. And it doesn’t make anything any more secure.
Agree it is racist in the fact you are discriminating one race over another but I do believe it does make things safer. No question.
Let’s just say the current goal is to stop terrorism on public transport. Of course the long term fix is a world of love, but searches based target demographic is a reasonable short term fix.
9/11, 7/11 and the latest debacle have all seen young, muslim males feature prominently. Number of white females - zero, number of OAPs - zero. From the statistics alone, it appears that people within the aforementioned demographic are more likely (than say a 90 year old white woman) to hold these radical views and are willing to cause mass devastation.
If anything, terrorists who match the demographic of the those in the past would be less likely to attempt a strike for fear of discovery and capture.
P.S. I am in no way saying that all muslim males are terrorists - before someone get’s all hoity-toity
13. Dragon
Approx 3000 British born or British based muslims have passed through Osama Bin Liner’s training camps.
An estimated 10,000 muslims attended extremist conferences.
And while the percentage of British Muslims engaged in terrorist activity either at home or abroad is reckoned to be less than 1% and therefore under 16,000, security services still believe that there are 100s of extreme fundamentalists prepared to carry out attacks.
I’d like to believe your figure of 50 is right - for a start it means it’s possible that half of them are already in custody and that, after the 8 or died/got caught last year - there’s only about 20 out there.
However, I’m more prepared to trust the estimates given by the security services - no matter what their past record - than those from eBay’s site experience manager.
14. Destructor
You’d still have these nutcases crying jihad every five minutes.
I agree with this but who are the real threats? The ones crying jihad or the ones who quietly prepare bombs or carry out other seditious acts. The best way to catch these kind of terrorists (ie. actual terrorists, not caricatures) is through humint. Which is best achieved by having at least a mildly sympathetic community who will tell you when something is going down.
Agree it is racist in the fact you are discriminating one race over another but I do believe it does make things safer. No question.
Well there are dozens of ways to make “things” safer but you have to balance that against the rights of individuals. Are you really suggesting they target ‘Muslim males’? What if they convert to Buddhism, does that exempt them from the the profiling? Richard Reid didn’t declare his religion until AFTER they’d caught him.
15. Adrian
1) Not left nonsense, but the quote from a university professor who had spent his career studyingg terrorism. I can’t cite the source since it was on Radio 5 Live and I was driving. History bears this out.
2) If racial profiling worked why 7/11? Well the pfoile called for a young loner Muslim youth of Asian decent. Well two bombers had happy families. and one wasn’t Asian.
3) I’m not saying a world full of love will solve the problem. I’m saying pulling up Asians in airports will make us in one bit any safer. Random selection will.
4) Number of Muslims who have NOT been engaged in mass murder in the UK 1 599 950. As I pointed out early 3/1000 of 1% is not much of a number to go on for picking on a lot of innocent people. By saying you should do racial profiling you are saying that all Muslims are potential terrorists. This is (a) not true (b)wrong & (c) the cause of half the fucking problem
16. Adrian
Dragon,
1) My numbers are obviously inductive. I’m not professing to know the actual numbers the security departments know
2) Even with the higher numbers the % is still fairly low
3) Surely the security forces should be tracking people going on training camps in Pakistan rather than pulling out innocents at airports.
4) Their is a big difference between someone who goes through a training camp and someone who is prepared to kill himself and others. Much in the same way I can go to tennis camp, but I still wont win Wimbeldon.
5) Given the last point AND given your numbers I would be very surprised if their were more than 50 people in the UK capable of suicide bombings.
6) Again racial profiling doesn’t solve this.
17. Nuge
Given the last point AND given your numbers I would be very surprised if their were more than 50 people in the UK capable of suicide bombings.
Off the top of your head, describe your expected appearance of these 50 people.
18. Adrian
They all wear shirts.
Man, better start nabbing all the people with shirts. Screw the innocent shirt wearers. People who wear shirts have a higher likely hood of being terrorists than non shirt wearers.
19. Nuge
Now you are being ridiculous.
Ok, I’ll make it easier for you:
The only profiling that will protect us at airports is fully random checks that distinguishes no one by anything more than a random number.
Are you saying that these 50 people would be an entirely random collection of people from ages, sexes and religions?
20. Adrian
I’m saying that some of them could be from groups that have previously committed terrorist acts against the UK, like for example disenfranchised IRA members, some would be anti-vivisectionists and some would be radical Muslims.
However picking them out in airports is a less safe approach than pure random detection at proetcing flights but does create more racial anamosity.
Hence racial profiling makes things worse. As does most racism.
21. Nuge
By your own admission, you’re saying that there is possibly a “terrorist profile”.
Why not give these people extra attention? Yes 99% of the people will be innocent, but if it stops that 1% from ruining the lives of millions, surly it’s worth a go.
22. Adrian
Because as I have stated several times now, pulling these people out for extra attention does not protect us, but rather makes us less safe.
And the picking out of 99 innocent people to get one guilty person is not how civilized cultures conduct themselves.
I’m now off to play football. I will tackle all people equally even though some of them maybe for groups you find as potential terrorists. That’s because I am no raciest.
23. annie
claps
24. Nuge
Very disappointed that you are implying that I am a racist.
The fervour surrounding racism can distract from the main point I am trying to make.
Let’s take race and creed out of the equation. By studying the terrorist acts that have been committed against the UK in the last 30 years, we could draw the conclusion that the majority of these are committed by young men.
This is where I believe your “random number” theory fails. Pulling people out of line for thorough search should not be random, but weighted towards the people who are more likely to commit these acts.
Continuing the example of all young men being pulled out of line - despite being an innocent within the target demographic, I would happily accept this inconvenience in exchange for overall safety. Moreover, if I had a choice between an airport that “weighted” the searches and one that pulled up many grandmas as it did young males, I would choose the former.
Finally, your point that stopping innocents would turn them against their repressors is unfair. I think most people would be angry at the 0.1% within their demographic that were the root cause of their inconvenience.
25. David
To be honest I reckon the statistics (using the term in its loosest possible sense) are utterly meaningless.
There could be 1 or 1 million terrorists from a given sector of society, but the damage prevented by any sort of succesful counter terrorism would still be the same. Or to put it another way, there may be only one terrorist in the whole world, but if he’s not stopped then he’ll kill a whole bunch of people.
26. Dragon
One fucking wrong click of the mouse and the essay I’d written was lost in the either!
27. D
It was a really salient and witty one too which made good use of logical reasoning and statistics to make its point. Damn that wrong click!
28. Gordon
Ummm…
When did Muslim become a race?
Just wondering, because not all Asians are Muslims. Yet the terrorists are… so… why, again, is this a race issue?
I think we should borrow an idea from the mid 1940s, get all people who follow a religion, to wear badges. You know, like those clever German people did.
rolls eyes
I’m gonna tackle this issue on my site I think, presuming I can come up with something logical.
29. Dragon
D - you’re not wrong. It was an award winning comment that no-one is ever going to read now.
What I will say is this: Adrian, I have no idea what you’re smoking but only you could equate terrorist training camps with tennis camps.
Seriously - what the fuck are you on and where can I get some?
30. Andy
When did Muslim become a race?
Just wondering, because not all Asians are Muslims. Yet the terrorists are… so… why, again, is this a race issue?
Exactly @ Gordon - Adrian, what is racism, define it and let me know. I’d love to - so would the people who wrote the Macpherson report. It isn’t race driving this as we have found out, it is religion and in this country the primary catagory for a person of Islamic faith is a person from the Asian Sub Continent. Nuge is right on all the things he has said.
31. Adrian
Right, I’m using the word racism to roll up all actions of picking on one set of people for religion, race, sexuality, they shirts they wear etc.
And when you are picking out Asians because of your assumption they are Muslim terrorist, that is racism.
And most Muslims I know have expressed strong views that the terrorists agenda has nothing to do with Islam. As the IRA had nothing to do with Catholic/Protestant either.
32. Jann
What’s with all the 7/11 references? Has there been a spate of convenience store terrorism that I’ve somehow missed?
You are only partially correct to say that terrorism has nothing to do with Islam, in as much as the terrorist agenda bears no relation to the teachings followed by the vast majority (what you might call True Islamism for want of a better phrase).
To deny that the current terror threat is a product of anything other than the radicalisation of Muslims that takes place through the teachings of certain sections of the faith whether misinterpreted, misguided, misunderstood or whatever is simply burying your head in the sand and misses a vital opportunity to tackle it via the most direct route available.
33. Gert
At least one of the 7/7 bombers was black Jamaican; Robert Reid the shoe-bomber is white English. 100% of Moslems in my team at work are black Africans males. 50% of former trainees that stay in touch with my team are Moslem women, one white one Asian. Someone I know called Mohammed is Pakistani born and a devout Roman Catholic.
I have listed people who are either terrorists or public sector auditors. Whic should be targeted by the security services?
34. Adrian
Thanks Gert, that’s exactly my point. Racial profiling just doesn’t work. The brush is too broad.
And when your government starts mistreating people based on their race or religion, then this tells everyone else it’s acceptable to do so.
“It became apparent that the reason that some of the people didn’t board the plane was because somebody had overheard the gentlemen in question speaking - I think it was Arabic.”
Mr Mahmood said it was “absolutely disgraceful” that passengers had taken it on themselves to label people.
“That is not what we want. The colour of your skin shouldn’t identify what you are. It is a sad state of affairs that that has happened.”
This is disguisting and wrong. And a direct result of the idea that you can tell who’s a terrorist by racial profiling. This is just pure fucking racism.
35. Nuge
I read about that in the paper today.
Just goes to prove that we have some real morons in this country.
Civil War anyone?
36. Adrian
Just goes to prove people act in ways the government suggest is acceptable to act.
It doesn’t take much to get normal people to act in bad ways. Just needs the leaders of the country to introduce a culture of fear.
37. Destructor
Just goes to prove that we have some real morons in this country.
I have to agree with Adrian on this one- isn’t this more or less what you were advocating, Nuge? “This queue for Muslims, this queue for everyone else.” You can relabel it ‘racial profiling’, but in the end it really is racism. It’s a bit like excusing yourself for crossing the street when you see a black person by saying: “But statistically you really are more likely to be mugged by a black person!”
38. Nuge
Sigh
You will note that the government have done their best to distance themselves from this unsightly issue. Since profiling is not being undertaken, how can you say this has been caused by the government?
“Isn’t this more or less what you were advocating, Nuge? “This queue for Muslims, this queue for everyone else.””
Give your head a shake. In my last post I simply called for thorough searches to be weighted towards more likely targets. You will note that I was deliberately generic to call for “Young Men” to be searched.
How on earth you interpretted that to mean I was in support of throwing Asians people off the plane escapes me!
39. Destructor
Okay, you’ve stepped back from the race issue (although you did begin your argument ‘Racial Profiling is a good thing’), but Adrian’s point still stands- all a terrorist organization would then need to do is find someone who avoids the profile (you don’t think there are old men who would martyr themselves? Or young women?) and you’ve given them a big hole to walk through.
Since profiling is not being undertaken, how can you say this has been caused by the government?
That’s ludicrous, I can give you countless examples of friends who have been given additional attention at airports because they have brown skin. But making it official policy is a much larger step.
How on earth you interpretted that to mean I was in support of throwing Asians people off the plane escapes me!
I’m not saying you personally support racially profiling people to throw off planes, but your arguments tend in that direction, and if the government starts making racism institutional that will give citizens an open ticket to feel they can do the same. “Racial Profiling is a good thing.” and “Very disappointed that you are implying that I am a racist.” are mutually exclusive statements.
40. Adrian
Nuge,
Firstly profiling is being undertaken, even if it’s currently overt. Ask anyone Asian looking who has travelled recently.
Secondly this has been all over the media since the governments panic attack last week, and so it’s in peoples minds as acceptable. The government is distancing themselves from this particular case because they can’t not politically, but they are not distancing themselves from the concept of racial profiling itself.
Saying you are calling for “more likely targets” is easily interpreted as young Asian men. Yeah sure young men would be a nice catch all, but do you really think they are going to be searching a 19 year old Grimsby fan who’s white with a cross tattooed on his arm?
As Dan pointed out, “more likely targets” is so subject to interpretation that everyone interprets it to suit their inherent racism. So black people should get searched more for drugs and gay people shouldn’t be allowed in family resorts (as we all know they are destroying marriages and turning kids gay).
Whilst you may be able to intellectually separate the two, most people wont and most people will use these arguments to support their raciest viewpoint, exactly the same as people who justify (as Dan said) crossing the road to avoid black people.
By all means cross the road, but don’t give me stats saying this protects you more (it doesn’t) or that black people are more likely to mug you (it doesn’t matter), just admit you are doing it a s a racist response.
I know you and don’t think you are a racist. But I do believe that profiling is misguided at best as a method of protection, and helps perpetuate racism and helps people justify their racist response.
I bet if you interviewed everyone on that plane they would not thinking they were acting racist in any way. They would all consider themselves normal people.
And I don’t actually think they were inherently racist. They really had no idea that this was pure racism. Because they were just acting in way they had been told was ok to act. And we have all know been told it’s ok to distrust Young Asian Muslims, because they are the type of people who blow up good white people.
There comes a point where you have to treat people right, regardless of what your enemies are doing. We are better than them, because we accept all people equally. Regardless of if they are foreign have a beard and speak in a strange language.
41. Jann
So who was it first suggested racial profiling? I was under the impression it was simply profiling which had been called for. Obviously racial profiling may well be a subset of this but it is by no means a logical progression.
Whilst you may be able to intellectually separate the two, most people wont and most people will use these arguments to support their raciest viewpoint
Surely this is only a problem if “most people” are the ones doing the actual profiling?
FWIW, I haven’t formulated a definitive opinion on profiling because I don’t know enough about how it’s done, although I absolutely agree with Adrian’s (and others) initial point about racial profiling being wrong.
42. Adrian
I responded to the metro (they didn’t publish it) to the letters (linked in the graphic above in the original post) where the original writers were saying that people not calling for racial profiling were namby-pamby-lefty-PC-do-gooders who are going to get us all killed with their silly ways.
I responded by saying that they were racist.
The problem is, if the government says it’s ok to profile people based on them being Asian or Muslim, then most people think it is ok to. This is wrong.
43. Jann
Oh I see. And I agrre with your unpublished response 100%
Although I’m not entirely sure the letters page in the Metro is the best place to be developing an idea of what the general populace may or may not think.
Either way, switch on spell-check before sending the next one, you never know, they may just print it… ;)
44. Destructor
“I’m a Japanese-American. I grew up behind US barbed-wire fences. We were first taken to the horse stables of Santa Anita Race Track, because the camps weren’t built yet. And then when the camps were built, they transported us two-thirds of the way across the county to the swamps of Arkansas…and why were we incarcerated? There were no trials. There were no attorneys. There was no due process. Simply because we happened to look like the people who bombed Pearl Harbor. Yes, I know about racial profiling. And this administration has used fear to terrorize America. Yes, they are the ones who are terrorizing America. There are decent people who just happened to look like the ones who committed that terrible act on September 11, 2001, and they are being profiled and subjected to all these indignities.”
No-one puts Sulu in the corner!