Africa

Credit: OECD

By Jonathan Donner
NAIROBI, Kenya, Feb 10 2020 (IPS)

By 2030, sub-Saharan Africa will be home to more than a quarter of the world’s population under 25. Between 15 and 20 million young people will enter the African workforce each year, joining the ranks of the millions of currently under- and unemployed people searching for better livelihoods.

Does this massive growth present an urgent challenge or an extraordinary opportunity? It depends in part on whether young people can acquire the skills they will need to participate in an increasingly digital economy.

One pathway to learning these skills has, until now, gone mostly under the radar, but it may be a surprisingly powerful ally in meeting this challenge.

Some of the same digital marketplace platforms that are changing economic sectors and connecting workers to gigs are now putting training at the core of their operations. This upskilling has become essential to providing the levels of service and quality customers demand.

There are currently more than 250 marketplace platforms active in sub-Saharan Africa alone. They touch many economic sectors: ride hailing and delivery, freelancing, services and trades, even agriculture, the biggest employer on the continent.

When these platforms train, they train broadly. While coding or IT skills are an important component, many platforms train in a variety of subject matters, using a variety of methods.

Some platforms offer training in digital and financial literacy; Uber has partnered with Old Mutual to deliver money management classes to driver-partners. Some platforms teach specific vocational skills, like the Kenyan service platform Lynk, which prepares people to be everything from carpenters to beauty technicians.

Other platforms teach soft skills, like Nigerian ride-hailing platforms Gokada and MAX, which invest extensively in customer service training while onboarding drivers.

Importantly, all of these skills are portable. They can be applied on and off the job, and, once transferred, they can’t be taken away. If the scale and quality of platform-led upskilling continues to rise, it could have a transformational impact on economic growth and sustainable development in the region.

Jumia training in session. Credit: Neha Wadekar

With the support of the Mastercard Foundation, Caribou Digital has produced a white paper analyzing the potential of training programs offered by platforms.

We found three broad approaches in practice. The first is of course to provide online training materials, ranging from simple “FAQs” and blog posts to videos and tutorials.

Notably, we found many using innovative approaches, like Sendy, an African delivery and logistics platform that has designed videos for drivers to watch at mechanic workshops or gas stations while their bikes are being maintained.

Some of the larger platforms offer training moments within workflows—training that happens almost without the user’s awareness. For example, the African e-commerce site Jumia uses AI to offer sellers a “Content Score’’ that automatically measures the quality of a product’s content listing, allowing small merchants to improve their advertisements in real time.

However, we were most surprised by the amount of coaching that happens face to face. For example, the Kenyan services platform Lynk has set up Fundi Works, a production workshop that allows carpenters to train with a master carpenter to improve their techniques.

They are also trained on procurement of raw materials, storage practices, and the processes involved in furniture design, to ensure high quality finished products.

Meanwhile the Nigerian ride-hailing platform Gokada has partnered with a defensive driving academy that has reduced training time in the classroom and the field from seven days to three.

Almost every platform we spoke to, large and small, relies on some degree of interpersonal training to upskill its workers and suppliers.

The influence of platforms on all kinds of markets is likely to grow. Not all of this influence is good—platformization has raised important concerns about competition, worker safety, wages, and consumer choice.

But if platforms’ commitment to training correlates with their growth, their influence on skills acquisition around the world could have a major positive impact. Our research shows that marketplace platforms can be powerful new partners for governments, educational institutions, and worker organizations looking to upskill the continent’s workforce.

It is therefore time to foster collaboration around what we have dubbed “platform-led upskilling”. With a dedicated community and shared perspective comes the opportunity to compile best practices across industry sectors and training approaches as well as to analyze returns on investment to platforms, and the efficacy of skills training and improved livelihoods among their workers and suppliers.

A lot of this evidence is currently hidden and fragmented, held inside different platforms’ vendor support departments. The development community can act as a catalyst and partner with platforms to more systematically gather and share this evidence.

Preparing a generation of young Africans with the skills for the digital age will require all hands-on deck. Platforms won’t replace investments in improving and extending schools, NGOs, and training academies, or in advancing employee training.

But the reach of platform-led upskilling is growing along with the rise of platforms.

The question “Could Africa’s marketplace platforms help upskill a generation?” is still open, but the answer is worth pursuing systematically and vigorously. Platform-led upskilling is a promising way in which platforms can act not just as disruptors but as stewards of the markets in which they play.

The post Could Africa’s Marketplace Platforms Help Upskill a Generation for the Digital Age? appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Jonathan Donner is Senior Director of Caribou Digital, a research and advisory firm dedicated to building inclusive and ethical digital economies.

The post Could Africa’s Marketplace Platforms Help Upskill a Generation for the Digital Age? appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Zoltán Kálmán
ROME, Feb 10 2020 (IPS)

Reducing poverty and inequalities, eliminating hunger and all forms of malnutrition and achieve food insecurity for all – these are some of the most important objectives of the Sustainable Development Goals. Still, the rate of poverty and inequalities is increasing and over 820 million people are going hungry. In addition, 2 billion people in the world are food insecure with great risk of malnutrition and poor health. This alarming situation is further aggravated by current trends such as the rate of population growth, impacts of climate change, loss of biodiversity, soil degradation and many others. Transition to more sustainable food systems can provide adequate solutions to all these challenges. Pulses could play an important role in this transition, having nutritional and health benefits, low environmental footprint, and positive socio-economic impacts as well. What is required to promote and support the production and consumption of more pulses? This question is particularly relevant now, since 10 February is the World Pulses Day.

Following the successful implementation of the International Year of Pulses (IYP) 2016, the Government of Burkina Faso took the initiative and proposed the establishment of World Pulses Day (WPD). Under Resolution A/RES/73/251, the UN General Assembly (UNGA) designated 10 February as World Pulses Day to reaffirm the contribution of pulses for sustainable agriculture and achieving the 2030 Agenda. WPD is a new opportunity to heighten public awareness of the multiple benefits of pulses. Pulses are more than just nutritious seeds, they contribute to sustainable food systems and a ZeroHunger world. The UNGA has invited FAO, in collaboration with other organizations, to facilitate the observance of WPD.

The topic of this year’s WFD celebration is “Plant proteins for a sustainable future”. According to FAO data, pulses are an important source of plant-based protein, providing on average two to three times more protein than staple cereals such as rice and wheat on a gram-to-gram basis. Additionally, the amino acids found in pulses complement those found in cereals. Protein is crucial for physical and cognitive development during childhood. Pulses are nutrient-dense, providing substantial amounts of micronutrients that are essential for good health. They are a good source of iron and can play an important role in preventing iron deficiency anaemia. They also provide other essential minerals such as zinc, selenium, phosphorous and potassium and are an important source of B vitamins, including folate (B9), thiamine (B1) and niacin (B3). The high B vitamin content of some pulses is of particular benefit during pregnancy as it supports the development of the foetus’ nerve function.

Pulses have a number of well-known agronomic benefits as well. They can fix nitrogen, improving soils’ organic content and reduce fertilizer needs, thus contributing to mitigating climate change impacts. Pulses increase productivity through appropriate crop rotation or intercropping. Producing a wide variety of pulses has an important role in preserving biodiversity. Pulses have very low water footprint, which is an essential feature particularly in dry areas.

These are well-known scientific and empirical evidences and I think we can simply say pulses are good both for the health of people and for the health of the planet.

Pulses are important also from socio-economic point of view, including income diversification, providing employment opportunities, improving livelihood in rural areas, etc.

Having all the nutritional and health benefits, having a numerous positive agronomic impacts, as well as the favourable socio-economic implications, why pulses do not have appropriate place in our production and consumption patterns? I can give you my answer: because of the lack of appropriate policy environment for the production and consumption of pulses.

As we know, farmers, in particular family farmers are the producers of our food and they are the best custodians of our land and other natural resources, including biodiversity, to preserve them for future generations. Family farmers have the traditional knowledge and experience, combined with innovative solutions to do farming sustainably. At the same time, farmers are also very clever and smart: their decisions to follow one or another farming method depends on the profit they can realize. To some extent farmers’ profit is linked to the markets, but their profit is mainly the consequence of governments’ policies, to provide subsidies (or policy incentives) to orient farmers’ choices, to ensure the economic viability of farming.

It is generally accepted that governments provide policy incentives to shape their food systems, including orienting farmers’ and consumers’ choices. The important question is whether the appropriate food systems are promoted and supported by these incentives?

As a current prevailing practice, high percentage of farm subsidies supports unsustainable, input-intensive, monoculture farming, with all the well-known negative consequences (biodiversity loss, soil degradation, etc.).

On the other hand, policy incentives can and should promote sustainable solutions, better reflecting the real interests and priorities of governments to preserve soil health and biodiversity, through crop diversification, including the production of a variety of pulses.

To take the right decisions policy makers should be provided with appropriate information, giving due attention to all the positive and negative impacts (the so-called environmental and human health externalities) of the various food systems. These externalities are translated in dollar terms and there are existing scientific studies showing the real costs of environmental damage and the enormous costs of public health expenditure in national budgets, as a consequence of unsustainable food systems.

This true cost accounting principle, based on solid scientific evidence, provides a good basis for taking appropriate decisions which food systems (including production and consumption patterns) should be promoted by national policy incentives. While providing assistance and policy advice to countries, UN organizations (including FAO) should pay due attention to the real costs of food and suggest national policy makers to support and promote sustainable solutions, including the production and consumption of pulses.

Pulses should also receive appropriate attention during the elaboration of the Voluntary Guidelines on Food Systems and Nutrition. This process is going on now, and the Guidelines will be adopted in October this year by the Committee of World Food Security (CFS).

It would also be desirable if the Food System Summit in 2021 could help promote pulses as important elements for the transition towards more sustainable food systems.

The post Pulses for a Sustainable Future appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Zoltán Kálmán is Permanent Representative of Hungary to the Rome-based UN agencies (FAO, IFAD, WFP). He was President of the WFP Executive Board in 2018.

The post Pulses for a Sustainable Future appeared first on Inter Press Service.

At least 30 are killed in a night-time raid on a small town in Nigeria's north-east, officials say.

Algeria winger Said Benrahma says his dream is to play Premier League football and wants to do it with Brentford.

Credit: United Nations

By Ameen Izzadeen
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka, Feb 10 2020 (IPS)

In the wake of the latest coronavirus outbreak, movie buffs are drawing an eerie parallel with the film Contagion, a 2011 thriller based on a lethal airborne virus called Nipah and how the world’s medical community battled to find a cure for the pandemic.

The movie, which is much in demand on streaming sites, attributes the origin of the virus to a bat.

Another movie that comes to mind is “Cassandra Crossing”. This 1976 thriller casts Richard Harris and Sophia Lauren in the lead roles. The story begins with an abortive attempt by three terrorists to bomb the US mission at a global health organisation in Geneva. In violation of international conventions, the US has developed viruses and stored them in containers in the mission.

Security officers kill a terrorist and wound another. One escapes but not before he knocks over a container and is splashed with its harmful content. He stows away in a train taking nearly a thousand passengers to different European capitals.

The American military officer in charge of the secret biological weapon programme knows the customized virus is virulent, airborne and contagion. There is no cure. He rebuffs advice that the train is stopped, the terrorist arrested and quarantined.

He fears that most of the passengers have, by now, been affected by the virus. He insists that the train be rerouted to a disused railway line that goes to a former Nazi concentration camp in Poland so that the passengers could be quarantined there.

But the train has to cross the dangerously unsound Cassandra Bridge. It is a deliberate attempt to prevent a pandemic by killing all the passengers, regardless of whether they are affected or not.

Biological weapons. Credit: United Nations

As the coronavirus continues to spread, China would not take such inhuman measures and eliminate the entire population in the city of Wuhan, though it is accused of taking horrific measures to eradicate what it sees as a social virus in its Xinjiang province where millions of Uighur Muslims are alleged to have been kept under social quarantine until they disown their religious and cultural identities which the Chinese authorities see as symptoms of major social epidemic that poses an existential threat to China.

The movie “Cassandra Crossing” is fiction, but, in reality, countries do develop biological weapons –germs, viruses and fungi targeting humans, livestock and crops.

This is not to imply that the latest coronavirus outbreak is a biological weapon test going wrong at a Wuhan laboratory — or an enemy nation has released a deadly virus in a highly populated Chinese town with the aim of sabotaging China’s global ambitions.

But the truth is biological warfare – or germ warfare — has been part of war for millennia.

History records that as far back as 400 B.C. armies had poisoned enemy wells and used poisoned arrows. History also records that in the 18th century America, the British colonialists gave small pox infected blankets to Native Americans with the intention of killing them in an epidemic.

Then, during World War I, Germany developed anthrax, glanders, cholera and a wheat fungus and allegedly spread plague in St. Petersburg in Russia.

After the end of World War I, nations agreed on the Geneva Protocol to curtail biological weapons. Yet, during World War II, Germany, Japan, Britain and the US disregarded the protocol and developed plague, syphilis and paralysis-causing botulinum toxin.

It took 22 years after the end of World War II for the so-called civilised world to acknowledge the evil of biological weapons that fall into the category of weapons of mass destruction, along with chemical weapons and nuclear weapons.

Some 179 states have ratified the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention, the first multilateral disarmament treaty banning an entire category of weapons. It requires the parties to give an undertaking that they will “never in any circumstances develop, produce, stockpile or otherwise acquire or retain” biological weapons.

But the convention allows nations to conduct ‘defensive’ research so that they will be prepared to face or survive an attack or a virus outbreak. In other words, they are allowed to make a virus to kill a virus.

Laboratories in Australia, Hong Kong and Europe say they have cultured the coronavirus — 2019-nCoV in a race to develop a medicine as the death toll from the outbreak reached over 800 in China alone, as of February 9, while the number of cases stood at more than 28,000 in China — mainly in the Hubei Province — and nearly 200 elsewhere.

However, it is believed that some countries also develop offensive biological weapons and chemical weapons. There is little distinction between the chemical and biological weapons from a definitional aspect.

For instance, Agent Orange the United States used during the Vietnam War may be a chemical weapon, but the harm it caused was no different from that of a biological weapon. Similarly, the use of depleted uranium by the US in Iraq also falls into the grey area between chemical and biological warfare.

During the Bosnian war, the Serbs used shells containing the Cold War-era nerve agent benzilate in the bombing of Srebrenica, and in the ongoing Syrian conflict, the government forces are accused of using similar weapons.

The US is not the only big power which stands accused of using banned weapons. Take Russia. Despite its accession to the 1972 BWC and the 1993 Chemical Weapon Convention, it drew worldwide condemnation for the killing of a dissident Russian spy in 2006, by using a highly radioactive polonium-210 poison and a similar attack in 2018 on another dissident spy and his daughter.

The possibility of terrorists using portable biological weapons topped the international agenda after more than a dozen people were killed in the Sarin nerve gas attack carried out by the Japanese doomsday cult Aum Shinrikyo in three Tokyo subway stations in 1995.

Adding to the concerns is the anthrax scare that hit the US days after the September 11, 2001 terror attacks. Letters containing anthrax spores were mailed to media offices and politicians.

Five people died and 17 were infected in the bioterrorism attack that continued for weeks. Suspicion fell on two bioweapon experts. One was cleared; the other committed suicide before he was formally charged.

All this indicates the ineffectiveness of the BWC, a gentlemen’s agreement which largely requires the parties to submit only annual reports of compliance. The convention lacks a formal investigation mechanism to deal with violations.

And what better time than now to reinforce the convention when the world is gripped by the coronavirus threat?

*Ameen Izzadeen is Editor International and Deputy Editor, Sri Lanka Sunday Times

The post Coronavirus: A Flashback to Biological Warfare of a Bygone Era appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Fajt, Jiří and Adam Budak (2017) Ai Weiwei: Law of the Journey. Prague: Národní galerie.

By Jan Lundius
STOCKHOLM / ROME, Feb 10 2020 (IPS)

Humans belong to a species that is constantly on the move . Since some Homo Sapiens 125,000 years ago began to move from the African continent, humans can be found all over the world, even in such utterly inhospitable places as the icebound plateaus of Antarctica. By moving, humans have tried to escape inadequate food-supply or otherwise unacceptable living conditions. Natural forces have forced them to leave, or even more commonly – violent actions by other humans. With them migrants have brought their means of expression and interaction, some of them expressed through their art.

Art can be a language shared between individuals, nations, and cultures. It can restore identities lost or abandoned when people have settled in new places, within new contexts. It may become a means of being heard and seen in an unsympathetic world. Art may also be used to make us aware of human suffering amidst a contemporary ambiance that far too often has become characterized by political dogfights and collective hysteria.

Two years ago, while in Prague I visited the Chinese artist Ai Weiwei´s exhibition Law of the Journey and its strong impact has remained with me ever since. Ai Weiwei had for long periods lived among refugees on the Greek islands, in the Turkish-Syrian and the US-Mexican border areas, where he collected material and stories, filmed and photographed. The Law of the Journey was the last in a series of diverse events concerning the European refugee crisis, which Ai Weiwei in his witty, provocative and often aesthetically pleasing manner previously had presented in Vienna, Berlin, and Florence. On each occasion he had added new objects and activities around the same theme.

To me, the Law of the Journey revealed itself as an epic statement about the human condition – an artist’s expression of empathy and moral concern in the face of continuous, uncontrolled destruction and carnage. It was hosted in a historically charged building, a former 1928 Trade Fair Palace, which in 1939–1941 served as an assembly point for Jews before their deportation to the concentration camp in Theresienstadt (Terezín) where 33,000 met their death, while another 88,000 were re-routed to be gassed in Auschwitz and Treblinka.

In spite of the fact that the country’s population has suffered from both Nazi terror and Communist oppression making several persons flee their country, the current Czech government has opposed the European Union’s refugee quotas. Its prime minister even threatened to sue the EU because the organization tried to force the Czech Republic to accept more refugees. When Ai Weiwei accepted the Czech Republic’s National Gallery’s invitation to stage an exhibition, the country’s official refugee reception had been modest, between July 2015 and July 2017, the Czech Republic had received 400 Syrian refugees.

Ai Weiwei declared that an important reason for his acceptance of the offer to organize an exhibition was his admiration of the Czech Republic´s former president Vaclav Havel, whom he admired as a valiant fighter for freedom of expression and global humanism. In the exhibition´s brochure, Ai Weiwei stated:

“If we see somebody who has been victimized by war or desperately trying to find a peaceful place, if we don’t accept those people, the real challenge and the real crisis is not of all the people who feel the pain but rather for the people who ignore to recognize it or pretend that it doesn’t exist. That is both a tragedy and a crime. There´s no refugee crisis, but only a human crisis. In dealing with refugees we have lost our very basic values.”

In the foyer to the grand hall of the exhibit was a giant snake undulating just under the roof. Upon closer inspection, it became apparent that it was made out of childrens´ life vests. Two corridors led into the large central hall. They were wallpapered with black and white, stylized images. Cold and with sharp lines, they depicted war, destruction, refugee camps, dangerous voyages across the sea, risky landings, followed by new camps and deportations. The picture strips were reminiscent of Babylonian-Assyrian reliefs, associations confirmed by the fact that they were initiated with images of Greek and Babylonian warriors, followed by modern war scenes with city ruins, helicopters, tanks, and robotic fighters. This aesthetically pleasing stylization of war and misery served as a reminder of how war often has been depicted in various forms of propaganda. There were no individuals in these pictures, only standardized templates of human beings, like documentary films depicting war and torment through the cool distance of a camera eye. Like so much in Ai Weiwei’s art, his manner of expression indicated a keen knowledge of aesthetics during various epochs. It could be inspired by the Chinese, as well as European art. Ai Weiwei nurtures a deep respect for craftsmanship.

After this discreet introduction, the exhibition visitor found her/himself overwhelmed by a huge rubber raft, more than seventy feet long, diagonally hovering over the grand hall with 258 faceless passengers on board. The raft shaded a marble floor with inscriptions of quotes from famous humanists, who from Mengzi and onwards have been appealing for compassion while pointing to the importance of helping our neighbour. Visitors moving around in the shadow of the enormous raft became diminished by its immensity. Its presence, the impact of its darkening shadow could not be avoided. As we moved under it, we trampled upon words pleading for understanding, compassion, assistance, and participation.

The impersonal black rubber figures crouching inside the raft were bigger than us and sat tightly packed, with their backs bent. On the shining marble floor, other rubber figures floated in lifebuoys lifting their hands as if to attract attention. The menacingly shadowed cool marble with its quotes reminded us that even if we live a life overcast by bad conscience and fear most of us still seem to be unaware of, or not bothered by, desperate appeals that tell us it would be far better for us all if we shared love and compassion, instead of preventing our fellow humans from enjoying equal rights and freedom. Instead of nurturing feelings of empathy we are inclined to use violence whilst turning our backs to starvation, pain, and afflictions of others.

The walls of the great hall were not wallpapered with aesthetically pleasing drawings but instead decorated with thousands of densely arranged colour photographs depicting boat refugees and those lingering in wretched camps around the world. Their diversity constituted quite a beautiful backdrop to the distressing scenery with the enormous, sinister rubber raft. The wall decorations were similar to mosaic photomontages that have become fashionable in advertising. However, if you approached the walls and scrutinized the photos you could distinguish derelict vessels and rafts packed with people, barbed wired refugee camps, people crowding in rain and mud under plastic sheets, and corpses washed ashore.

I reached the top floor from which, through a glass wall, I could look down on the huge rubber raft. From this viewpoint it turned out to contain hundreds of children curled up in the middle of the vessel, surrounded by adults. The children were also made of inflated, black rubber. When I turned around I discovered that on the floor of the spacious room I was standing in, just like the one in the grand hall below, visitors’ shoes were trampling on text messages. These were not made in marble but laminated in plastic. The entire floor area was covered with messages from the web – this white noise that constantly surrounds us, day and night. The texts consisted of fanatical condemnations of “the refugee avalanche”, day-to-day profane and hateful outbursts, as well as factual accounts of deaths, anguish, statistics and figures, sensible proposals and desperate disclosures.

On this floor there were symmetrically placed racks with hangers holding a wide variety of garments. Each rack had a handwritten note informing what it displayed – “children’s jeans”, “rompers”, “children’s clothes, 0-7 years”, “life jackets, children’s sizes, 0-7 years”, etc., etc. These were garments and equipment gathered on beaches of the Greek Islands. They had been washed and classified according to type and size. There were also lots of shoes and boots in strictly organized rows. Like hair, eyeglasses and similar objects that have been in contact with an individual’s body, the apparel collected by Ai Weiwei’s collaborators awoke thoughts about personal lives. A huge accumulation of such things might serve as a reminder of our own, personal life, as well as the death that constantly threatens it. Seeing all these items was reminiscent of the shock of being confronted with the piles of personal belongings displayed in Auschwitz. These things bear witness to the inconceivable, cold-hearted violence and brutality that once befell their owners.

Ai Weiwei’s provocative installations will probably not have the political impact he might hope for. They will neither change history nor the attitudes of people who want to close their countries´ borders for people in desperate need of shelter, food, and security. Nevertheless, art as an expression of awareness of human suffering and an appeal to our compassion is something that has to be valued, not least because it reminds us of the better aspects of humanity. Humans are naturally social beings. We live in communities, both within our family and a larger society, and such a life is certainly more pleasant, more stimulating and safer if we are caring and friendly, rather than greedy, easily irritated and hostile.

Jan Lundius holds a PhD. on History of Religion from Lund University and has served as a development expert, researcher and advisor at SIDA, UNESCO, FAO and other international organisations.

The post Globalization of Indifference: Ai Weiwei and the Refugee Crisis appeared first on Inter Press Service.

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By Aasha Mehreen Amin
Feb 7 2020 (IPS-Partners)

One of the interesting perks of being a brown South Asian, travelling anywhere in the world, is the special attention you get from various official quarters. Getting a visa anywhere in the northern hemisphere, for instance, is like winning a lottery and could even count as a status symbol. Prior to such a windfall, if it at all occurs, it will mean filling out pages of a form that can ultimately be published as a booklet of your family’s ancestry and a mini biography of yourself. The unique complexities of being someone from the subcontinent makes the whole process a delightful conundrum—if, for example, your father was born during British rule and lived through the Partition, the independence of India and Pakistan, and then that of Bangladesh, how do you answer “Where is your father from?” Should it be British India, India, Pakistan, or Bangladesh, or all of the above?

Your special status becomes even more apparent when you actually travel and have to go through multiple security checks where you know you will receive extra scrutiny compared to people of any other nationality—well, besides being or even looking Middle Eastern, to certain eyes. Then you get royal scrutiny of a totally different level.

On the plane you know you shouldn’t linger too long outside the lavatories, especially not in front of the exit and definitely not with your partner—two brown people hanging around is much worse than one and can set of the alarm bells in many a paranoid passenger.

The conspicuous way in which a brown complexioned South Asian is treated makes you think you are the most important character among all the other passengers of uninteresting (as far as security personnel are concerned) ethnicities. In fact, sometimes you are so conscious of the extra attention that you may even start behaving strangely—like nervously tapping your leg, sporting an exaggerated air of nonchalance that actually makes you look like you’re hiding something, or worse, smiling at the immigration officer in what you think is a friendly way that proves your innocence but ends up as a sinister grimace that can only spell impending trouble.

Personally, I don’t know what I do to make security personnel be so drawn to me and it has been like this since long before 9/11, when the world didn’t think that every Muslim in the planet was potentially a closet militant. For whatever reason, whenever I travelled to the West I would be singled out from the queue and be subject to interrogation.

Decades later, the legacy has endured and thanks to the horrific terror attacks in the name of religion and a successful global campaign of Islamophobia, I find myself getting undivided attention from overzealous security personnel. When travelling especially to and from the US, it is with almost certainty that I will be picked out randomly among all the hundreds of passengers and then have the privilege of having a generous “pat down” (a euphemism for institutionalised groping) by a stern looking female security officer ominously wearing surgical gloves. The last time this happened was when I was just about to board the plane and the officer just stopped me at the gate and asked me if I would mind stepping aside.

Of course I mind, I wanted to say as my fellow passengers walked by with curious glances, but obviously didn’t, even when in a monotone she explained all the objectionable things she was about to do to me.

One of the weird things I do when embarrassed or, in this case humiliated beyond belief, is to start smiling in a slightly deranged manner which hardly helps matters. So, while being felt up and down in the name of a security check and as another officer went through the entire contents of my humungous bag, all I could do was make embarrassed chortling sounds resembling a duck choking on its own saliva. I am not sure, though, whether I was more mortified by the invasive touching (I almost wanted to tell her to massage my aching lower back while she was at it) or by the fact that the other officer was now going to discover the sachets of instant coffee, creamer, and sugar I had snagged from the airport hotel room along with the balls of tissue carrying discarded gum (I hate littering), chocolate wrappers, a crumpled bag with an extra pair of socks, crumbs from forgotten cookies, not to mention paper napkins with makeup stains, and a half eaten Snickers bar.

Security clearances at airports in present times have definitely managed to strip us of all vestiges of dignity and sense of privacy. Thus, woe betide if you are wearing loose pants that have been kept in place by a tight belt as you will most definitely be asked to take off the belt along with your shoes and jacket—oh your watch, earrings, keys etc. too—anything that may set the monitor off, which in my case could very well be the colour of my skin.

Only a few brave souls are unaffected by the bizarre stripping ritual at security checkpoints. Last year, a young man made news when he walked up to a security checkpoint at an airport in Detroit, removed all his clothes and accessories before approaching the metal detector. When he passed through in nothing but his birthday suit and with flying colours, the first thing he put back on was — his watch. Apparently, the police and the fire department responded but as he posed no threat the police did not arrest him. But then again, he was white and one wouldn’t recommend such flamboyance in the case of a brown South Asian.

Aasha Mehreen Amin is Deputy Editor, Op-Ed and Editorial section, The Daily Star.

This story was originally published by The Daily Star, Bangladesh

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