The One with the Racist Comments

Hey all,

For those of you who have passed through the wonderful (?) airport of Jeddah, will surely have heard of scary stories of what happens at the immigration and customs desk. In short: rude and inattentive immigration officers, officers who get up from the desk whenever they want to leaving passengers waiting in lines, officers who refuse to stamp your passport simply because you moved from the longer line to a shorter one etc etc. All the officers are Saudis, and almost all have some sort of superiority complex going on. They do whatever they want to at the expense of the passenger's time.

There are scary stories of people passing through the customs: CD and DVDs are checked at the media room, books are looked at, magazines are ripped apart, food items are sniffed at, and almost always, it is the single men from the Indian Subcontinent who face the harshest treatment. I have had books and magazines confiscated as well had some DVDs looked over by the man in the media room.

But if you are a single male from the Indian Subcontinent, with dark complexion, you are subjected to harrassment and humiliation. They are taunted and are made to tear open the boxes and unpack the entire suitcases. The officers will never help the passenger to re-pack the luggage, and instead with hand gestuers will ask him to move away. If this passenger were someone with white complexion, and blond hair, they would get away with such kind of treatment. Ironically then, it is the Saudis who complain of rude treatments at US airports!! Why don't the Saudis look at the way they treat foreigners at their own airports, before complaining of the way they are treated abroad??!!

However, the attitude of the officers went below the belt when on my return from Dubai recently, the officer at the customs desk displayed his state of racist mind to me. I was no doubt angry, but did not create a scene lest I get jailed or something!

Following is the letter of mine that got published in Arab News on www.arabnews.com.

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Attitude Problem

Let me share with your readers an unhappy experience I had at the Jeddah airport recently when I returned from a trip to Dubai. I can agree with Mr. E.D (Dec. 25) when he describes the customs officers’ attitude as partly racist.

At the customs desk, the officer very politely asked me what I had in my luggage. After my explanation, he asked me where I was from and I told him the name of my country. He asked me if I had a British mother or father. On hearing that I am a Pakistani with a Pakistani passport, the attitude changed all on a sudden; he became rude and said to me: “You should not be a Pakistani. You have white skin. Pakistanis are not like that.” The experience was distressing and it hurts me to see that some Saudis think Pakistanis are only those people with dark complexion looking for menial jobs.

To be fair, this kind of attitude prevails all over the Kingdom and not just at the airports. As many have suggested, such attitude can only be countered through education and intensive awareness campaigns.

Mansour Ahsan • Jeddah published 28 December 2004
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Enjoy,

Mansur