18.07.20// I am not a terrorist.

Editor’s Note:

We have chosen this incredibly personal and powerful piece as our spotlight this week because we were so struck by the importance of telling this story; we are so honoured that Aara has courageously trusted us with her voice. Her blunt and uncomplicated style conveys the weight of her experiences and impresses upon the reader the mental impact they have had on her.
You’ll be thinking about this piece for a while…

By Aara Syed
17 July 2020

‘Don’t cry, don’t cry, whatever you do just don’t cry.’

‘Ughh why didn’t I ever pay attention to mum when she told me to meditate, or dad, he goes on about it too. 

‘Fuck, just don’t cry. Crying makes you look guilty, you have nothing to cry about. But don’t look too angry either, you’ll just then look like that stereotypical angry brown person, which you know will equal terrorist to them.

‘Just try and keep your expression neutral.’

My inner monologue ends and I look around me at the airport police waiting room. There is a POC couple sitting nervously and a few other lone travellers, all of whom seem to be POC.

I give the rooms surrounding us the side eye, because if I look too closely, then I will truly start to panic as I acknowledge that they are interview rooms. Going into one of those rooms alone as someone descended from Muslims could change my life for the worse; I could be interrogated for hours, taken away and detained. Airports are strange places where I’m never quite sure what my rights are as a British Pakistani and what it could mean for me if I try to exercise my rights…

The airport police officer still has my passport. How long has it been since he told me to wait here?

5 minutes? 2 minutes? There are no clocks here and I’m too scared to check my phone. I don’t want to give them any excuse to question me further.

Ahh the airport police officer is back. he asks, “which hotel are you staying at and when do you leave?”

I tell him and he asks to take my phone.

He hasn’t given me my passport back and now has both my phone and my passport. 

He seems to sense my distress, says, “don’t worry”, and smiles. 

This time when he walks away with my two most important possessions, he stays in the room, taking notes while looking at my phone. 

After what feels like an eternity, he gives my phone back and, following a few moments of confusion (he thought he’d given me my passport back), I have my passport in my hand and am allowed through passport control.

I had always dreamed of going to Rome, the romance and history surrounding the city as well as the food and language just added to my desire to visit. But after the border police ordeal I just wanted to go home.

It wasn’t the fact that I had woken up around 4 am that morning, or being vomited on during my first flight of the day, that had made me reach such a heightened level of anxiety, but the issue of systemic racism I experience as a British person of Pakistani descent.

This is especially the case when travelling.

In fact, on the way back from Rome to London my friend and I were travelling together. “This time will be different”, I naively thought, as I was travelling with my friend who is Caucasian.

But after trying the e-gate at Passport control multiple times and a member of airport staff telling me that I was not trying properly, they themselves then tried and failed to get me through the e-gate.

This meant that I had to join a queue for the manned desks. While under the stares of the rest of the queue and the hurried stare of my friend (she had gotten past the gate at her first attempt), I was let through the border and we both had to run to catch our flight in time.

Just as Rome was starting to grow on me, I again felt intense relief at getting back to my home and not having to deal with airport racism for a while.

Public humiliation in Paris

Rewind about two years and I am in the queue for the Eurostar, travelling back to London from Paris.

I just need to get past the border to then board my train.

The guard looks at my passport and ticket and waves me through.     

“WAIT, come back,” he exclaims.

He maybe didn’t shout, yet he made enough of a scene that I felt the eyes of the queue watching me as I resignedly walked back to his desk.

He demands my passport again, looks at it, looks at his computer and tells me I can proceed.

Just as I am leaving he utters: “You have the same name as a terrorist, aren’t you glad it’s not you?”

The thing is I knew I wasn’t a terrorist, so no, I wasn’t glad, I was just left wondering what kind of ridiculous question that was.

And I could still feel the stares of those in the queue.

Of course I knew I wasn’t a terrorist! I walked towards the boarding area feeling humiliated, tired and with a bitter taste in my mouth. 

More often than not, I am “randomly” searched when travelling, so often that I don’t think it qualifies as random.

The aforementioned instances of being called back in Paris and worrying about entering and leaving Rome are the most extreme examples of airport racism that I have experienced, but there is another experience that was both humiliating as a woman and as a POC.

No curtain courtesy

This memory is a little hazier, I think I must have been in my late teens, either on my way back from visiting my dad or on the way to visit my mum. To be honest, I have a habit of burying difficult, personal experiences. 

As I enter the gate, I am taken aside for a “random” check and as Dubai is in the UAE (a Muslim country) I am taken behind a curtain to protect my modesty from the rest of the gate (or so I am told). As the airport employee asks me to remove my cardigan and bag from my shoulders (so I am shoeless in my t-shirt and jeans) I ask her why I was chosen, what made me get chosen. 

No response.     

She scans me, finds nothing of note (I mean I could have told her that for free) and, as I am putting my cardigan back on, yanks back the curtain, leaving me and the room in clear view of pretty much everyone in the gate and walks away.

Although I was fully clothed, it felt weird people being able to see me get myself together and bending down to put my shoes on after having my body scanned. Especially because, even then, I was no stranger to predatory stares.

As soon as she pulled back the curtain, I could feel the eyes of people at the gate and even saw the smirks of a group of young Caucasian men sitting in the gate.

Once I had physically gotten myself together I remember searching for some empty floor space and then hugging my knees to my body as I sat on the floor. Even by my late teens, I had been “randomly” chosen for additional checks enough for it not to be random. Up to that point, the curtain incident had been the most humiliating.

My stories are in no way unique and I know people who have been taken into the border security interview rooms, the rooms that I was so afraid of in Rome.

I guess part of the reason why I wanted to write this is because I wanted to tell all of the border patrol workers, airport security staff, airport police and all the staring bystanders that didn‘t question the behaviour of the airport staff, that I am not a terrorist.

I am a British-Pakistani.

I am a feminist.

I am a child of a broken home.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     

I am a sister.

I am a daughter.

I am more than the colour of my skin and ethnically ambiguous name.

And I am not a terrorist.                                                                                                                                                        

Aara is 23 from Wimbledon, London,United Kingdom. She is a trained journalist who loves long walks, dancing with friends and exploring new places. Lately she has been trying to live more sustainably.