Editorial: Foolish false alarm
The Nelson Mail
Last updated 12:41 14/12/2010
OPINION: As far as embarrassments go, the weekend's incident where a terrorist alert was sparked on the inter-island ferry by a Jewish man observing a prayer ritual is right up there.
While the sight of a man lacing small leather boxes to his body – the practice known as tefillin – is certainly uncommon in New Zealand, to then leap several degrees of logic to decide that it might be the start of a planned suicide bombing suggests there wasn't much clear thinking going on on board the ferry.
The authorities say they had no choice but to treat the matter seriously, flying in crack anti-terror officers to confront the man and his companion at Picton. Hopefully the pair were offered fulsome apologies for the mix-up.
It should be said that this is not the only time the tefillin ritual has prompted panic – a plane in America was diverted earlier this year after the crew became alarmed by a Jewish man tying the prayer boxes to his body.
But in the case of the ferry, surely there was time to consider what was going on – and for somebody to have asked some searching questions, even done some homework. What happened instead was embarrassing, but also a troubling display of how readily ignorance feeds intolerance, with potentially dire consequences.
No comments:
Post a Comment