Two airports - two cultures

On Thursday I flew to Britain for the weekend. I arrived at Barcelona airport, checked in a suitcase and arrived at the security check wearing a jacket and carrying a laptop in a case. I went to the counters where the trays are piled up, took off my jacket and put it in a tray, put my watch on top of it, and carried the tray and my case to the shortest queue for the X-ray machines. My jacket and case went through, I put my jacket on, picked up my computer and that was that.

I arrived in Stansted, where the very first word that I saw in English was Warning, on a notice with a Home Office crest. It was on the door of a lavatory. The next was a notice proudly stating that immigration procedures now take even longer than ever. I waited twenty minutes before my passport was swiped and my entry into Fortress UK was logged by the Great British Data Base.

On Monday I returned to Barcelona. At Stansted passengers were being directed to machines by a fussy man who was speaking pidgin English very slowly, obviously assuming that all Foreigners were as dim-witted as himself. The Swedish woman before me at the machines pointed out that she was wearing a light jacket, more of a wrap really, that had no pockets. Without missing a beat, the security guard quoted (or rather, claimed he was quoting) verbatim the MI6 rule that all jackets must go through the machine ‘even women’s jackets without pockets.’ And rules are rules. And Ordnung muß sein, as they used to say in Germany.

Then it was my turn. Like everyone else at this point I was still wearing my jacket and I was carrying my computer. I put my computer on the belt. ‘Is there a computer in that case,’ the guard asked. I replied that there was. ‘You’ll have to take it out to put it through the machine,’ he informed me. I told him that I expected so but that I needed a tray to put it in. He gave me one. Then I took my jacket off. He gave me another tray for that. ‘Shoes too,’ I was told. ‘Have you got a chair where I can sit down to take them off?’ I asked, quite reasonably. ‘No,’ was the answer, ‘But there are chairs over there where you can sit to put them back on again.’ It all went through the machine and I reassembled my belongings. Then I padded twenty metres in my stocking feet to the chairs, hoping that the floor was not awash with verrucas, athlete’s foot, or anything even nastier, and put my shoes back on. But who cares about  a foot infection  so long as Britain is safe from Foreigners?

On arrival in Barcelona airport I waited for about a minute while maybe a dozen other people passed through passport control, merely showing the picture page of their passports. This check is, of course, the reciprocal procedure required by the UK’s refusal to join Schengen; travellers from elsewhere in the EU show no ID documents on entering Spain.

Spain is a country where showing respect for other people lies at the very heart of the national culture. Britain is a country where humiliating people (including oneself) lies at the heart of the national culture, and is regarded as fine TV entertainment.

Spain is a country with an active Basque terrorist organisation that has killed and injured several people already this year but which is being brought under control by normal, constitutional, liberal means;no-one would have it otherwise. Also, a few years ago Spain suffered a devastating attack by Islamist terrorists without panicking. Britain is a country that has solved its Irish terrorist problem; it also a few years ago suffered a devastating attack by Islamist terrorists but has no active terrorism at the moment. It does, however, have active security forces who make it their job to scare the pants off people whenever they can. And the British people love nothing more than having their pants scared off them so they can obey even more stupid rules.