Thursday, March 4, 2010

Airport Scanners and Passive Resistance

Mahatma Gandhi wrote this in his famous "Indian Home Rule" (1909):
"If the Government were to ask us to go about without any clothing, should we do so? If I were a passive resister, I would say to them that I would have nothing to do with their law. But we have so forgotten ourselves and become so compliant that we do not mind any degrading law."

There is no question that airport scanners that undress us and our children, are degrading instruments. Scanners are also carcinogenic. I was pleased that two women refused to go through the scanners at a UK airport yesterday, March 2 2010, and forfeited their tickets.

The chances of being hijacked or being blown up by a terrorist in an airplane are something like a million to one. We are much more likely to be killed in a car accident, or by cancers, and other leading causes of death in the West.

I advocate passive resistance by refusing to fly from airports that degrade my humanity and invade my privacy and that of vulnerable children. If this means no airplane travel, so be it. Our bodies belong to us -- this is a fundamental right called 'habeas corpus'.

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