October 4, 2010

You've been warned!

So if you've even vaguely been following the news, you know that a variety of countries have issued a "security warning" for its citizens traveling to the Europe because of "intelligence" of possible "terror attacks". There. That's the exact language used and description given to us - the people who actually live in the Europe. And tell you what? It neither makes our life easy nor does it do anything at all. Unless there is some level of specificity in these warnings, its really as vague as being told not to cross a street for the fear of a moving vehicle killing you. Seriously. All that's happened in France over the past couple of weeks are a couple of evacuations of the Eiffel Tower and a couple of other Metro stations around the tourist hubs, all thankfully to no avail. The larger level of scrutiny has been seen only today when another couple of countries jumped the bandwagon to warn their citizens. And so our college, for the first time ever, decided to have a one-on-one checking. We had to flash our ID cards for detailed scrutiny everytime we entered the school buildings. Hardly efficient but barely foolhardy, too. 

So as a citizen who has to go about her everyday life in a country supposedly under threat, I just think its prudent for the governments of other countries to share any solid evidence/information with the governments here and issue specific guidelines rather than tell us what we already know - Oh that don't cross the road when the light is red.. or don't bang your car onto a walking civilian. Who does it help really? No one. All its done is to draw attention to the countries and have people sizing each other up with suspicion in a land of touristic bliss. Smart move, USA.

0 comments:

Post a Comment