I lived in England once in 1998, Bournemouth, in Dorset, and while that coast town brought nice memories, far more than Paris ever did, believe me, the biggest impression left on me wasn’t the quaint seaside lifestyles nor the fact that Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley is buried there but rather England’s immigration and customs services.
At the time I hadn’t become an EU citizen so I carried my Mexican Passport. Having being accustomed to travel unhindered in Europe it came as a natural surprise to me that I was stopped at Heathrow because of my nationality. I was offended, quite frankly, to be made to sign a waver of rights in order to be able to enter the country. In essence Mexicans seem to have a bad rap there and are in the habit of entering the country to ask for UK benefits. I guess I might be wrong but I didn’t quite get the logic behind the waver nor as to why Mexicans were singled out for this list of people who come in to the country to milk its welfare system.
In general, I think of Britons like most Americans think of them, snobs. Having gone through what I did that day my attitude hardened considerably more after that incident. However, let’s not confuse government employees and the beasts they become when ordered to enforce laws nobody understands with people of the everyday caliber. Most Brits I’ve met seem quite down to earth just as much as the next bloke around the globe. Yet immigration, a ghost that has chasen me all my life, is an issue I carry deep inside me so I react quite normally, in indignant tones, whenever I’m stopped by these services countries have in order to syphen out unwanted elements.
Nevertheless, I find those services in the UK ugly, the same goes for America and certainly from any other part of the world, It is hedious that governments around the world engage in this humiliating act of stopping people because of their nationality.
Yeah, I know, it’s 2003, the shadow of Terrorism covers every human soul nowadays and this is idyllic thinking and quite leftist humanitarian wishful reckoning but I can still dream and no terrorist organization nor stupid evil government like the USA has now can stop me from wishing for a better tomorrow today.