If only you had been an ethical gendarmery
.
By Mohamed Naama Beiruk
.
Translated from Arabic by Limame Barbouchi
.
.
.
.
Yesterday, May 02nd, 2015, the weather was beautiful and warm, and nature with its few scattered trees passing gently through the bus window that was heading for the South. I was so excited that I was on my way back to Laayoune city, filled with longing for family and friends . . .
The time was between three and four o’clock in the afternoon, and the place was a few kilometers away from the North of TanTan city, there stopped the disreputable bus – CTM which I took out of necessity – at an irregular checking-point as it seemed. Then, a brown, thirty-year-old state trooper of a round, shaved face got into the bus and headed directly to me although my seat was 32. With a surly face, he pronounced a sentence of which I could recognize only one word “the paper”. It came to my mind that he wanted the ID. Card, but he re-ordered me in an impolite way:
He said, “Your ticket”
I got the ticket from my pocket and presented it to him. Without looking at it, he re-ordered me to follow him out of the bus in a way that made me sure that this gendarmery was to target me based on calumny or the like:
Get out
I got out finding the bus luggage box gate open before me; and the policeman asked me in the same rude way:
Where is your luggage?
I pointed to my suitcase which was unloaded by the CTM driver, who was not enough gentle in dealing with me. He even ordered me on behalf of the trooper:
Open (your suitcase)
I opened the suitcase, and there appeared my books which were stretched over my stuff. The policeman started checking them without opening them, and I am not sure if he had read the titles, but he asked me in the same severe way:
What is this?
I was afraid to say “books”, lest he responded in words I could tell he would use to comment on my reply:
We know they are books, have I told you they are truffles, for example?
That’s why I answered indirectly so he may respect knowledge at least if he doesn’t respect the human being:
I am a university student
As if I insulted his mother, he said sharply:
A (what?)
I repeated what I said without using the subject pronoun “I”:
A university student
As if he understood something difficult, he said “Ah”, but the tone this time was long, meaning “I understand”:
Ah
Then, he threw his hands into my stuff as if he were looking for something specific. I imagined – following the dishonorable treatment – that he would accuse me of holding a piece of Hashish, Cocaine, or weapon. I started praying for Allah. I didn’t know why the devil brought up in tandem the music of horror and excitement which is used in movies and programs covering moments of smuggling at check-points, like those series presented by National Geographic Channel.
After he disarranged my possessions, he tried to get each in its place, but that meant he would foul them more; that’s why I excused him to re-arrange them myself. As I began to close my suitcase, the only word that speaks for “his humanity” that I heard from him since he showed up was: Take it easy, take your time
Take it easy, take your time
I wish I could have told him: “mind your own business”, but I remembered my kids.
I was the only passenger who was driven out of the bus, whose stuff were inspected in a brutal way that has made me scared of that State trooper who wore that official uniform to serve me and other citizens, but not to harass me . . . The irony was that I didn’t feel secured until he disappeared while I was supposed to feel secured as I saw him.
Choosing me among dozens of passengers was an ordinary thing which I accept and understand. State troopers know their work well, but the issue concerns him not me . . . With little ethics, he could have done the job, and the inspection would take place, and he would have left on me a beautiful impression about the institution whose reputation is unfortunately violated by some individuals.
What would have harmed him if he had addressed me from the beginning a with a smile:
- Peace be upon you !
- Peace be upon you!
- Your ticket please
- Here you are
- Thank you. Excuse me but we need to see your luggage.
- Of course, with pleasure.
- Thanks
- Not at all, that’s your job.
- Please, open the suitcase
- Here you go
- Thank you
- Books? Are you a student?
- Yes
- Nice to meet you
- Thanks
After inspecting everything:
- I apologize for any annoyance
- No at all, why? This is your job.
- Have a safe trip.
- May Allah bless you, thank you!
This is the scenario that should have been happened, where I would have been inspected because I am not above the law.
Be that it would, I don’t generalize. I have some wonderful state troopers who are my friends . . . But my view of them will not change because of this state-trooper
Ethics remain the criterion that would lift us high up to the stage where nations do respect human rights, or bring us down at the rock bottom. It is not strange that we are going to vanish because of the likes of that backward state trooper, as the poet says:
Nations are strong with their morals, if those morals gone, they gone.