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December 5th, 2008
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May 28th, 2008 issue

Terrorist threat?

Sad times we live in, but, after the London bus bombings not too long ago, one can hardly blame the Czech police for being extra vigilant (“Detention raises question of rights,” News, May 21–27).
People need to stay on guard and be prepared to perhaps look stupid when they get their concerns wrong.
I don’t think this incident is surprising — even though it must have been annoying for Mark Tomass at the time.
Richard James
Prague
Such overreactions happen in places like New York City, too.
The man sitting next to Syrian-American professor Mark Tomass probably didn’t understand English well enough to understand what he was typing. The man believed, albeit mistakenly, that he was observing “suspicious activity.” So he did his civic duty and reported it.
The police simply responded to the phone call they received from the panicked Czech passenger who suspected the professor of terrorism. The police did their jobs as they had been trained.
Upon discovering that the man was not a threat in any way whatsoever, and that the panicking by the other passenger hadn’t been necessary, the police allowed the professor to continue on his journey in that very same bus.
Perhaps he was lucky. In the United States, Muslim men have been arrested and denied the right to fly, just because passengers complained to flight attendants about seeing Muslims praying at an airport.
Perhaps the cops who responded to the emergency cell phone call also felt it was silly, but they were doing their jobs by investigating.
Jesse Lynch
Bayonne, New Jersey
 
Informing on others
Unfortunately, similar things happen here in the United States all the time, and for similar reasons (“An incident with troubling hints of the past,” Opinion, May 21–27).
Average citizens who have never been outside the United States remain fearful of the unknown, and have little or no memory of the Constitution or Bill of Rights they read in school, and promptly relegated to the back corners of their brains, along with Latin and the history of Western civilization.
In the Czech Republic, I think the problem is that younger Czechs don’t even remember communism and its effects.
A whole generation has now grown up since the Velvet Revolution, and a slightly older group was just too young to be much affected by the “Big Brotherism” and worse.
Plus, it seems to me as a frequent visitor that not just Czechs, but most nationalities in Europe, are very nationalistic and xenophobic still.
If we in the United States still have problems with many immigrant groups, with our unique history of mixed populations, I guess it will take many more generations in Europe to stop fearing anything — or anyone  — unfamiliar.
Stephani Shelton
Kinnelon, New Jersey


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