Indian Rope

One of the many benefits of working legally in Thailand apart from the fact that it massively impinges on your freedom of choice of employer is that when you leave the country for any period of time you have to purchase a re-entry visa so that your existing visa isn't invalidated (what nonsense, I suppose Thais leaving the country invalidate their citizenship by the same logic). This of course costs 1000 baht and takes a small era to obtain from the immigration office on Sathorn. Did I write benefits? Sorry I meant something else beginning with 'b' and ending with 's'.

All credit to those down at immigration, they've designed not only a million and one ridiculous ways to extort money from Johnny Foreigner, they've designed a a queueing system with numbered tickets and counters and digital signs to help make that feeling of being screwed over that much more comfortable and organised.

When you enter the office you queue up for your relevant form (re-entry, lost passport, god bothering missionary visa etc.). Then you go and fill it in, glue your picture to it and go back and queue up for the number I mentioned earlier.

You do all of this, unless, you are a fat Indian cow in a bright pink sari made of enough material to unravel all the way to Kolkata, and a tilak the size of the same city's circumference stuck on your forehead. In that case the system doesn't apply to you and you may negate it by sheer obstinate will.

I mean queue pushing and then quoting Thai maxims such as 'jai yen yen' and 'mai pen rai' is one thing (and she did), but then trying to push in front when you have a ticket that reads 172 and the number at the board is still at 165 is in another dimension, especially when it's at the climax of a two hour wait. It takes some front trying to break the empirical laws of the numerical system.

On pointing out her basic faux pas, she had the cheek to ask 'why you cause problem?' On responding it's not your turn and you're screwing up the system causing everyone who's waiting their turn to wait longer,' she shouted '171 go home,' I replied 'yes but 166, 167, 168, 169 are all still waiting' she shouted 'why you fighting?' At this point, I considered for the first time ever, why Winston Churchill declared in response to requests to send food to India at the height of the Bengal famine of the early 1940s: 'I hate Indians. They are a beastly people with a beastly religion.' (I'm not even a fan of Churchill's apart from his Mary Astor comment, but you get my point)

I think my Grandad Booth had a similar problem with queueing and Indians and he affirmed at the time 'in England we queue'. I could of course be mistaken on this point but if I'm not, I definitely derived his queueing gene and hope it will be passed on to Bamboo.

Take it Easter than India

We're All Alhassan Bangura

Diamonds are forever

They won't leave in the night

I've no fear that they might

Desert me

Diamonds from Sierra Leone, Kanye West

When two of my current reading topics (UK immigration fiascoes and football) combined today I happened to fall across the story of Watford Football Club's and soon to be deported to Sierra Leonean, Alhassan Bangura who faces going back to his homeland where he could face the prospect of murder after having his appeal to remain in the UK refused.

According to stories that I've read about him online: he arrived in England four years ago, to escape the civil war in his country because his life was in danger due to his late father’s connections to the Soko cult in the country. After his father’s death, its elders threatened to kill Bangura after he refused to join and take part in its rituals of withcraft and mutilation.
He fled his home and a Frenchman who found him sleeping rough in Guinea trafficked him to London via Paris in 2004, when he was aged just 16. He was then taken to a house where two men attempted to rape him. Bangura escaped and was found in the street by a passer-by who took him to the Home Office’s immigration centre in Croydon.
He underwent therapy to help him deal with his ordeals and began playing non-league football where he was spotted by a Watford scout.
Since he signed for Watford, Bangura has been a great player and fan’s favourite. Al became a father less than two weeks ago. He says he feels more English than from Sierra Leone and his ambition is to play for England.
He was originally given indefinite leave to stay in Britain. However, the Home Office has decided that Bangura shouldn’t be here anymore and wants to deport him back to Sierra Leone.
As part of its evidence at the tribunal it accused him of lying, as he told the Watford programme that he came to England with an uncle he trusted called Eric. This was rather than tell fans a man tried to traffic him for use as a sex worker and that he was almost homosexually raped – hardly the kind of thing a footballer would tell in a culture where no player dares to admit they are gay for fear of opposition taunts.
Al can appeal the decision and needs as much support as he can get to continue living in the country where he has built himself a life with a family and a job.

I'm not the kind of person to ask people to go and sign petitions and I'm not even posting it in your inbox but on this occasion I am appealing for your action, not just because he's a footballer, or not even because our family have our own struggle with the very same corrupted and anachronistic system but because I feel that this man's plight should cause a difference in how immigration issues are looked upon by people in the United Kingdom.

“In a country where our borders are seemingly open to people from all over the world and in a game where we make plenty of noise about kicking racism out of football and society, it’s beyond belief that someone like Al has been subjected to the things he has had to go through in recent weeks.” Aidy Boothyroyd Watford's Manager.

It's a sad state of affairs that inefficient government departments much more acute at controlling the media than empowering the people that put them there can divide young families of this globalised world apart as if they are some kind of toy. And that this is condoned by a largely lethargic and unaware general public fostered on misunderstanding, fear and ignorance.

Please help and sign http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/928961524

Take it East