We were catching a plane and I quite like certain airlines.  My favourite is Lufthansa followed by Alitalia.  For about 9 months I flew Lufthansa every week to Cologne and I found them to be great.  So, although this time we were not going to Germany, we were using Lufthansa and that meant a connection in Frankfurt.

Frankfurt airport is quite a good airport as far as any airport is ‘good’.  But flying to/from the UK means that, wherever you land in Europe, you have to go through the full passport control as if you were coming or going outside the EU.  This appears to be because, although we are supposed to have no real border controls in the EU, Britain< doesn't really trust 'johnny-foreigner' to keep his borders free from those hordes of illegal immigrants that are invading everywhere.  So, yes, it's free movement within the EU, but we'll just have the normal controls in place because you never know. In this case we were flying from the UK and we arrived in Frankfurt.  We needed to go through passport control.  Now, as luck (where is it when you need it) would have it, as we approached the passport control a million Germans, on their way back from somewhere, converged on the line and, as they had an average age of 60, felt that they had priority over everyone else.  It was their country after all, so barging in front of the (obvious) foreigners was not only acceptable, it was essential. And we were obviously foreigners because a) we were far better dressed than any German I've seen and b) well, er, because my partner is black.  Now, the UK (in spite of what people may say, and in spite of the happenings over the last few years) is a pretty tolerant place.  The rags (commonly called tabloid newspapers) seem to be working hard to change that, but, on the whole, most individuals are pretty tolerant. My partner was born and bred in the UK.  Yes, V's parents came from Jamaica - about the time that the UK was crying out for them to come - and came they did.  Since then, they've worked hard all their lives, only recently retiring.  They are wonderful, warm people, as are most of V's family. So, in spite of the Germans' desire to be in front of us, only a few actually got through which meant that we were about 5^th from the front.  As usual, given some interesting things that have happened in the past, I made V go before me.

At V’s turn the German (blond hair, blue eyes, etc) behind the desk took some time over the passport.  Then he motioned for V to step to one side and kept the passport.  This was a little strange.  We had been through Frankfurt many times before and, on the whole, had no real problem.  OK, so they were sometimes a little slow processing V; looking up at him, down at the passport and repeating this several times, checking every page, etc. but this time was different.  He had a horde of his own countrymen and women to process and he felt he should do them first.

Now, I was next in line.  He motioned for me to come forward.  I indicated that I was more than happy to wait for him to process the black person.  But no, he was determined to do the whole horde before getting back to V.

We had a connection to catch, so again I indicated that I would wait, to no avail.  So, I stepped forward to have my passport processed, which took 2 seconds after all, although I am British, I am white, blue-eyed and, according to some people, a slight German look.

However, I was now angry.  So, instead of going through, I went to the wall, in full view of the hordes of Germans and the German prat at the desk.  I leaned against the wall, crossed my arms and, in every way possible, showed that I was bloody livid.  Tapping my foot, looking at my watch repeatedly, scowling and staring, very hard, at the German dork behind the desk.

He processed another couple of Germans and then noticed that I was still there.  He motioned that I should go on but I replied that I would wait for my friend, thank you.  All the Germans were staring, of course.  Even as I type this, I can feel my anger rising again.  However, for him, this was very, very embarrassing.  Here was a perfect German-looking person who was waiting for his black friend, who was being held up for no reason.  And all the Germans were alternatively staring at me, V and, in a very special way, the German twit, as if they expected him to ‘do something’.

It was too much for him.  He grabbed V’s passport, looked at it again, obviously annoyed that he had been made to look a complete idiot, and handed the passport back and through we went.  So, at the end of that, why the wait?

Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against the German people as a whole but like anywhere, including here and the UK, I do have a problem with racists and bigots.  Unfortunately, I have noticed more recently, that people’s views seem to have become rather more polarised and they speak their mind more about their fears of too many immigrants.  I often bite my tongue as I find it too difficult to explain in soundbites that they are wrong.  I guess I need to work out how to do it and practice it.  But I blame the tabloids and the politicians for most of it.

Whereas, in general, we don’t have too many problems here, there are instances.  Like recently, a work colleague was saying that V should realise that getting a contratto indeterminato at his workplace was something of a miracle; not only for the fact that V had only been there 8 months or so and that V didn’t speak fluent Italian – but also, because V was black!

When V told me this the other day, again I found myself keeping my anger under check.  Generally I feel it’s not my place to get angry if V doesn’t.  But it does make me mad, inside, at least.

Finally, the weirdest place for this type of thing to happen was when we were leaving Egypt, many years ago.  The Egyptian passport people took absolutely ages processing V out, probably because, apparently, V has a Nubian look (one of V’s ancestors was an Egyptian), which is part of Egypt, so they must have thought V was trying to escape!

Post inspired by Mr & Mrs Fear’s http://www.abandonallfear.co.uk/blog/2006/12/immigration-problem-part-1.html. Sadly the blog no longer exists.