>and, I too was thinking of the stringent controls on borders, which I think
>is the counterpart to this globalisation (of capital). have you got any
>info/material on the situation at Brussels airport? I've only ever come
>across glimpses of info, and I'd be appreciative of anything, including your
>own analysis/comments.
Last summer on my way from New York City with my friends Carol and Patricia to visit Anita (my niece) in Berlin, we had to transfer Sabina flights at Brussels. At pass control Carol and I went through without even a stamp but Patricia (with a Colombian passport) was stopped for lack of a Belgian visa (though no visa was required for Colombians by Germany). Carol and I were ordered to leave Patricia but loudly refused. The Brussels airport is an upscale mall, Godiva shops all over the place. We were taken under the mall into the immigration lock-up. Fat pig-eyed male cops. A locked piss and sweat stinking room with benches, people sleeping on concrete floors, and a vending machine with no Godiva (but Mars-bars). Lots of folk of all ages, sexes and shapes, but only one end of the skin-color continuum. People being shouted at by the cops, and taken out to interrogation rooms. After a bit an officer with gold on epaulets (!) comes in and goes to the three of us like an arrow. In his office he explains Schengen (the inter-Euro pact that provides that the country of entry is responsible for visa control - i.e. for keeping out folk of the wrong end of the skin-color continuum), says it is fault of Sabena and says they will have to route us to Berlin through a non-Schengen country, and asks Patricia to sign a page full of writing in Flemish (without even a word of French). Patricia looks to me (for my sins an international lawyer - who has not the patience to deal with Nathan's arrogant ignorance, a job Charles is doing better than I could anyway), & I tell her to sign it provided she doesn't understand a word. She looks it over & immediately agrees that she doesn't understand a word & signs it. We get sent to København (where I surprise my sister Trine). Later (this last winter) a Kenyan woman was killed in that lock-up by the cops, and the Belgian Interior Minister had to resign as a result.
john mage