Those of you who've been fortunate enough to travel overseas know that upon returning to the USA, you need to declare the value of goods purchased abroad. You fill out a form on the plane, stand on line at Customs, show the form to the customs officer, etc., etc.. Recently, an unfortunate customs incident involving flutist Boujemaa Razgui and the destruction of his instruments by US Customs at JFK has made the rounds, including two recommended diaries on DK here and here. However, in all the outraged reaction, a bit of nuance to the story makes the hero a bit less of a totally put-open hero. None of this justifies the destruction of Razgui's instruments, of course, but it needs to be kept in mind. More below the flip....
Felicia Schwartz had this story on CNN dated yesterday about the terrible situation with Razgui and US Customs trashing his items. But once you're past the understandable initial reaction of stupid philistine US Customs agents, take note of this passage (emphasis mine):
"A spokesperson from U.S. Customs and Border Protection said Razgui did not claim his bag at JFK. Typically, passengers clear immigration and are subject to customs inspections based on what they declare to have brought into the United States, the Customs spokesperson said. Razgui was not present for the inspection because he did not claim his bag."
A few days earlier, on "The Names Blog" from the
Boston Globe's website, a brief blog post also noted, while quoting Razgui (again,
emphasis mine):
'In New York, he says, an official opened his luggage and found the 13 flutelike instruments - 11 nays and two kawalas. Razgui says he had made all of the instruments using hard-to-find reeds. “They said this is an agriculture item,” said Razgui, who was not present when his bag was opened. “I fly with them in and out all the time and this is the first time there has been a problem. This is my life.'
Again, operating with 20-20 hindsight, clearly the US Customs people effed up mega-big-time in destroying Razgui's instruments. But note that this is all in hindsight, with everyone sitting in judgement and turning TP-ish in ridiculing stupid "gubment" officials in this instance. Think of it this way:
1. You're a customs official.
2. You're not necessarily musical.
3. You see these odd-looking items in a bag that look like agricultural items. You have no idea what these items are.
4. The owner of the bag is not there to explain what the odd-looking items are.
5. There are loads and loads of other passengers waiting to get through customs also. You don't have a lot of time to decide the next course of action.
If you were that hypothetical customs official, in this situation, what would you have done? Without the benefit of hindsight, on the spot, in the heat of the moment, would you have done better?
In passing, I saw that one of the initial rec'd DK diaries got this story initially from the ArtsJournal blog Slipped Disc, which is Norman Lebrecht's blog. This is a bit unfortunate, because Norman Lebrecht is the most sensation-seeking, gossip-mongering, fact-sloppy, preening and self-congratulatory writer in classical music. In other words, Lebrecht is kind of like the Matt Drudge of classical music. In a more recent post from Lebrecht on the incident here, one of the commenters, who goes by "Wondering", has this insightful post, which is worth more than all of Lebrecht put together:
"The CNN report says that he was flying from Madrid to JFK and did not claim his bag at JFK. I’m wondering why he didn't. It’s routine. An experienced traveler (and even inexperienced ones, who are advised at check-in) would certainly know that you always claim your bag at your first point of arrival in the US and carry it personally thru US customs, along with your declaration form.
The declaration form, which everyone is required to fill out on board en route to the US, specifically asks whether or not you are bringing agricultural products into the US. Since he explained to CNN that he was bringing in raw bamboo with his flutes, he would have had to put that on his customs declaration. This automatically would have made him subject to a search by customs officials.THAT would have been the time to explain about his flutes and the bamboo. For reasons unknown, he did not do this. Perhaps he knew they would seize the bamboo at that time.
I think that since he is an experienced traveler, he knew the rules. Maybe he was hoping that if he didn’t personally claim the bag, it would slide through customs unnoticed. I have no idea why his flutes were destroyed along with the bamboo, but I’m afraid he forfeited his chance to explain himself and save his instruments when he failed to collect his bag upon arrival in the US."
Again, this is not to justify what the customs officials did (and if anyone besides the usual SNLC suspects actually reads this diary, I'll wait for the first DKer to comment, inaccurately, that I am justifying what they did). This is simply a reminder that not quite all of the blame is on one side. It strikes me that Razgui is guilty of naivete at most, since he seems to have taken it for granted that nothing would happen here in customs, like before when he's traveled. Maybe that's why he wasn't present when his bag was opened. But wouldn't it have been a lot smarter to explain things to the customs official at the start, before anything went wrong, rather than to the media later after the damage has been done? Why did he assume that every US customs official will know automatically that his cargo was musical instruments, not "agricultural goods"? If I valued those instruments as much as Razgui did, realizing that they represent my means of livelihood, I would not have left my bag with those goods for any official to open without me there to eyeball them like a hawk, not for a second.
Obviously no sensible person wishes that this happened, and that probably includes even the customs people who screwed up big time here, in hindsight. I'm also semi-aware that given the reaction to this story in earlier diaries on DK, this particular diary won't rank highly, or that I'd probably get flamed, if anyone actually paid attention. But then I've never been popular in my life anyway, so no loss there. Besides, it's not always easy to be a dissenter from the crowd, or to explain nuance in an apparently black-and-white situation that just might have shades of gray.
With that, time for the usual protocol in the first SNLC of 2014, namely your loser stories of the week.......