Say No To Identity Cards

Dancing Bullets


1905 saw the Parisian Musée Guimet host a golden bangled serpentine dancer moving to the adagio scents of Indian mythology and Japanese folktales. For the pleasure of her guests she imperceptibly removed her veils away from her desirable frame to then discard them to the wooden floor.

Mata Hari (meaning-Eye of the Tiger) would introduce her naked smile to around 30 venues each year across Europe, with even performances in La Scala 1911/12. She became a wonder to high society but her life and beginnings were a mystery.

She would tell journalists she had arrived from the island of Java, other times her biography began in India, and curiously in some interviews there would be no mention of India, her beginnings were now in Sumatra!

Hari was actually born in Friesland Holland. As a Dutch national she freely crossed borders until the day that she became known to the French authorities as H.21. Mata was arrested from the Hotel Plaza Athénée February 13th 1917 on the charges of espionage. A guilty verdict soon followed and as she awaited her execution she was housed in prison 'cell 12'. She was permitted to have two nuns remain with her during her final days and it was these two sisters who were audience to Mata's last 'seven veils' dance which she performed in her dank cell.

On the 15th of October 1917 after refusing a blindfold and her bondage to the stake, she gifted the nuns one final wave, a blown kiss for her killers and then without remorse the bullet dispatched Mata. Her corpse was donated to science and the enigma of Mata was wrapped and sealed for a hundred years. However, in 1985 biographer Russell Warren convinced the Minister of France to reveal these documents. Many experts in this case hold the belief that these partially opened documents are the evidence of her innocence.

I give you this account of Mata’s life as I am inquisitive to learn about people and their biographies. I am guilty to wanting to know more about Mata, but what we know about Mata to a certain extent is limited because this exotic dancer enjoyed and also took power from her life of anonymity. Anonymity is our human right, and it is a right that we need to hold tightly and not relinquish, this is why we always have to say no to being legally obligated to own and even carry an identity card which could hold up to fifty pieces of data about who we are (including biometric data).

Identity cards became compulsory in the UK in 1914, issued during World War 1. This legislation was abandoned in 1919, but then again became compulsory in 1939 with the National Registration Act of 1939. This time they remained for 13 years until Winston Churchill saw sense to halt the legislation in 1952. The data base from this registration became the National Health Service Register.

In 2006 we had a fresh Identity Cards Act but was once again repealed with the Identity Documents Act of 2010 - with the added twist that the arrival of this repeal gave no refund to the current holders of these cards!

We hear the argument from some politicians that identity cards are an essential tool in the fight against illegal immigration, crime and terrorism. Dame Stella Rimington –Director/General MI5 stated in 2005 that she had ‘questions’ regarding identity cards. There is no evidence to show a link between compulsory cards and a diminished terrorist threat, or a slide in crime figures in general.

Tony Blair told us ‘ID cards are needed to stop the soaring costs of identity theft.’ The opposite of this last statement is actually more plausible as to have this great level of information on one card creates a far tastier target.

Certain members of the police force have said that identity cards could be beneficial for the identification of victims of accidents or to identify people in a criminal act. This would only be effective if the carrying of these cards were made compulsory. We could only imagine that if someone were to plan a crime, the concern of the perpetrator wouldn’t be to double check that their ID card is present in their wallet in fear of the fine for not carrying it.

As free people we have this right of anonymity – for everyone! This is regardless of sex, nationality, socio economic groups, political opinion or sexual orientation.

These freedoms are ours from the Universal Declaration on Human Rights 1948, followed two years later with the European Convention on Human Rights. In 1998 the Human Rights Act panel passed the motion making rights and freedoms in the European Convention on human rights directly enforceable in the UK.

Enjoy this anonymity, and if you want to dance then – stay safe and dodge the bullets!

Paul White