Photo: seagull productions

At the time of the last Presidential election, I was living and working at a backpacker’s hostel in Scotland.

One of the only other Americans there at the time helped me celebrate what she and I christened ‘Obama Day’ by baking a massive cake and frosting states red or blue accordingly as the ballots came in.

When the cake was just over half-frosted, the room, which was riddled with mostly Spanish, Canadian and Australian onlookers, gazed in awkward amusement as we burst into tears, held hands and shrieked the Star Spangled Banner at the top of our lungs.

Since then, I have never been able to think of that day – that moment, erupting with unadulterated national pride – without feeling guilty about how rare those moments are for me.

After all, I travel with a Scottish luggage tag on my backpack.

According to TIME magazine, the number of American flags sold by Wal-Mart on September 11th 2000 was around 6400. September 11th 2001? 116,000. And it doubled the next day.

Patriotism comes in unpredictable waves, and too often, the icon of the American flag carries negative connotations – like excessive consumerism, for example. Recently some new stigmas have popped up: one might misconstrue flag-flying as condoning the war in Iraq, a judgmental religious fanaticism, or worse, a feeling of superiority over other nations.

This last one is what really kills it for me. As a traveler, it’s in my nature to feel quite the opposite.

Diminished At The Edges

Every so often, though, “Old Glory” (as the flag was nicknamed by William Driver, an early nineteenth century American sea captain) can be a poignant reminder of the principles on which our country was founded.

Post 9/11 flag-flying is a classic example of how our country’s emblem can suddenly dump all those unfortunate legacies of our cultural and international wrongdoings and be re-conquered by the compelling and inspirational ethos of our founding fathers – if only temporarily.

Sam Adams wasn’t just a future mediocre-tasting lager. He was a visionary who called for citizens to take individual responsibility for themselves, to carry out their civic duties. And Thomas Jefferson did more than seduce his slaves. He insisted that “the cement of this union is in the heart-blood of every American.”

That’s us, even when we’re haggling in Peru or paddling up the Yangtze.

In fact, Benjamin Franklin had a tasty little metaphor: “A great empire, like a great cake, is most easily diminished at the edges.” Our country’s reputation is easier to nibble at abroad, where there are fewer people to stick up for it.

That is, expat Yanks worldwide are America’s fondant and sprinkles. The jaded trail-bums, the naïve Kumbaya-ers, and especially everyone in between… we are all the edges of Obama’s cake. Unfortunately, we are the edges of the Iraq-Halliburton-Enron cake, too.

This is a call to put more responsibility on our shoulders than we bargained for when we flew, starry-eyed, across our first ocean.

Missing Out

I’m guilty of hiding behind the Scottish flag. And it seems many Americans play it safe with the Canadian flag too.

In Egypt, I was told to pretend to be Australian as we entered a Mosque. Even a friend once recommended a city to me and added, “But you’ll have to say you’re from Canada if you want people to be nice to you.”

To be honest, it’s not entirely our fault that so few of us are willing to expose Old Glory while traveling. Travelers and expats bear the heaviest burden – much heavier than that of everyone at home.

We are the faces and voices of our nation’s past mistakes. We are the messenger, the tangible entity at which resentments can be aimed, the minimum-wage single mom who happens to be on the other line of a 1-800 complaint number. We are the ones who repeatedly and involuntarily must defend, apologize, and explain.

This, the constant risk of verbal judgment or attack, is why many become too shy, tired, over it, or embarrassed to bring a tangible form of Old Glory along for the ride.

At our hostel, everyone had their national pride on display somewhere. Aussie boxers, a South African flag hung above a bed, a Kiwi beach towel. At one point the few Americans congregated and realized we didn’t have much in the way of insignia.

We admitted we don’t usually bring Old Glory with us. And, looking around, we realized what we might be missing out on.

Reclaiming the Flag

The way I see it, travelers are citizens of the world – we shouldn’t bear the burdens of our government everywhere we go, especially if we travel to escape or to forget a stigma we did not choose for ourselves.

At the same time, if we are open-minded, considerate, adventurous, and passionate, isn’t it more important to carry the flag with us? After all, how else are we to change people’s opinions about our country; if we let the intolerant and the corrupt carry the flag alone?

Sam, Tom, and Benji would be ashamed of those of us who play pretend when we don’t have to. Representing the U.S. in a positive light should be a welcomed civic duty.

Every traveler has the right to decide whether they want to blend in or say it loud and proud. Both choices come with a sacrifice. Bringing Old Glory with you when you travel can highly influence how you’re treated.

Yet whether you choose to put it on your keychain, your hat, or nowhere at all, you can’t change where you come from. You can only change whether or not you have a positive attitude about it – quietly or otherwise.

If we’re brave enough pack our national identity with us, we can start to change people’s discriminatory attitudes by setting a positive example.

Rescuing our most meaningful and remarkable icon… Benji Franklin would be proud.

Aung San Suu Kyi

The political, social and economic tragedy that exists in present day Burma is a permanent stain on humanity.

In the words of U Tin U, Deputy Leader of the National League for Democracy (NLD), “Burma is a prison within a prison.” The thoughts, movements and actions of 50 million civilians are under constant surveillance by a government obsessed with maintaining control. Yet the thoughts and words of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi provide a beacon of hope that a democratic and unified Burma will someday prevail.

Author Alan Clements travelled to Rangoon in December 1995 to meet secretly with Daw Suu Kyi and recorded a series of dialogues with the leader of the NLD. Clements’ involvement with Burma goes back 30 years. This became the book Aung San Suu Kyi: The Voice of Hope.

He is the first American to be ordained a Buddhist monk, and like every foreign journalist entering Burma, he has also encountered the wrath of the military junta by being deported.

The Voice Of Hope

Between his extensive knowledge of the domestic situation, and Daw Suu Kyi’s wisdom and elegance in answering every question put before her, readers will understand just how Buddhism is closely connected with politics in Burma, and why the concepts of faith and metta (loving kindness) are among the building blocks of any genuine democracy.

The Voice of Hope

Each chapter is named after a sentence that typifies the beliefs, sacrifice and struggle that best summarise key points in Daw Suu Kyi’s existence.

It also demonstrates the enormous love that she shares for every person who has risked their life to hear speeches delivered from her compound. She also speaks repeatedly of compassion towards members of the SPDC and declares that they too can show love for the people of Burma.

This may surprise readers, but perfectly encompasses everything she stands for. One cannot help but show admiration for any individual willing to risk their life to hear a political icon outline the real situation in Burma, and be prepared to listen to how and why civilians are suffering.

In the process of unravelling Daw Suu Kyi’s deepest thoughts, Clements uncovers a defiant individual that will not be intimidated by weaponry in the hands of authority, while uncovering the keys to life; love for humanity, education and an open heart.

Daw Suu Kyi speaks modestly and candidly in describing her upbringing, the role of her parents in shaping her values, her frenetic daily routine while under house arrest, life abroad and eventual homecoming to Burma, and unrelenting commitment to non-violence.

The appeal of the dialogue is that Daw Suu Kyi’s answers to some of Clements’ lengthy questions and points are presented plainly and with fervour as if addressing a crowd of tens of thousands of her supporters. There is no place for political spin within these pages, which enhances the readability.

One theme that resonates through the entire book is the tenacity of the people of Burma and their ability to adopt a sense of humour in spite of the horrific conditions that they face. It takes a special human being to constantly laugh throughout years of suffering.

Clements has clearly done his background research to prompt thought-provoking answers from Daw Suu Kyi and in doing so, delivers possibly the greatest insight into the world’s most famous female political icon.

Use Your Liberty

Author Alan Clements

It is impossible to have conceived the danger facing Clements and Daw Suu Kyi, making the discussions and writing of this publication all the more plausible.

Throughout the course of the book, the reader becomes acutely aware of the volatile situation that Burma has faced in recent decades, a scenario sadly prevalent to this day. The facts itself relating to Burma’s political, social and economic demise are not new, but Clements aims to provide shock therapy and reveal to the world the extent and frequency of abuse.

He succeeds in piercing the heart and soul deeply enough and warn us that if we do not regard Burma as our highest priority, then it is not just the people that face the harshest consequences of tyranny. As a society, we will all carry the burden of watching humans slowly die without directly intervening.

Aung San Suu Kyi: The Voice Of Hope reminds us all that the forgotten people of Burma are not just the dead who have been forced to onto their knees for so much of their lives, but the living voiceless.

Alan Clements has presented us a manual for life that crudely tells the developed and most powerful leaders on the planet to stop waiting idly by for a miracle to occur without hard work. This book is the catapult that will launch individuals into taking immediate action.

The message here is loud and clear; use your rights and privileges to help the long-suffering civilians of Burma gain their freedom.

Obama in the White House / Photo: Whitehouse

A week ago, President Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize. Many were shocked.

Mock speeches were drafted in which he declined the prize or accepted it on behalf of others. The town-hall criers cringed in agony, the media salivated. On Meet the Press, Paul Gigot of The Wall Street Journal wrung his hands at the idea of “subjugating American values to global values.”

We’ve spent the week struggling to make sense of the decision.

There is one group of people who maintained their equilibrium and instantly reached out to welcome Barack Obama into their midst: the most recent Nobel Peace Prize Laureates. If we consider their comments in light of the wider world, we might better understand the choice.

But how to visit the wider world? We need to get out there to see what those ominously evoked global values are. We can throw on a backpack and witness conditions firsthand, or… here is an alternative.

David Elliot Cohen has created What Matters, a book of images and ideas in which the world’s preeminent photojournalists and thinkers depict the “crucial yet curable” issues of our time.

As Omer Bartov writes in his essay on genocide, “These photographs tell a truth we would rather not know. They have the power to take us to places we will never visit, show us sights we hope never to see.”

He challenges every one of us to do something, however small, to make this world a better place.

What Matters provides a framework in which to contemplate the Nobel Committee’s reasons for awarding the prize to Barack Obama and the statements of the past Laureates.

1. Encouraging Co-operation

Kofi Annan (Nobel Prize Laureate 2002) called the decision “…an unexpected but inspired choice. In an increasingly challenging and volatile world, President Obama has given a sense of hope and optimism to millions around the world. He has shown the way forward is through genuine cooperation with other nations.”

Obama’s diplomacy, according to the Nobel Committee, is founded on the concept that those who lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world’s population, which makes Paul Gigot’s melodramatic hand wringing a little out-dated.

This is what Obama had in mind when he addressed the United Nations on September 23:

“In this hall, we come from many places, but we share a common future. No longer do we have the luxury of indulging our differences to the exclusion of the work that we must do together. I have carried this message from London to Ankara; from Port of Spain to Moscow; from Accra to Cairo; and it is what I will speak about today – because the time has come for the world to move in a new direction. We must embrace a new era of engagement based on mutual interest and mutual respect, and our work must begin now.”

2. Saving Darfur

Jimmy Carter (2002) said: “A bold statement of international support for his vision and commitment to peace and harmony in international relations. It reflects the hope the Obama administration represents across the globe.”

One place increasingly devoid of hope is Darfur, as we can see from the eyes of a child on the streets of Adre with his finger on the trigger (What Matters, The Scorched Earth of Darfur – Marcus Bleasdale, photo).

Genocide, which President Obama called “a stain on our souls,” must be stopped in Sudan. For this to happen it must move up on the agenda of world leaders. Obama pinpointed Darfur in his call for a new era of engagement among nations.

Lawrence Woocher of the U.S. Institute for Peace Center for Conflict Analysis and Prevention said this was notable and indicates a real policy priority. Save Darfur Coalition Board member and co-founder of My Sister’s Keeper, Rev. Gloria White-Hammond said the Nobel Prize should reinforce Obama’s leadership role in Sudan and Darfur with the international community.

3. Closing Guantanamo & Ending Torture

Shirin Ebadi, (2003) said:

“I congratulate and welcome President Obama to the large family of Nobel Prize Laureates, and would like to say to him that this is a huge responsibility. I hope he’s able to realize that the word peace is not just the absence of war. It is a collection of circumstances that will eradicate children dying of hunger, a person imprisoned for writing an article, or a person tortured while in detention. It is through understanding all of this that the true meaning of the word peace can be implemented.”

January 22, 2009, the day after the inauguration, President Obama issued three executive orders. He ordered the closure of the prison at Guantanamo Bay (currently in progress, though the deadline will likely be delayed), and a review of our detention and interrogation policy. He revoked Executive Order 13340 of July 20, 2007 (George W. Bush’s belated attempt to reinterpret those quaint Geneva Conventions). Obama has clearly prohibited the use of torture.

This was a first step in healing our image with the rest of humanity. Here at home we only grasped a fraction of what the photos from Abu Ghraib did to our reputation around the world. They struck fear of Americans into the hearts of many and is one of the high costs of the war on terror outlined in What Matters.

4. Promoting Engagement

Wangari Maathai (2004): “I think the U.S. has been largely judged by the reaction to the act of not signing the Kyoto protocol and also not believing that climage change is a reality. Now look at the U.S., it is engaged, it is supporting the events leading to Copenhagen…”

Maathai knows the difference one person can make and the importance of calling others to action. She planted nine trees in her backyard in Kenya and this grew into the Green Belt Movement – which has planted millions of trees to help restore Africa’s forests.

On the 100th day of his administration, Obama signed the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act, increasing the size of Americorps and “connecting deeds to needs.” This summer our president launched United We Serve. He has engaged Americans in imaginative volunteerism.

5. Abolishing Nuclear Weapons

Mohamed ElBaradei (2005): “I cannot think of anyone today more deserving of this honor … President Obama has provided outstanding leadership on moving towards a world free of nuclear weapons.”

When ElBaradei accepted his Nobel, he asked people to imagine a world without nuclear weapons. In awarding the prize to Obama, special importance was attached to his vision of and work for a world without nuclear weapons.

The photos in Fallout- The Enduring Tragedy of Chernobyl leave nothing to the imagination. Nineteen years after the evacuation, an empty kindergarten room reminds us of the absolute necessity of nuclear arms reduction and increased safety measures. Other images in What Matters link to the frightening possibility of terrorists using nuclear weapons.

In September, after chairing the meeting in which the new UN Security Council Resolution 1887 was drafted and signed, President Obama said,

“We harbor no illusions about the difficulty of bringing about a world without nuclear weapons. We know there are plenty of cynics, and that there will be setbacks to prove their point. But there will also be days like today that push us forward – days that tell a different story. It is the story of a world that understands that no difference or division is worth destroying all that we have built and all that we love. It is a recognition that can bring people of different nationalities and ethnicities and ideologies together. In my own country, it has brought Democrats and Republican leaders together.”

6. Ending Poverty

Muhammad Yunus, (2006): “The prize has really bet on him because he has a real chance to bring change.” Yunus also stated, “Getting the prize at the beginning is important, because it encourages those forces of peace for a lasting framework.”

Twenty-seven dollars out of his own pocket became the Grameen Bank, which turns Yunus’s vision of eliminating poverty into many realities every day.

What Matters is a comprehensive pictorial of the plight of the world’s poor, and the essays offer a sometimes scathing chronicle of our efforts to help. A sharp awareness of the issues—from AIDS to water supply problems to our own consumer culture—is essential in our leaders.

President Obama demonstrates this understanding:

“Far too many people in far too many places live through the daily crises that challenge our humanity – the despair of an empty stomach; the thirst brought on by dwindling water supplies; the injustice of a child dying from a treatable disease; or a mother losing her life as she gives birth.”

President Obama’s advocacy of the poor is reflected in The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. He is also one of the strongest advocates for the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

7. Tackling Climate Change

Al Gore, (2007) called the decision: “Extremely well deserved and an honor for the country.” When Gore accepted his award for furthering man’s peace with the planet, he said, “We have everything we need to get started, save perhaps political will, but political will is a renewable resource.”

The Nobel Committee believes this resource has been renewed: “Thanks to Obama’s initiative, the USA is now playing a more constructive role in meeting the great climatic challenges the world is confronting.”

“For a long time—the first fifteen years that we knew about global warming and did nothing—there were no pictures. That was one of the reasons for inaction,” states Bill McKibben in his essay in What Matters, Meltdown – A Global Warming Travelogue.

The photographs throughout the book depicting environmental conditions— glaciers disappearing, China’s extreme pollution, scenes from the Niger River Delta—are meant to cause outrage in us, for that is what leads to action.

In our country, the 2008 election ended an era of denial. President Obama has both said and shown that the days when America dragged its feet on this issue are over.

The environmental policies of Obama’s first months in office entailed the dirty job of digging out of the messy pile of Bush’s policies, while building a whole new mountain of better investments, tougher standards and guidelines for a cleaner, more sustainable future.

8. Building Real Peace In The Middle East

Maarti Ahtisaari, (2008): “We do not yet have a peace in the Middle East…this time it was very clear that they wanted to encourage Obama to move on these issues. This is a clear encouragement to do something on this issue. I wish him good luck.”

Ahtisaari is a mediator who has dedicated his career to solving international conflicts. When he won his Nobel last year, he expressed frustration that so many conflicts had become frozen. Clearly, Iraq and Afghanistan topped the list.

In the wider world, dialogue and negotiations are greatly preferred as instruments for resolving even the most difficult international conflicts. We forget that millions of people around the globe took to the streets (and still do) in protest against both Afghanistan and Iraq.

It seems impossible to get an accurate count—in lives, pain, displacement, not to mention dollars—of the cost of these wars. Bitter Fruit – Behind the Scenes, America Buries Its Iraq War Dead asserts that the Iraq war, because of the scarcity of images available, has been largely invisible.

The essay highlights America’s complacency and the deep sacrifices of military families, and suggests, “We owe it to ourselves to remember what war is, so that we do not go lightly into its great darkness.”

The timing of this Nobel has put the U.S. in the scorching heat of the world’s spotlight in regards to Afghanistan in particular. Responsibly ending the war in Iraq remains a top priority.

The president revealed his always growing understanding and constantly widening perspective when he said in March, “Going forward, we will not blindly stay the course.” The approach Obama is taking is all-encompassing and is another one of the reasons he won the Nobel Peace Prize.

Conclusion

These Laureates seem to recognize Barack Obama as a transformative figure for peace.

In the view of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, “Only rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world’s attention and given its people hope for a better future.”

The worldwide need for hope is shown in every image in What Matters. Perhaps this is what David Elliot Cohen had in mind when I asked him about Barack Obama winning the Nobel Peace Prize and he responded, “Both the Nobel Committee and I, probably for the first time in both cases, are enjoying the rich pleasures of blind faith.”

Our president knows that never before has anyone been made a Laureate so early into their term of office. He knows the magnitude of his challenges is yet to be met by the measure of his actions.

But he knows something else, something that makes me also enjoy the rich pleasures of faith in him – he knows that peace matters.

What do you think of the Nobel’s decision to award Barack Obama? Share your thoughts in the comments.

In the spirit of Bill Hicks’ notorious “Go Back To Bed America” sketch, Londoners Charlie and Danny – aka The Love Police – take their cheerful, Orwellian-inspired brand of anti-establishment satire to the streets of London, spreading their philosophies via megaphone to consumers, passers-by, tourists and – more often that not – mortified and bewildered policemen who don’t quite know how to handle them.

Holding up signs like “Question Everything “ and the sardonic “Everything Is OK”, the merry pranksters offer sarcastic messages about the benefits of capitalism (“don’t worry about the millions of Chinese who are starving because of the system – after all, there’s loads of them!”), question concepts of private property and taunt the ever-present police by describing them as “actors in uniforms” who are increasingly part of a “corporate gang.”

Though their approach is light-hearted, their grassroots activism is serious.

Britain in 2009 is a densely media-saturated country and, increasingly, a nanny-state where CCTV and intense policing have become the norm for reasons that are at best ambiguous.

Danny and Charlie mock the constant invocation of the “terrorism” phrase to justify these increasingly ham-fisted attempts at control, while promoting freedom of speech and general goodwill. As you can see from the videos, the boys give a pretty mean hug too – yep, even to the po-faced boys in blue.

And here – including a level-headed but inspiring monologue (set to horribly sentimental music) from Charlie on the duo’s key messages.

What do you think of this type of activism? Is it effective? Share your thoughts in the comments!

Photo: lavalen

Cambodians love the lightest of Lite Rock pop music.

Celine Dion is huge here, and one morning my neighbor across the alley was blasting her from rattling speakers while washing his car in the white-blue of dawn. I happened to be up early and reading on my front porch a book of Joan Didion’s essays from the Sixties.

She referenced Hieronymus Bosch, the Dutch master of ghastly medieval humanity, twice in sixty pages, and this gave me a new lens through which to understand Khmer musical tastes.

My neighbor, like any Khmer over the age of thirty, almost certainly lived through the Boschian horrors of the Khmer Rouge, the terror that has made Cambodia what it is today.

As Celine gave way to the Carpenters singing every sha-la-la-la; every whoa-oh-oh-oh, I thought of how words, which many in the West fear are losing ground to the pulsing image, remain powerful enough in Cambodia to build a bridge to ruin.

And they’re frequently as banal as those Western nonsense syllables.

Lies and Defamation

Photo: Jason Leahey

If you travel around Cambodia, you’ll pass many, many signs over schools, homes, the red-dirt roads, advertising for the Cambodian People’s Party. Every once in a while you’ll come across a similar ad for the opposing Sam Rainsy Party. These signs are inevitably battered by age, their lettering faded to outlines and the color of soured milk.

The SRP is the only party other than the CPP to have any significant representation in parliament, though its 26 seats are dwarfed by the CPP’s 90. Prime Minister Hun Sen and his CPP are waging a war on the SRP. They’ve marginalized it, now they’re going to eradicate it, la-di-da, the same old song and dance.

A few months ago the editor of a pro-SRP paper printed a speech by Rainsy in which he accused the CPP Foreign Minister of being a former Khmer Rouge cadre.

The editor, Dam Sith, was slapped with a two year prison sentence for the spreading of “disinformation” and “defamation.” A lawyer for two SRP Members of Parliament was given a prison sentence as well because he “made a mistake” in defending the MPs, who were also accused of insulting the CPP.

What makes these cases particularly interesting is their vocabulary.

On Sen’s demand, and as the only possibility of avoiding jail time, Editor Dam wrote a groveling apology. “I am asking for the highest permission of [the party] to forgive me,” he wrote. “I promise to discontinue the publication of my paper. I promise to support the ingenious CPP policy in the building of the country’s progress.”

Dam even joined the CPP because disowning one’s dissent, apparently, is not enough.

Meaning Of Words

This stuff isn’t limited to political enemies. The head of the Khmer Civilization Foundation, an organization charged with protecting and promoting Cambodian culture, worried that the heat from a light show staged nightly in Angkor Wat might damage the temple.

He was slapped with a two-year jail sentence for “disinformation.” The sentence was rescinded when he wrote a formal apology.

When the World Wildlife Federation issued a report citing pollution in the Mekong as a major threat to endangered Irrawaddy river dolphins, the government decried the findings as “all lies” and threatened to kick the organization out of the country.

Sitting on my porch while the neighbor boomed his music, songs that I find childish and goofy, I reflected: letters of apology hardly seems worthy of any tyrant worth his salt. An editor or lawyer notes offenses committed, is sentenced to jail, and then is freed, so long as he says sorry? It’s like keeping someone in a headlock and nuggy-ing his scalp until he calls himself gay.

And yet Hun is a seasoned despot; he would not insist on apologies and then let it go unless the security of his position obviated the need for the physical purges of his enemies and unless he had something real to gain by the public shaming of them.

The groveling of that editor, the way he was forced to use his own words to embarrass and attack himself, that was language turned to power. Hun could have let the prison sentences stand and doom his critics to a slow purgatory.

Instead, he chose to impose self-incrimination, to force his adversaries to denounce themselves and then claim the denouncing as honorable. The technique is a classic, but what interests me is the potency it grants to words in an era where many of us fear the loss of that potency.

Control Without Violence

Words like apologize and sorry so often feel benign.

How many times have you used or experienced I’m sorry as a verbal place holder in a fight, a meaningless errrrgh that allows you to catch breath before battling on?

Photo: Jason Leahey

The average American takes it for granted that the words publicly uttered by our leaders are just wisps of cloud; we have steadily divested our vocabulary of meaning. But in Cambodia, words like “corruption” and Khmer Rouge cadre are still potent enough to require official distortion and abuse, and rely on the degradation of words like “honor” and “generosity.”

And that brings me back to Hieronymus Bosch and my Celine Dion-loving neighbor. He surely knows that the Foreign Minister and Hun Sen were both Khmer Rouge. This is something everyone knows.

But there is no ripping out of toenails, no systematic rape, no skewering of babies on bayonets these days. Making a newspaper editor beg for forgiveness is not the same as taking him into the jungle and beating his head in, right?

So in the world of relative experience, living under a tyrant is not so bad, eating one’s own words not so abusive. This is the post-Boschian Cambodia, the post-Khmer Rouge world. Things are more civilized than that now.

And that, I suppose, is worth celebrating with the comfort of a soft rock cheese-puff.

What do you think of the political power of words? Share your thoughts in the comments!

Photo: badlogik

I will attempt not to stray too far in the direction of ‘political’ in this post, but there will certainly be politics involved.

Mostly US politics in fact, so I will go ahead and apologize to those outside America, or who are trying to stay away from the madness. I’m not here to make anyone’s head explode.

But, there has been quite the ruckus about President Obama’s supposed “socialist agenda” stay-in-school speech being shown in classrooms, which finally occurred yesterday. The Obama administration has also had a tough week with what I see as the forced resignation of Van Jones, the Green Jobs czar, over the fact that several years ago, he signed a petition asking that the Bush administration be investigated for allowing 9/11 to happen.

The specific issues don’t really matter when it comes down to it; there will always be something. For me, it brings up the question of how we, both as a nation, and as a world, plan to ever move forward.

We don’t all have to believe the same things, and we never will, but we need to be respectful of each other in the process, whether the question be about religion, our sexual orientation, or our politics. We are 99.9% genetically identical, and doesn’t that count for something?

Or really, most everything?

Thinking Critically and Repectfully

I was moved by a piece by Terrance Heath on Huffington Post entitled, How To Think. In it, Health talks about a high school teacher he once had named Mr. Harrison. Mr. Harrison was politically conservative and a devout Christian, while Heath was a gay teenager who was reading the The Gnostic Gospels.

Photo: Capture Queen ™

But instead of pushing a particular agenda, this teacher was doing what all teachers should do: showing kids how to think critically, and then make up their own mind.

For example, Harrison was supportive of Heath and other students as they wrote letters to the school board opposing the banning of certain books, even though Harrison didn’t approve of some of the books in question.

To think critically, we must see and hear both sides of the story, and come up with our own truth. This truth may not coincide with the truth of the person next to you, but hopefully in the process, you’ll come to understand, at a least a bit, where they are coming from.

Blogger Munz spends this whole post trying to convince us of Van Jones “socialist” and “communist” roots, which are just so anti-American. I certainly have quite a bit to say about this, having worked in the same social justice circles as Jones. But instead, I’ll just ask, so what?

How many openly racist, sexist, and/or classist conservatives have held office over the years, and are those things that the US was supposedly founded on? No. Can these people still do their job? Probably. Because each and every one of us holds some “extreme” beliefs that other people will not agree with.

Stop Blaming, Start Listening

I’m not trying to blame only the right in America – the left is just as guilty in spouting inflammatory remarks. Same goes for either side of a belief system in just about every country in the world.

Maybe the deeper question here is why, as a world facing economic hardship, fear of persecution on just about all sides, and environmental implications that could easily mean the end for us all – really, really soon – do we continue to have these snide and unapologetic discussions in mainstream media? Why are we burning our brain cells on standing in place?

Critical thinking, and listening on ALL sides, is necessary now more than ever.

What do you think it will take to make the world move forward instead of stand still? Share your thoughts below.

I admit, I’ve had a few daydreams about visiting the mythical Bhutan. After watching this excellent short film from Current on their recent move from monarchy to democracy, it remains just as tempting a destination.

In a country like Burma, under the grip of a tyrannical junta, it’s easy to see why democracy is desirable. But for Bhutan, they see their strife ridden neighbours Nepal and India, and are fearful their “gross national happiness” will be the first thing to go.

The older Bhutanese blame their new ills on television and westernization… unavoidable products of democracy.

What do you think about the tradeoff? For a country like Bhutan, is it better to accept democracy, and self-determination, even if it’s deeply flawed?

Feature photo: Marina & Enrique

Photo: justsallyrye

Far from the random rocket fire of Kandahar, warriors of the United States armed force fight a different war.

This ongoing battle—fought between our own shores—is one of mistrust and misinformation that often leaves disabled veterans without the care promised to them by the Government they served.

For many, such as Jonathan Schulze, this denial of care can prove disastrous.

Tim Cleveland is an Emmy-award winning sound producer, paraplegic, and—most importantly— an avid traveler/adventurer who has set out to draw attention to the plight of these veterans through a documentary “Uniting the Divide”.

The efforts of the Uniting the Divide team seek to transcend typical rhetoric surrounding a system that has consistently refused necessary care to the soldiers who risked their lives for this nation.

The documentary plans to place the stories of wounded veterans into the context of an all-expenses-paid, mostly off-pavement motorcycle journey down the Continental Divide.

Jacob interviewed Tim for BNT, and was impressed by Cleveland’s responses that seem to transcend the tireless arguing that occurs in the halls of Congress, and seems to focus more on the power of the human spirit.

BNT: What kind of challenges—aesthetically—do you anticipate when capturing the simultaneous beauty of nature and the human spirit while on the move?

Uniting the Divide Team / Photo: UTD

TC: The challenges are many. Any type of film, whether it be a documentary or a dramatic piece, lends one very limited screen time in which to convey a story.

Our film’s focus is the story of soldiers coming together, sharing their story with us while helping each other through the challenges that they face. The amazing scenery that we will be traveling through adds a unique backdrop for their personal journey but must not overshadow the importance of their reasoning for being in the film.

There should most certainly be a balance of telling these disabled veterans stories and giving the audience the amazing perspective of traveling down the heart of America.

When did the idea for this documentary first form?

The idea first came to me about 4 years ago. At the time there wasrhetoric flying around that “if you don’t support the war, you don’t support the troops.”

I found that utter non-sense. Everyone I spoke with, whether they supported the war or not, were concerned about the soldiers who were actually there. Then I realized that “supporting the troops” really is about action, not just words. I wanted to show my support for them by helping them in any way I could.

Additionally, even though I am not a veteran I do have a disability (I’m a paraplegic) and I could relate to what some of them are experiencing upon their return. I do not claim to share the mental aspect of experiencing war, but I do share the experience of living life with a disability.

After doing some research on what the soldiers went through while deployed and when they returned home, I knew that I needed to do something. Their voices and their stories needed to be heard.

The idea then came to me that I should do something for them, to show the world that those numbers that we heard every night in the news were real people with real families. I thought the best way to do that would be through a documentary.

Why the Continental Divide, as opposed to, say, Route 66, I-90 from Seattle to Boston, 101 on the West Coast, HWY 17 on the East Coast, etc.?

The Continental Divide route is a unique trip developed by the Adventure Cycling Association. It travels from Canada to Mexico off road, or more accurately off pavement.

One of the most important reasons we chose this route is because it travels right through the middle of America. A larger number of soldiers who fight for our country come from Middle America. 80% of the route is on dirt roads through some of the most beautiful and remote regions of the United States.

Few people ever see these areas, especially people with disabilities. We want to show them that almost anything is possible for a disabled individual. We want to show these soldiers the country that they sacrificed so much for. It also is symbolic of our nation. The country has been divided over this war, but united in their vocal support for the troops.

BNT: What do you see as the biggest problem in the adequate treatment and care of veterans disabled during service to the U.S. armed forces?

Troops look on / Photo: Army.mil

Where do I begin? There are so many flaws in this system. Many government investigation committees and commissions have discussed this for almost 90 years. Solutions have been found, but rarely implemented.

To me, the biggest problem is the adversarial conduct of the Department of Veterans Affairs (DVA). The veteran is presumed guilty of trying to defraud the agency instead of just seeking the benefits they were guaranteed when they join the military.

Claims are routinely denied. It takes about 3 months for a claim to be considered by the DVA. If it is denied, the appeals process takes on average 4 years.

It is very sad that some of these veterans survived the horrors of war only to die when they return home while waiting for treatment. The system is grossly under funded and the staff are not only overworked, but under trained. The typical claims person for the DVA has to clear 16 cases from their desk per day.

The case backlog of pending claims is currently over 1.7 million. At the hospitals the doctor to patient ratio is 1 doctor to over 500 veterans. The files are routinely “lost”. A veteran has to prove that his injury is service related over and over. If the DVA and the Department of Defense (DoD) shared their records the veterans would not have to prove that their injuries were service related.

What kinds of prioritization are you placing on the selection of documentary candidates?

Docs have limited budgets and limited screen time once they are completed. Our process is nowhere perfect, but we are looking to get a nice cross section of individuals who represent many American archetypes. We will select wounded warriors with different disabilities and stories.

Our intention is to share more stories on our website from the other soldiers who applied for the trip, but were unfortunately are unable to go. Ultimately, no one will be left out.

Do you feel that we, as civilians, have a right to question the finer points of any veteran’s claims to service? Do you think that civilian Department of Veterans Affairs (DVA) doctors are faced with a similar fear when questioning potentially fraudulent claims?

My feelings regarding veteran’s claims are my own and will not be a part of this film. That being said, I personally believe that we as civilians do not know enough of what a soldier actually goes through while at war or when they return home.

Those “finer points” have to be carefully analyzed by the experts, and when I say experts I certainly do not mean politicians. Doctors and expert therapists can only make that determination. But their decision cannot and should not be based on saving the DVA money; it should be based on real diagnosis and the real facts of each case.

I believe that when a society asks an individual to risk their lives for the “greater good” (I feel this applies to the police and firefighters as well) it must accept the cost of whatever the outcome might be. As civilians we face challenges in our lives, but nothing like what a soldier, the police and firefighters face everyday.

Yes, fraudulent claims happen, but we should not be so focused on them that we deny legitimate claims out of that concern within the bureaucracy. In our legal system we are theoretically innocent until proven guilty. This approach should most definitely apply to veterans as well.

What kind impact do you think/hope private funds can do for a problem that seems predominantly federal in nature?

The goal of “Uniting the Divide” is to put a human face on the statistics that are bantered around everyday. These are real people–sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, wives, husbands, cousins, nieces and nephews.

The wars have shattered their lives and the lives of their families. “WE THE PEOPLE of the UNITED States of America” have the power to change these issues with our votes and help ease the pain while change is taking place. We want to help and show the rest of the USA that “supporting the troops” is really about taking action.

Whether it be raising funds for Veterans organizations and/or donating your time writing letters to Senators and Congressmen. We must stop the rhetoric and unite behind this important cause to facilitate change. We hope to give back in anyway possible to these courageous veterans that sacrificed so much and are asking for so little in return.

Our hope in sustaining the spirit of the film is to permanently setup a fund that will annually gather disabled vets and give them the opportunity to travel down the Continental Divide.

What are your thoughts on the doc and veterans care after returning home? Share your thoughts in the comments!

Shin Dong Hyuk / Photo: Japan Times

Few of us think that concentration camps could exist in our world today.

But with the recent decision by the North Korean court to sentence two American journalists to 12 years hard labor, the stories of escapees and former guards hitting the media show these camps are very much alive.

Shin Dong Hyuk was born inside of North Korea’s “total” control prison No. 14, where he was forced to watch the execution of his mother and older brother because of their attempted escapes.

His mother was hanged and his brother shot nine times.

Falling under the state’s guilt-by-association law, Hyuk was set to be in the camp for life. Due to his family’s attempt to escape, he suffered particularly badly by the hands of the guards.

This included being severely burned all over his back when he was 13 and having his middle finger chopped off for accidentally dropping a sewing machine.

He decided to try escaping himself when he was 22, only after hearing stories of the “outside world” from a new inmate. He has scars on his ankles to always remind him of that day, when his feet got tangled in the electric fence that took the life of his fellow escapee.

Breadth Of The “Work” Camps

An ABC News article says that according to US State Department estimates, there are somewhere between 150,000 to 200,000 political prisoners in the camps, some of which have been depicted to be 200 miles wide.

The same article notes, “North Koreans have been sent to work camps for watching DVDs of South Korean soap operas and sitting on a newspaper that contained photographs of President Kim Jong-Il.”

Worst of all, several years ago it was determined that at least one of the camps had a gas chamber where chemical experiments were conducted on the prisoners, including babies.

As I read through the articles, I couldn’t help but wonder how? How do these camps exist at this point in time?

And yet the accounts of both Shin Dong Hyuk, and Kwon Hyuk, a former military attaché who revealed details about the gas chamber, both believed for many years that the treatment of the prisoners was justified.

For Shin Dong, he felt no pity for his parents because “they tried to escape. Naturally, death was the price they had to pay.” Kwon believed that all bad things that were happening in North Korea were the fault of these prisoners – that is what they were “led to believe.” He explains:

It would be a total lie for me to say I feel sympathetic about the children dying such a painful death. Under the society and the regime I was in at the time, I only felt that they were the enemies. So I felt no sympathy or pity for them at all.

The Psychology Of Oppression

I then realized that once again, it was all about psychology.

Even the young are ready to fight / Photo: ^Berd

Many of us who live in the West often wonder how in the 21st century, the continued bloodshed in Darfur is possible, and why China continues its crackdown on Tibet.

When we look back in history, how could the Nazis ever gain the power to exterminate over six million Jews?

But yet there were few (mainstream) dissenting voices in America of invading Iraq in 2003 and even less of going into Afghanistan after 9/11.

I’m not here to say the latter was right or wrong, but rather to say the psychology behind those actions – threaten what we stand for and we will band together to retaliate, no questions asked – is the same psychology used in all forms and on all sides of oppression, including in the Germany of the past and the Darfur, China, and North Korea of the present.

Sometimes the truly oppressed will use this mindset to creatively gain ground. Other times, instilling beliefs around who is a threat, and who is the enemy, is a way to make people do things we can’t imagine a “normal” human being doing, such as feeling no pity for the death of one’s parents or having no sympathy for a baby who is being killed.

The most important question is, how do we use psychology to free people from beliefs around threat and retaliation? Share your thoughts below.

Feature photo: yeowatzup

Read the full dispatch from the BBC here.

Are any of you travelers at the scene?

This is your time to show travel writing can be a political act. Share your photos, videos, thoughts, below!

Human cost of war/ Photo: soundfromwayout

A former German Parliament member, judge, and apparently an honorary Colonel of the US Army has made a controversial offer.

Dr Jurgen Todenhofer promises a million dollars to the person who “brings George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Tony Blair in a fair and legal procedure before an American or an international court on the grounds of the wounding and killing of thousands of American GIs and of the torture, dismemberment and killing of hundreds of thousands innocent Iraqi civilians.”

Very bold.

Even bolder, he essentially compares the tactics of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Blair to Hitler by referencing the Nuremburg war crimes tribunal, which stated:

To initiate a war of aggression is not only an international crime, it is the supreme international crime – differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within it the accumulated evil of all crimes of war.

This made me begin to ponder the moral implications of living during this horrific Iraq saga. Have we become what the Germans were during WWII – at best complacent, and at worst participants?

Mission Accomplished

Sure, there are people out there who would agree with Todenhofer’s bounty.

Jim Horn at the Schools Matter blog asks if anyone at the Obama Administration will step up to the plate after The Raw Story reported four dozen detainees killed during or after their interrogations (warning: the Raw Story article contains one of those awful photos).

And the group National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance has demanded the Bush administration “be held accountable” (i.e. indicted) for what Just Foreign Policy estimates to be 1,320,110 civilian Iraqi deaths since the beginning of the invasion (a much higher number than most news sources would ever report).

But what about the people of the US, and the other countries who have sent soldiers to fight? That’s a whole lot of deaths on our watch, with no end in sight.

A Look In The Mirror

No, there are no concentration camps (though Gitmo may come in a close second), or a Fascist leader (though Cheney is beginning to look as if he deserves an eye patch).

Yet there is an entire culture of people being killed, mutilated, losing loved ones, and being singled out for discrimination when in other parts of the world. As House Democrat Charles Rangel said in a 2005 interview:

This is just as bad as six million Jews being killed. The whole world knew it and they were quiet about it, because it wasn’t their ox that was being gored.

Many of us carry on our lives as if nothing is happening, because what can we do? I wonder if the Germans asked themselves the same question.

Do you think the moral implications of the Iraqi massacre are the same for US citizens as the Holocaust was for the Germans? Share your thoughts below.

Feature photo: War President / Joe Wezorek

Kachin recruits in training / Photo Ryan Libre

In 2006, the great travel writer Robert Kaplan gave a seminal speech at the Columbia School of Journalism.

Kaplan argued that mainstream journalism suffers from an obsession with soundbites, and that journalists should take time to steep themselves in the sort of local knowledge that only first-hand experience can provide.

Here’s my favorite part of the speech:

“Journalism desperately needs a return to terrain, to the kind of firsthand, solitary discovery of local knowledge best associated with old-fashioned travel writing. Travel writing is more important than ever as a means to reveal the vivid reality of places that get lost in the elevator music of 24-hour media reports.”

Today, with the venerable old house of traditional journalism ablaze, Kaplan’s message is more relevant than ever.

Enter The New Reporters

Travelers have a profound responsibility to report on what they experience abroad. Travel writing, a discipline that can be flaky, shallow and commercial, can also be a powerful form of journalism and a force for social change.

In this brave new world, we are all foreign correspondents. We are all investigative journalists. We are all photographers and videographers with the ability to snap an iconic image that can change the world.

We are all citizen journalists, able to shine a bright light into dark corners. With a keen eye, a digital camera and a blog, we can grab the attention of people around the world and make them care.

Reporting From Inside Burma

A few months ago I crossed into northern Burma in the company of ethnic Kachin rebels and spent one month reporting on the Kachin freedom struggle and teaching underground journalism workshops to college students.

A soldier laughs / Photo Ryan Libre

Few countries are as repressive as Burma, and to go to Kachin State under the auspices of the Pulitzer Center was a unique opportunity to shine a light on a place that does not receive much media attention.

Any traveler to Burma can, to some degree, help shine this light. Any traveler can post blogs, take photos and expose the fateful links between the totalitarian Burmese regime and immoral companies like Chevron.

However, going to Burma and acting as a citizen journalist bears an enormous responsibility. You are unlikely to be thrown in jail or tortured, but Burmese innocents who talk with you could bear serious consequences.

Travel as a Political Act

The prolific travel writer Robert Reid addresses this issue yesterday in a must-read essay at Worldhum.

Reid is the author of the Lonely Planet Burma guidebook. In the essay he discusses his own personal struggle with the question of whether travelers should even go to Burma. For Reid, the decision to go to Burma, and promote travel there, comes down to the ability of travelers to be effective citizen journalists, because ultimately:

Travel writers are in a position to fill information gaps and ask overlooked questions.

Right on, Mr. Reid. It’s up to all of us to fulfill that responsibility.

Community Connection

Read 5 Compelling Reasons To Visit Banned Countries, and Tim’s moving report: Kachin Christmas: Finding Faith In Myanmar

Last month, Sarah Stuteville covered a Pakistani protest involving women effect political change.

This month, while still reporting from the troubled region, Sarah and her husband were featured on PBS about their experiences covering the failing education system and how it ultimately helps the Taliban.

What do you think? Share your thoughts in the comments!

Robi Damelin / Photo: Speaking of Faith

This past weekend, BNT’s Best of the Week roundup included a link to Deepak Chopra’s article Seven Spiritual Practices for Peace.

The piece begins with the following idea:

The approach of personal transformation is the idea of the future for ending war…If enough people in the world transformed themselves into peacemakers, war could end.

So I was inspired when I came across an article about an unlikely pair trying to wage piece in the Middle East: a former Palestinian fighter, and a Jewish mother whose son fought in the Israeli army.

Personal transformation occurred for both of these individuals due to something that will touch each of us at some point in our lives: death.

Robi Damelin, the Israeli mother, lost her son to a Palestinian sniper seven years ago; Ali Abu Awwad’s brother Youssef was killed by an Israeli soldier two years before that.

They met five years ago through Parents Circle, an organization that brings together the families of Israelis and Palestinians who have lost close relatives in the conflict.

Awwad says of his relationship to Robi:

If someone had said to me when I was 15 that I would have someone like Robi as a friend, in my wildest dream I would not have imagined it. But when I met her she began to tell me about her relationship to her sons and how the killing of David affected her relationship with her other son. I felt this very deeply because my mother didn’t pay much attention to me after the death of my brother, because she was closer to him than me. We made a connection.

They stress that their relationship is not one of no disagreements, but one of understanding. After all, reconciliation is rooted in understanding the suffering of the person on the other side.

Ali Abu Awwad / Photo: Encounter Point

And they are taking this message to as many parts of the world that they can: speaking together at mosques, synagogues, parliaments and public meetings throughout the Middle East, and most recently at an Amnesty International event in Britain.

To me, this story signifies that we are all allowed to maintain our own beliefs, ideals, and points-of-view when working toward peace.

Conflict occurs when any beliefs are taken too far, or when they’re pushed on another who doesn’t agree.

When we travel, we often come up against points-of-view that are completely different than our own. But I believe that most travelers see these different approaches as the diversity that makes our world beautiful, and can make each of us a better person in some way (even if we completely disagree with the belief).

And maybe those disagreements simply give us a chance to practice waging peace within ourselves.

To learn more: check out Encounter Point, a doc featuring the story of Ali and Robi.

What do you think about peace through personal transformation? Share your thoughts below.

Photo: sherrattsam

According to an article in the Irish Times, a Chinese government manual has been circulating on “how to beat up troublemakers without leaving marks.”

Apparently, it’s not hard to obtain a copy of the manual; they are available in any bookshop or online.

Aimed at “urban management enforcement squads,” otherwise known as bruttish chengguan, the manual describes exactly how to go about beating up mostly unlicensed street sellers.

Tips include:

Urban management officials should seize the opportunity when there are not many onlookers around. Do not hesitate. Finish the job quickly, without giving your opponents time to prepare. The whole job should be completed within 10 seconds.

It also adds:

Several officials should always act together. Make sure to leave no blood on the opponent’s face, no wounds on the body, and no witnesses in the vicinity. Be calm and focused. Be a firm public official.

Coincidentally, China’s state council just introduced the nation’s first program on human rights called the National Human Rights Action Plan (2009–2010). The plan outlines measures to be implemented over the next two years around work, basic living conditions, social security, health, environmental, cultural and women’s rights, among others.

But activists say that recent arrests, including that of Tan Zuoren, an environmental activist from Sichuan that Amnesty International believes is at serious risk for torture, do not bode well for this enforcement of these rights.

It is believed that Zuoren’s detention was linked to “his intent to issue a list of the names of children who died in the May 2008 Sichuan earthquake along with a report blaming corruption in state officials for the collapse of a number of schools.”

How does this explicit government manual affect China’s stance on human rights? Share your thoughts below.

Photo: Alex Stonehill

In the gray light of my first morning in Pakistan, the thick salty smell of sulfur introducing me to the seaside city of Karachi, the streets were full of men.

Destinations

Community Connection to Pakistan

With few exceptions it was men congregating in front of the still dark airport, men piled onto buses carnival decorated with Technicolor and chrome and men weaving through the thickening traffic on motor bikes and rickshaws.

I thought back to my trip to Pakistan in 2006, when one of my greatest regrets was that I hadn’t had the opportunity to meet and hang out with more women.

Sitting at a stop light en route to our hotel (also staffed entirely by men) watching a group of teenage boys crowded on the sidewalk watch me through the taxi window, I promised myself that I would pursue more diversity in my reporting this trip and make a point of finding out what women think about this critical time in their country’s history.

It didn’t take much doing on my part.

By the next evening I found myself at a party with new friends in a wealthy neighborhood, in a suburb of the city. Almost immediately upon arrival in the light strung garden the men declared they would retire to the dining room, leaving us women to enjoy the newly cool evening with windows open and the TV on in the living room.

The Flogging In Swat

Photo: Alex Stonehill

At the first mention of gender segregation my heart lurched with jealousy. I fought back the assumption that the men were sitting down to a round of cigarette smoking and political discussion that excluded me.

I feel anxious enough in female exclusive social situations at home, and through a jet-lagged fog I nervously wondered what these women, some in full burka, might think of me, what they might want to talk about.

My questions were answered soon enough as breaking news of the most recent bombing in Islamabad crowded the T.V. screen. The room came alive with political chatter and I was immediately drawn into the fervent discussion about the rising violence in Pakistan.

“Did you see the video of the flogging in Swat?” one woman asked me anxiously, referring to a grainy cell phone video of a seventeen year old girl being whipped as punishment in the Swat Valley—an area now ruled by Sharia (or Islamic) law and largely controlled by Pakistani Taliban—that has provoked anger throughout much of the country as it’s circulated continuously on national and international news.

Before I could answer, Pakistani President Zardari flashed on the T.V. screen. “Nobody likes Zardari here,” a teenage girl seated next to me on the couch in a brilliant pink shalwaar kameez volunteered. “We think he is weak and corrupt.”

Soon President Obama, addressing the G20 summit, appeared on the screen, his now familiarly handsome and confident image launching a discussion of Pakistani perceptions of the new leader.

A Look In The Mirror

A question from across the room caught me off guard: “What about the violence you have recently been experiencing in your own country?”

It took me a moment to register that she was talking about the New York shooting of the day before (which incidentally Baitullah Mahsud, the leader of the Taliban in Pakistan had briefly, and by most standards here, comically, attempted to take credit for).

“You also had a shooting at a nursing home recently as well isn’t that right?” the woman, an educational administrator, continued, “Where does this violence come from in the U.S.?”

Struck by the realization that the United States must also come across on the evening news as a violent and inscrutable nation to many here, I stumbled around in a rambling monologue about gun laws and insufficient access to treatment for the mentally ill.

Graciously, a dental surgeon squished onto the overstuffed couch to my right came to my rescue. “I think we are all wondering why,” She said quietly, “we are all wondering why this violence is happening.”

That sad and quiet “why?” passed between women at a dinner party somewhere in the maze of high white stucco walls that house Karachi’s elite became a populist roar the next day.

Photo: Alex Stonehill

The Women Stand Up

The viral video of the Swat flogging had created a backlash among urban Pakistanis, especially women, and a ladies protest was gathering downtown at the imposing white tomb of Pakistan’s founder Muhammad Ali Jinnah.

10,000 women and children (men were excluded from this protest and forced to mill around in a cordoned off area), were waving sheer black flags of protest in the smoggy evening under a banner declaring:

“Public flogging of an innocent girl is an act of terrorism; we condemn this barbarism and demand arrest of the perpetrators.”

Through the confusion of protest leaders’ pronouncements and heavily armed military police, women in simple shalwars and burkas jostling babies and urdu placards sat in rows, occasionally bursting out into chants of “Whose Pakistan? Our Pakistan!” making for a strong visual antidote to the angry anti-Western and male dominated protests that usually capture the attention of American news in this part of the world.

I sat briefly among these women on the dusty green mats that had been pulled out for the occasion.

We were the only Western media there and in a weird post-modern moment, Pakistani reporters turned their cameras on me as I simply asked, “Why have you come here today?”

Eyes Of The World

Photo: Alex Stonehill

My translator could hardly keep up as they shouted back their responses.

Some said they were here to support the MQM (a popular political party here in Karachi which had organized the protest), others pointed to the tomb of Jinnah, saying that Pakistan was founded as one nation and the current situation in Swat was undermining the unity of the country.

Many were concerned that incidents like the flogging were defining Pakistan and Islam in the eyes of the international community and were there to show that Islamic militancy should not define their country, politics or their religion.

But it was one older woman–cross legged in a worn black shawl–who grabbed my hand and shouted, “We are sisters, you are my daughter and I am your mother. You think these actions are wrong and so do I, if you had been flogged I would be protesting for you as you would do for me.”

As the evening dimmed, and large hawks mingled with black balloons released by protest organizers into the wide city sky, her words embarrassed me.

Not A Footnote

When Americans think of political instability in Pakistan we don’t think of the Pakistani victims of that instability, we think of our own security.

When videos of angry militants and suicide bombings occasionally make their way onto our computer screens and into our papers, we somehow forget that it is mosques and bus stops full of Pakistanis that die.

And when the blurry cell phone video of a teenage girl being beaten in a distant street shows up on the nightly news, most of us muse at a frightening culture we feel we can’t understand before we consider any sense of solidarity.

Women in this part of the world are often cast as an exotic political side note in the U.S. When I promised myself that I would pursue “more gender diversity in my reporting” I was imagining occasional context to the real war news of this region.

Instead women are in many ways at the forefront of the conflicts here. Their voices aren’t a footnote to the politics of this country – I’m realizing they are the politics of Pakistan.

This article was reported with funding provided by the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.

Photo: foxypar4

Just as I was finishing up my latest health newsletter, which included a story on the “Food Safety” bill HR 875, is-it-or-isn’t-it suspiciously tied to the Monsanto corporation, I came across an article on Alternet.org 1,500 Indian Farmers Commit Mass Suicide: Why We Are Complicit in these Deaths.

The headline says it all, but of course we need a deeper explanation. Bharatendu Prakash, from the Organic Farming Association of India, told the Press Association:

Farmers’ suicides are increasing due to a vicious circle created by money lenders. They lure farmers to take money but when the crops fail, they are left with no option other than death.

The article also quotes the UK’s Daily Mail, enlightening us further:

…The death of this respected farmer (Shankara Mandaukar) has been blamed on something far more modern and sinister: genetically modified crops. Shankara, like millions of other Indian farmers, had been promised previously unheard of harvests and income if he switched from farming with traditional seeds to planting GM seeds instead.

Oh yes, the promise of feeding the poor of every country via genetically-modified (GM) seeds. This approach to dealing with worldwide hunger and poverty is touted by the United Nations, NAFTA, and the US government.

And as the Daily Mail article later notes, “pro-GM experts claim that it is rural poverty, alcoholism, drought and ‘agrarian distress’ that is the real reason for the horrific toll.”

While poverty and drought have likely contributed somewhat to poor harvests, leading the farmers to stress about their family and land, the mass suicides might have more to do with the bank loans sometimes totaling $3,000 US that these farmers have to take out in order to buy Monsanto’s (the leader in GM) seeds.

The way Monsanto approaches these farmers reminds me of 19th century snake oil salesman:

The salesmen tell farmers of the amazing yields other Vidarbha growers have enjoyed while using their products, plastering villages with posters detailing “True Stories of Farmers Who Have Sown Bt Cotton.” Old-fashioned cotton seeds pale in comparison to Monsanto’s patented wonder seeds, say the salesmen, as much as an average old steer is humbled by a fine Jersey cow.

Farmers have traditionally used seeds year after year and rotated their crops in order to get the most benefit from the land. Monsanto’s seeds, on the other hand, have to be paid for every year in order to “re-license” the seeds, sinking them deeper into debt.

And oh, yeah, most of these seeds are “Terminator” seeds, which means they don’t actually produce viable seeds of their own.

Farmers throughout the world are dealing with these issues. What can we do as travelers to help?

• Buy local, unsprayed, non-GM food as much as possible when you are traveling (beware of even things labeled organic–sometimes it’s a better choice to buy local, because the organic food has been shipped thousands of miles)
• Be aware of both your own water usage and that of the hostels, hotels, and restaurants you frequent
• Educate others that you meet about GM’s role in the deaths of farmers
• Check out Grocery Store Wars: May The Farm Be With You for a funny take on the battle of organic vs. conventional foods.

What are some other ways that we can help the plight of farmers throughout the world? Share your thoughts below.

In the USA, it seems barely a moment passes before you hear references to freedom and liberty. This could be talk about the right of free speech, gun control, property, or any other number of topics.

This is not surprising. The US was built upon the philosophy of liberty. But what does this philosophy even mean? Watch the short film below:

Seems a fair and pleasant way of living, doesn’t it? If we always look out for Number #1, everyone would be better off. Or would they?

Consider this philosophy for anyone who’s traveled to developing countries. The truth is that the world economies are vastly connected – cheap goods in one means cheap labour in another. It becomes soberingly clear that only looking out for ourselves means crippling the well-being of others.

Helen Lindsay agreees. In response to the film, she writes:

Libertarianism does not recognise the interrelatedness and interrelationships between all the people on this planet. It provides a haven for inherently selfish people – people with the ‘cheating’ gene. Unless humans recognise we have an inherent nature for materialism and greediness, which competes with our altruistic tendencies, we are doomed to compete and fight with each other forever.

What do you think of the ideas presented in the video? Is it the ideal system or fundamentally flawed?

Little Tibetan Lama，Sichuan，China / Photo: utpala

Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Burma, China, and Cuba: just a few of the countries out there with poor human rights records and a history of authoritarian governments.

Some travelers and organizations have advocated a travel ban to such countries, arguing that tourism helps to support the offending regimes.

Does it make us bad global citizens that my husband and I consciously chose to visit these countries and have a few more “rogue” states on our travel wish list?

We think the opposite. Here’s why.

1. Understanding and Advocacy

Father and son play games at their Ippodrom market
stall in Tashkent. Photo: Uncornered Market

It’s difficult – if not impossible – to truly understand a place without experiencing it first-hand and interacting with its people. You can be an advocate without ever having visited a place, but your advocacy carries more context and authority once you’ve traveled there and spoken with people on the ground.

What you see, hear and experience in country will influence, and possibly change, how you think about effective actions that support local people. Share this newfound knowledge and insight with others.

We had read about Chinese business interests in Burma, but it wasn’t until we visited Burma that we understood their importance in keeping Burma’s military officials, literally and figuratively, in business.

Another Matador writer explains how travel is a patriotic act. Her experiences in Cuba provided a sophisticated understanding of this misunderstood country; she now shares this knowledge with others.

2. Reject Isolation

A mother and daughter moment, Burma
/ Photo: Uncornered Market

Authoritarian governments generally want to keep their people isolated from the world. Their strategy is to control their people’s access to outside information and news. This is why they prefer tour groups to independent travelers. Organized tours help ensure that foreign tourists only see the “beautiful things.”

If possible, travel independently. Even if you’re forced to take a tour, find a way to engage with locals. Talk with real people at the market, in the taxi, at your guesthouse, and at street stalls.

We didn’t need to initiate discussions about politics or daily challenges – local people brought the conversation on their own when they felt comfortable with us and in a safe environment. We found locals’ views on their country to be surprisingly complex and nuanced, as were their questions about our home country.

In Turkmenistan, a country almost completely closed off to the western world until 2007, Turkmen people surprised us with their openness and curiosity.

3. Where You Spend Your Money Does Make a Difference

A spin around the vegetables, Turkmenistan
/ Photo: Uncornered Market

It is impossible to prevent every cent of the money you spend from slipping into the hands of the government. However, tourism is the people’s business.

Spend your money consciously: at privately run stores, street stalls and guesthouses rather than government-sponsored hotels, shops and restaurants. We believe the benefits that independent travelers spread by spending their money and sharing themselves with ordinary people outweighs the amount of money the government might collect in taxes and visa fees from your visit.

In places like Uzbekistan and Burma, people we spoke to felt the same. As tourism numbers dwindle, it’s the ordinary people working in guesthouses, restaurants, markets and shops who really feel the pinch. There just aren’t a lot of other job options.

4. Breaking Down Bias

Jose of Cuba / Photo: Sami

The perception we receive about a country often comes from the evening news, front page of a newspaper or the latest movie. Media is in the business of reporting crisis and Hollywood is in the business of creating drama. Countries, and their people, may look ominous and dangerous in this media light, but the reality is often something different.

I’m certainly not immune from these stereotypes. Before traveling to Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, I thought of these areas as dark, evil places where people mysteriously die in prison. (Much of this is due to the fact that I worked for a media organization whose journalists were at risk). I initially resisted traveling to these countries, but my husband convinced me otherwise. And I’m glad he did.

Not to diminish the relevance of the transgressions that do still occur, but there’s more to these countries than their governments’ human rights records.

Like anywhere else, average citizens are just trying to make a living, raise a family and hope for a better life for their children – many times with extreme challenges. This is just as much the story as the rogue governments that run their countries.

5. Experienced-Based Empathy

At the animal market in Kashgar, China
/ Photo: Uncornered Market

When you’ve traveled through a country and have a connection with its people, the news about that place becomes more personal. When our own empathy is rooted in experience, it becomes deeper – we want to help.

Why does this matter? Perhaps this empathy will motivate you to act and become an advocate – to raise money, volunteer, or share your knowledge and educate others.

Even though we did not visit Tibet during our travels across China, the time we spent in two other minority regions – Kashgar (in the western province of Xinjiang with a primarily ethnic Uighur community) and Xiahe (in Gansu Province with a substantial ethnic Tibetan population) – provided the context to understand some of the impacts of the Chinese government’s development actions and attitudes first-hand.

I had seen plenty of “Free Tibet” slogans before our trip, but I now have a deeper understanding of what those signs mean and the nuances of the situation.

Although we’ve decided to travel to these countries with shaky human rights records, each person needs to decide whether to visit countries with governments they may not support.

If you make the journey, it’s even more important to travel responsibly and with an open mind. And don’t forget to share your experiences when you return.

What do you think – do the benefits outweigh the negatives when visiting banned countries?

Framing the issue / Photo Zara

I came across a wonderful article in the May/June 2008 issue of Psychology Today about the authentic self.

It discussed the North American obsession with self awareness, and whether or not there is a “true” self that determines enjoyment in life. “A hunger for authenticity guides us in every age and aspect of life,” says the author Karen Wright. “It drives our explorations of work, relationships, play, and prayer.”

I began to think about authenticity in terms of travelling, and how we can be more genuine and respectful on our journeys.

Most travelers want to “realize” something about the places they visit; they also hope to discover more about themselves. However, when we blindly dispense our “true beliefs” for the sake of adaptation, does this “respectfulness” compromise our personal integrity?

The saying goes, “When in Rome do as the Romans do.” Many of us agree with this statement.

Part of travelling is reaching into ourselves and changing our long-held ideas. In choosing a different place, we are required to leave ourselves open to experimentation with new social rules.

Gender Discrimination

While I believe we should respect the local etiquette when abroad, there are times when this issue becomes more complex than just “adapting” our minds and behavior.

In abiding by the new program, many travelers often feel confused and distressed. They wonder if they are doing the “right thing” by adhering to certain practices which may go against their core values.

For example, in cultures where I have been encouraged to cover up every hint of flesh or risk being seen by some as “culturally insensitive,” or worse, harassed or raped, I have often wondered: has accepting “social norms” compromised my belief in women’s equality, a goal that people around the world are fighting for?

The reaction I often hear from others is, “Well, it’s part of their culture to do (this, that, or the other oppressive thing).”

In analyzing this reaction, I have felt that some rules are less reflective of any “authentic” culture than they are of patriarchal dominance. This is not something that I feel comfortable indulging in psychologically, for the sake of not offending people in power.

In India, a site called Blank Noise dedicates itself to the topic of sexual harassment.

The owners believe that gender discrimination is wrong, regardless of what a woman might (or might not) be wearing. This may come to a surprise to many North Americans, who view India as being “more oppressive” than Western cultures, as if it is written in the Indian Constitution that women must be held down.

What Are We Defending

Photo arimoore

This begs the question: When we defend a practice as “culture”, do we even know what we are talking about, or is this a concept that our minds have invented?

When we respect a country’s values as being “authentic”, without any analysis as to who or what is defining them, we must ask ourselves who we are defending.

North America is particularly “inauthentic.” Politicians and even many citizens call it “free” when in fact it is like any other region, never completely emancipated; historically, we also have committed many wrongs in the area of human rights, and continue to do so.

Though I am philosophically part of Canada, I am also part of its diversity. If a traveler to my country pointed out that Native people were being treated badly, for example, I would agree with them.

I would never expect them to “respectfully” agree with the dominant Canadian perspective that oppression is over, for our culture is as well-acquainted with inequity as it is with revolution.

Pick Your Battles

I have met some travelers that have tried to adjust, in every way imaginable, to a new country.

They say they agree with every new rule, but don’t realize that in doing so, they are reproducing inequity. They are culture shocked, afraid of “disrespecting” people, or just unaware. They haven’t taken the time to ask themselves the question, “According to what I know, is this new concept in the spirit of justice?”

I am not suggesting that we go out and fight other countries’ battles for them. We are not “the liberated West”, destined to save anyone, as our own people rot in various levels of despair.

However, we should stand by the positive changes that justice-oriented people abroad are trying to make by not passively accepting other’s inequities under the mask of “respect” or “culture”.

The human psyche is fluid and liable to transformation. With traveling comes a huge responsibility to decide what changes for ourselves might mean to others as well; we need not buy plane tickets for the purpose of buttering national egos.

In search of knowledge, the “authentic” and respectful traveler looks from within, before deciding which way to go.

What are your thoughts about defending cultural norms abroad? Share your thoughts in the comments!

Photo Turkairo

For years, aid to Africa has been a staple of many western nations’ foreign policy, and more than a few famous actors and musicians.

Most of us assume that this aid in necessary for the survival of the African people, especially in the devastatingly war-torn countries, places that experience extreme drought, and the areas most affected by AIDS.

So my ears perked up when I recently heard Zambian-born economist Dambisa Moyo discuss her book, Dead Aid on America’s National Public Radio (NPR).

She relates a shocking statistic:

Between 1970 and 1998, when aid flows to Africa were at their peak, poverty in Africa rose from 11% to a staggering 66%.

Moyo, who has worked for the World Bank and Goldman Sachs, describes how foreign aid actually hinders self-sustainability and innovation by African people. One example she gave was when a Hollywood star donates a large batch of mosquito nets to be given out for free, it disposes the local business selling these same nets.

Worse, she says, is that much of this aid breeds corruption in African governments, as “pity” from western nations puts money in the hands of corrupt and tyrannical leaders while turning a blind eye to their actions.

She also says that the world’s view of Africa plays a major role in the issue of aid:

The largely unspoken and insidious view that the problem with Africa is Africans – that culturally, mentally and physically Africans are innately different. That, somehow, deeply embedded in their psyche is an inability to embrace development and improve their own lot in life without guidance and help.

What African nations should do instead, Moyo says, is invest in bonds and the sale of African food and goods on the world market, and work more closely with China, who at least gives the impression of business between equal partners.

She adds that current aid could be funneled toward microfinance.

Yet critics say that her focus on market investments as the answer to Africa’s problems falls flat in the current economic crisis. There is also the issue of China’s not-so-impressive-stance on human rights.

What do you think of Moyo’s take on aid to Africa? Share your thoughts in the comments!

Michael Franti infuses his music with activism / Photo by Kubacheck

Throughout the world, people are being affected by the–gasp, dare I say it?–depression that continues to pummel forward on a daily basis.

People have lost their life savings, are going back to work at age 70, and are hunting down jobs that pay a third of their former salary, competing against three times as many people as they would have in the past.

But could there be an upside to the downturn? If you look around, you’ll see an unprecedented movement towards spiritual activism.

What exactly is spiritual activism?

I appreciate filmmaker Velcrow Ripper’s thoughts on the subject:

Spiritual Activism is the coming together of spirituality, and activism. It is not about religion, it is not about any form of dogma, it is simply activism that comes from the heart, not just the head, activism that is compassionate, positive, kind, fierce and transformative…Nothing could be more inspiring and more rewarding than being the change we want to see in the world, within and without.

It can take the form of organized religion, encouraging a former marine to become a Zen Buddhist. Or, it can be about finding one’s true calling, working for a social change organization after being laid off from a corporate job.

It can even be simply deciding to take part in the Brightsiding approach to life, or changing your spending habits.

A recent Gallop poll reported that for most Americans, the depression has not resulted in an increase in church attendance, or the “importance of religion” in their daily lives.

But does this report actually have anything to do with spirit, which can be a quieter process, shown outwardly through a growing desire to better our world?

Share your thoughts on spiritual activism in the comments!

Photo by peamasher

The Obama administration recently “eased” travel restrictions to Cuba for those Cuban Americans who have relatives on the island.

They are allowed to travel to Cuba once per year for as long as they like, moving regulations back to pre-2004 rules enacted by Bush.

Some think this is a signal from the US government of a change in attitude towards Cuba. Others, noting Obama’s administration’s pledge that the new policy will “have no teeth,” think this is not the case.

If US policy towards Cuba continues to be softened over time, what does this mean for Cuban Americans?

Many of the Cubans who fled the US after Castro’s rise to power have consistently backed a policy of non-engagement with the country until Castro’s regime is overthrown. But the anticipated fall never occurred.

And as Cuban-American Miriam Perez noted in a recent blog:

Over the years the immigrant population has changed a lot, both because of numerous other waves of immigrants from the island and simply the passage of time…my parents’ generation have spent most of their lives in the United States and are pretty well integrated into communities here.

Many in my generation have never even been to Cuba (myself included) and know Cuban culture through places like South Miami.

The political landscape of Cuba has, for the most part, stayed its course. Should Cubans living in the US and Cuban-Americans hope for further removal of travel restrictions to Cuba?

And would eased access to Cuba even matter to 3rd generation Cuban-Americans?

Share your thoughts below!

Community Connection

If you’re set on visiting Cuba, check out How To Travel To And From Cuba, and Why You Should Travel To Cuba Now.

Photo: Central News Agency

Organizers in Taipai held a protest last Saturday to mark the 50-year anniversary of the Tibetan uprising against Chinese rule, which led to the exile of the Dalai Lama.

The protestors, which included over 30 civic groups and 300 people, called for the government of Taiwan to allow the Dalai Lama to visit the capital city.

Taiwanese activists warn that “Tibet is a mirror of Taiwan,” and that if things continue in the same direction, China will achieve its ultimate goal of annexing Taiwan.

Days later, a bomb exploded at a government office in a Tibetan-dominated region of China. The Xinhua news agency stated it was “a bomb thrown by terrorists,” but declined further details and said the explosion is being investigated.

According to the AFP article:

Chinese authorities have launched a massive security clampdown in recent weeks in a bid to quell possible unrest as Tibetans mark the 50th anniversary of a failed uprising. They have also curbed travel by foreigners to Tibet while overseas journalists have been barred from most Tibetan inhabited areas in China.

March 14th also commemorated a year since riots occurred in the Tibetan capital of Lhasa, in which at least 22 people died and over 950 monks, nuns and villagers were detained.

As the United States works with China on stabilizing the world economy, will Tibet and other human rights issues stay on the front burner?

Share your thoughts in the comments!

As grotesque as it is mesmerizing, this image shows a Sri Lankan suicide bomber a fraction after the explosive detonates.

From the Telegraph article:

The attack appeared to target six government ministers attending the community event, including the country’s oil and telecommunications ministers. Unconfirmed reports put the toll higher with claims more than 15 had died.

The ministers injured in yesterday’s explosion were part of a large crowd of Muslims celebrating Mawlid, the birthday of the Prophet Mohammed, in Akuressa, a town on the southern tip of Sri Lanka.

A military spokesman said: “definitely it’s LTTE (Tamil Tigers).”

Everyday seems to carry with it the news of another attack, another bomb, somewhere in the world. Violence perpetrated to further an agenda, even a score, or simply to cause chaos.

When I hear of these acts, I can’t help but think of Carl Sagan’s words in the short film, Pale Blue Dot. He says:

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors, so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot.

Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light..

Read the full transcript here.

Flailing his arms and splashing beer all over the bar, a semi-conscious man screams German obscenities as he’s dragged out the door, unsuccessfully trying to gain traction on the ground with rubber legs.

The eyes of the two men facilitating this expulsion show they are unaccustomed to such a forceful act. With a great sense of relief and accomplishment, the entrance is finally locked behind the perpetrator, who continues banging on the door for a minute or so before moving on in search of another establishment to harass.

In any community, violent elements must be dealt with promptly and efficiently. This particular group, though, holds non-violence as one of its immutable commandments, and those around me are visibly disturbed that such a scene needed to be made to deal with the problem.

Slowly, the dead silence dissipates and pockets of laughter eventually return to the crowd.

Whether you call them punks, squatters, liberals, anarchists, or any other pigeonholing label, this group of men and women has done a fantastic job flourishing and spreading their message in Berlin, perhaps the only metropolis in the developed world where such a thing is really possible.

Due to the extremely low cost of living and laughable rent, it’s possible for people here who don’t fervently participate in the capitalist game to speak out against it. After you finish your 12-hour shift waiting tables in Manhattan to cover the rent of your closet studio, you have little energy left to fight back.

Photo by opyh

And I sit here now in one of the many locales that these lucky Berliners call home. Blanketing the walls of this bar at Grünberger Str. 73 in Friedrichshain are anti-fascist anthems and logos hanging above notices for political demonstrations, punk rock concerts, and semi-legal clubs.

In the corner next to a bookshelf stocked almost exclusively with left-wing literature there’s a free foosball table that has been occupied the entire night by a pair of guys who seem to never lose.

But tonight, as on every Sunday at 7:00, people are here primarily for the food. Volunteers work behind the bar and in the kitchen preparing the meal for the evening. For just two euros, you get a full plate of expertly prepared vegan cuisine.

Tonight, we had meatless sausage with hot mustard, spiced potatoes, brussels sprouts, and apple rice for dessert. For one euro, you get a half-liter of beer.

Perhaps most respectably, this community transcends fashion and nationality. Although many patrons are Germans wearing metal in their faces and rags, not an eye is blinked as a group of relatively well kept French guests take their plates and sit down. What matters here goes deeper than language and clothing.

Anybody with an open mind who is motivated by equality and human rights is welcome for the food, the music, and the conversation.

Photo by dev null

I have become accustomed to introducing myself in this continent with caution, so often have I been suddenly and tactlessly confronted with complaints and accusations about America’s incompetent government officials and economic recklessness.

We are too often considered proxies onto which the bubbling rage of neglected and ignored allies can be expelled. People here, though, are more interested in drawing parallels across geographical and cultural boundaries. Rather than self-righteously pointing out flaws in America, they are driven to build awareness of the problems that democracies and people face all over the world.

I become absorbed in refreshingly unpretentious and informed conversation to the point that I nearly forget about my friend who is waiting in the rain to meet me. (Sorry, Marie). As I reluctantly walk out the door, I’m given a copy of the current “Stress Faktor,” a monthly publication that informs about events of the community.

While it isn’t clear that this community has any kind of real political influence, it’s refreshing to see that there is at least somewhere in the hyper-consumerist urban world where people have the means and the drive to not only stop and think that things could be different, but to build an entire lifestyle around these ideas.

“Are you carrying a weapon on you?” the young Israeli soldier asked as we approached the middle of the Jewish settlement in Hebron.

“No,” my friends and I quickly replied, assuming that he was asking a routine security question.

“Well you don’t want to go any further up that road unarmed.”

I exchanged a nervous what-the-hell-does-that-mean glance with my girlfriend. He must just be kidding – messing with the stupid tourists, right?

Suddenly there was a series of rapid “pop pop pop” sounds from up the hill. “Fireworks?” I asked.

“No, that’s us returning fire. They were shooting up at us before. So you still want to keep going?” the soldier responded, half smiling because he already knew the answer.

The Political Tourism

Israel attracts over two million tourists every year, making it one of the world’s great tourism destinations.

Backpackers, Christian pilgrims, heritage-seeking Jews, history buffs, and nature lovers all flock to a wide range of unique sites in the Jewish state.

For the vast majority of these tourists, the volatile political situation is at best a nuisance which fills their trip with security checks and at worst a reason to postpone or cancel the trip altogether.

But for a small minority of visitors, the conflict itself is the reason for visiting, spawning a nascent political tourism industry which gives visitors the chance to see behind the headlines and into the heart of the seemingly intractable conflict.

Traveling into the Palestinian Territories of the West Bank takes a bit of extra grit and patience, but those willing to take the plunge are rewarded with a first-hand look at one of the defining international issues of our time.

View from an Arab market below a Jewish settlement

Palestine Welcomes You

Anyone with even a casual interest in the news is constantly barraged with information about the Israel-Palestine conflict. This has led to the instant association of the Palestinian Territories with suicide bombing, and thus a knee-jerk reaction that any visit inside the area is a highly risky endeavor.

In fact, although Hamas-controlled Gaza remains off-limits to tourists, the Palestinian Authority-controlled West Bank is quite accessible and generally quite safe.

Although violence does flare up, it rarely does so in a way which would affect visitors, and even though my trip coincided with a small skirmish no one was injured in the end.

Palestinians are exceptionally welcoming, and I experienced nothing but a constant refrain of “ahlan” (”welcome”) while walking through various West Bank cities.

A visit to cities such as Ramallah, Hebron, Bethlehem, and Nablus allows visitors to go beyond the terrorism clichés of the nightly news and into the reality of the situation on the ground.

A trip to Hebron, 30 kilometers south of Jerusalem, presents a particularly stark and memorable picture of the tense state of affairs.

Life In The Right Wing

Ramallah at sunset

The Jewish settlement in the city sits literally on top of the Palestinian market, separated by a jagged horizontal cage to prevent rocks from being hurled down below and making for a surreal stroll through an otherwise typical Arab market.

A walk into the settlement itself gives a glimpse of life on the extreme right wing of Israeli society.

You can even walk right into the ruins of a home demolished by the Israeli government after settlers holed up and refused to move out. After experiencing the situation for yourself, you’ll never watch the international portion of the nightly news the same way again.

Like any form of “backstreets” travel, the nature of political tourism does raise the question of where the fine line between tourism and voyeurism lies.

Similar charges have been levied against so-called “slum tourism” which brings Westerners to the world’s poorest places so that they can snap a few pictures of photogenic misery before heading back to the comforts of home.

However, whereas slum tourists are simply “experiencing” first-hand the images of poverty that they’ve seen so many times on T.V., political tourism (when done correctly) involves understanding the situation behind the images in order to gain an entirely new perspective on a situation.

A day trip certainly cannot cover all the complexities of the situation in the West Bank, but it still goes a long way towards getting past the 30-second clips and soundbites on the conflict spoon-fed to us by the media.

See It For Yourself

Although I visited the West Bank with friends living in Ramallah, there are a few tour agencies which take groups to various destinations in the region.

Fred Schlomka runs Alternative Tours in English, a social enterprise which organizes a number of trips into the West Bank as well as in Israel west of the Green Line.

His company gives tours to about 150 visitors a month, which he says is a way to “help people see the reality of Palestinian life under occupation, and also give them a taste of Palestinian culture.”

Rather than voyeuristic and unproductive, Fred, who has worked extensively with non-profits to help the Palestinian people, finds political tourism to be “a vital service to visitors so they have an opportunity to see the country in a safe and professional manner.”

Some of his tourists, who mainly come from the US and Western Europe, have later gone on to become involved with political and development projects in the region.

The Israel-Palestine conflict is an essential part of the political and social dynamic of the entire Middle East.

For those who pride themselves on partaking in the eye-opening and self-educating aspects of travel, political tourism in the West Bank is an experience not to be missed.

What are your thoughts on political tourism in the West Bank? Share your thoughts in the comments!

Photo by Swami Stream

During the last eight years, it is doubtful whether our leadership has fostered peace, both within our nation and in the wider world.

We can now elect a President of the United States who will be a transformational figure for peace. But what is peace? Is it just a logo on retro tie dyed t-shirts? A pie in the sky dream? Is peace on earth possible?

The Oxford Dictionary of Contemporary World History describes the Nobel Peace Prize as “the world’s most prestigious prize.”

Each year controversies swirl around the recipients. Attempts are made to discredit the prize and Laureates, but they remain respected and revered throughout the world.

During the Bush administration’s reign, eight people have been awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace.

A look at them offers us a chance to consider which candidates would further the cause of peace as the next President and Vice President of the United States: Barack Obama and Joe Biden, or John McCain and Sarah Palin.

2001 – Working Together – The United Nations and Kofi Annan (Ghana)

Kofi Annan

The prize was awarded to the United Nations and its Secretary-General for their work for a more peaceful and better organized world.

Annan was hailed for discouraging states from using the UN as a tool for their own ends, something the Bush Administration has been accused of.

He took an active roll as a protector of human rights, addressed the HIV/AIDS pandemic, and urged that the UN play a leading part in the fight against international terrorism.

Annan’s report on the UN’s role in the 21st century formed the basis for the UN’s Millennium Declaration, which calls for an end to poverty, better education, reducing HIV/AIDS, protecting the environment, and preventing war.

In his Nobel Lecture given two months after the war began in Afghanistan, Kofi Annan made the bold move of beginning his speech by describing a mother caring for a newborn. He said that the real borders in this world are not between nations, but between powerful and powerless, rich and poor.

“The obstacles to democracy have little to do with culture or religion, and much more to do with the desire of those in power to maintain their position at any cost.”

2002 – The Tolerant Diplomat – Jimmy Carter

Jimmy Carter

As president, Jimmy Carter was a diplomat in every sense of the word. His mediation was a vital contribution to the Camp David Accords between Israel and Egypt, and he placed new emphasis on the place of human rights in international politics during the Cold War.

Through the Carter Center, Jimmy Carter undertook conflict resolution on several continents, showed an outstanding commitment to human rights, and served as an observer at countless elections all over the world.

In his Nobel lecture, Jimmy Carter pointed out that great American power has been used with restraint and great benefit in the past. He warned against powerful countries adopting a policy of preventative war. Carter identified the most serious problem the world faced as the growing chasm between the rich and poor.

“War is always an evil, never a good. We will not learn how to live together in peace by killing each other’s children.”

2003 – Hope Over Fear- Shirin Ebadi (Iran)

Shirin Ebadi

Shirin Ebadi, lawyer, judge, lecturer, author and activist was recognized for her efforts for democracy and human rights, especially those of women and children. She stood up as a sound professional, who never heeded threats to her own safety.

Shirin Ebadi was the first woman judge in Iran. After the 1979 Revolution, she was demoted to clerk in the very court where she had been a judge. She protested and was elevated to the status of “expert”. She then quit her law practice and wrote books and articles demanding rights for women and children in Iran.

In 1992, Ebadi resumed her law practice and took up politically sensitive cases. She founded the Association for the Support of Children’s Rights and The Human Rights Defense Center. She taught human rights courses at university, and drafted the text of a law against the physical abuse of children that passed the Iranian Parliament in 2002.

Ebadi was described by the Nobel Committee as both guide and bridge-builder, bringing people together across cultures, races and religions. Shirin Ebadi’s view was that there need be no fundamental conflict between Islam and Christianity. She was honored for being an unshakable optimist who showed great courage.

In her Noble Lecture, Shirin stated that rulers:

“…will realize that the time for governing through fear is drawing to a close the world over.”

2004 – Planting Seeds of Peace – Wangari Maathai (Kenya)

Wangari Maathai

Wangari Maathai was awarded the Nobel Prize for her contribution to sustainable development, democracy and peace in Kenya and in Africa.

The first woman in East and Central Africa to earn a doctorate degree, Wangari Maathai was recognized for promoting ecologically viable social, economic and cultural development.

Deforestation and erosion were destroying areas where livestock grazed in Kenya and causing a shortage of wood needed for cooking. On June 5, World Environment Day, Wangari planted nine trees in her backyard and founded the Green Belt Movement. For nearly 30 years she mobilized poor women to plant 30 million trees, with the aim to restore Africa’s forests.

Wangari Maathai was repeatedly sent to prison. She was attacked with tear gas and clubbed. She persisted in her approach, which the Nobel committee described as combining science, commitment, active politics and faith in God.

“Entire communities also come to understand that while it is necessary to hold their governments accountable, it is equally important that in their own relationships with each other, they exemplify the leadership values they wish to see in their own leaders, namely justice, integrity and trust.”

2005 – Bringing Back the Word Imagine – The IAEA and Mohamed ElBaradei (Egypt)

Mohamed ElBaradei / Photo Lukas Beck for The NY Times

The prize was awarded to the IAEA and Director General, Mohamed ElBaradei, for their efforts to prevent nuclear energy from being used for military purposes and to ensure that nuclear energy for peaceful purposes is used in the safest possible way.

The IAEA was started in 1957 and was the vision of Dwight D. Eisenhower’s 1953 speech at the United Nations, “Atoms for Peace“.

The IAEA insisted before the American invasion of Iraq in 2003 that there were no WMD, and they were correct. Recently, the Bush administration has disagreed with the IAEA on this same issue with regard to Iran, and actually attempted to oust El Baradei.

El Baradei was praised for standing out as an unafraid advocate of non-proliferation, and directing nuclear energy to uses in electricity production, healthcare (especially cancer treatment), agriculture, the environment and industry.

In his speech Mohamed ElBaradei pointed out that history has taught that force doesn’t heal wounds, but opens new ones. He offered his vision of a more peaceful world:

“Imagine what would happen if the nations of the world spent as much on development as on building the machines of war. Imagine a world where every human being would live in freedom and dignity. Imagine a world in which we would shed the same tears when a child dies in Darfur or Vancouver.

Imagine a world where we would settle our difference through diplomacy and dialogue and not through bombs or bullets. Imagine if the only nuclear weapons remaining were the relics in our museums. Imagine the legacy we could leave to our children. Imagine that such a world is within our grasp.”

2006 – Spreading the Wealth – Muhammmad Yunus (Bangladesh) and the Grameen Bank

Muhammmad Yunus

Muhammad Yunus and Grameen Bank were honored with the Peace Prize for their efforts to create economic and social development from below.

In 1976, Muhammad Yunus took twenty seven dollars out of his own pocket and loaned it to 42 destitute basketweavers in a little village in Bangladesh. Out of this grew the Grameen Bank; self-financing, profitable, and spreading the wealth in thousands of villages in Bangladesh.

Yunus’s vision was to eliminate poverty in the world. This banker to the poor operated on the principal that every single person on earth has the potential and the right to live a decent life.

Both Nobel Committee and Laureate again cited poverty as the greatest challenge facing the world. The majority of people on earth are poor: half the world’s people live on less than two dollars a day, and one billion live on less than one dollar a day.

“We must address the root causes of terrorism to end it for all time to come. I believe that putting resources into improving the lives of poor people is a better strategy than spending it on guns.”

2007 – Making Peace With the Planet – The IPCC and Al Gore

Al Gore

The IPCC and Al Gore were honored for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for action.

The IPCC, the UN’s climate panel, is a global project that involves over 130 countries, 450 authors and 800 contributors, and 2,500 scientific experts.

The Nobel Committee, who called the US and China the great polluters, felt that global warming was a threat to the security and existence of mankind on earth. The committee raised its voice with a quote from Archbishop Desmond Tutu charging that ignoring climate change was a sin.

The Committee linked desertification in Africa with regional conflict, highlighting the heavy burden climate change laid on vulnerable countries, and citing a group of American military officers who said global warming was a “threat multiplier for instability in volatile regions”.

Al Gore was the individual who had done the most to bring global warming to the world’s attention with his 1992 book Earth in the Balance, which laid out a global Marshall plan to save the biosphere, and An Inconvenient Truth.

In his lecture, Al Gore said it was time to make peace with the planet.

“We have everything we need to get started, save perhaps political will, but political will is a renewable resource.”

2008 – Solving International Conflicts – Martti Ahtisaari (Finland)

Martti Ahtisaari

The Nobel Committee announced the 2008 recipient of the Peace Prize as Martti Ahtisaari for his important efforts to solve international conflicts.

As a mediator, Ahtisaari sought solutions in Namibia, Indonesia, and Kosovo. He also made constructive contributions to the resolution of conflicts in Northern Ireland, in Central Asia, and on the Horn of Africa.

More recently Ahtisaari, through his organization the Crisis Management Initiative, has tried to help find a peaceful conclusion to the problems in Iraq.

In an interview Ahtisaari said:

“… every conflict can be solved. I think it’s a disgrace for the international community that we have allowed so many conflicts to become frozen, and we are not making a serious effort to solve them.”

Be the Change on November 4

Each of these Nobel Laureates continues to act to bring about peace in our world today. Their lives are a testimony to the power of real leadership in eradicating poverty, resolving conflict, standing for human rights and working together to make a safer world.

As former Secretary of State Colin Powell said last week on Meet the Press, “When you help the poorest, they move away from terrorism.”

These voices from around the world remind us that peace is not an antiquated notion, but a real possibility that requires certain qualities in our leaders.

On November 4th, we can elect a president and vice president who will not govern through fear or widen the chasm between rich and poor; who will use restraint and respect diversity; who recognize the rights of all humans and will dialogue with integrity with other world leaders.

In the words of Nobel’s Missing Laureate, Mahatma Gandhi, “We must be the change we want to see in the world.”

When we fill in the oval next to our choice for President and Vice President of the United States, we can act boldly and decisively to elect leaders who will promote peace.

Imagine that change.

Feature photo by Tierecke. Photo by Harsh1.0.

I’m on a bus in Israel leaving the airport. It’s very early in the morning. The day is already so hot you can see waves of heat shimmering off the highway.

I feel like I always do at the start of a great adventure: jet lagged, thirsty, excited. The buildings of Tel Aviv are getting smaller the further we drive. Our tour guide, his name is Eitan, is talking into a microphone.

“As we head out of the city you’ll see a lot of countryside,” he says, his blue eyes gazing fondly out the window at his adopted homeland (Eitan is American, you see, and he has “made aliyah,” or taken Israel as his homeland and chosen a Hebrew name).

“Israel is not all desert like you might have thought.” I pay attention now, because this is what I did in fact think. “Look at that field of sunflowers, for example.”

I look out the window to my left and see the tall yellow flowers. I’m thinking they are pretty and picturesque, then Eitan says, “Don’t they look like proud soldiers lined up ready for battle?”

It won’t occur to me until much later, when my ten-day tour around Israel is finished and I’m back in the safety of my predictable, air-conditioned American life, that this comment represents two things I’ve come to understand about Israel and its people.

• One: Israelis are determined to show the world their country is beautiful, not just bombs and problems.
• Two: They have an unwavering belief in their right to belong as a nation and their right to defend it.

Conclusion: Where Americans see sunflowers, Israelis see soldiers.

A Clean Slate

I’m on this whirlwind tour of the Holy Land courtesy of Birthright, a foundation that offers every American with Jewish heritage a free trip to Israel.

The only requirements are that you’re between the ages of 18 and 26 and you have at least one Jewish parent. That’s it.

Birthright gives you an all-expenses paid tour (I’m talking airfare, food, accommodation, everything) around Israel to learn about the country and its complicated past and precarious future.

Although my father is Jewish and I grew up going to Passover at my grandmother’s house, I consider myself more “Jew-ish” than Jewish (as one girl on my trip put it during one of many group conversations on Jewish identity).

At this point in my life I don’t follow Judaism or any religion for that matter. Culturally, I’m kinda whatever, celebrating Christmas and Groundhog Day and any other holiday that seems like fun.

I went into my trip to Israel a veritable clean slate, a sheltered girl from small-town Nevada with no strong political convictions. An agnostic in faith and in life. I didn’t know much about Israelis as a people, and knew hardly anything about the politics of the region.

I came out of my trip with dates and history and passionate speeches rattling around in my head, less sure than ever who should have rightful “ownership” of the land.

Photo by Man United.

The Jewish Experience

On day one we arrived in the Galilee, the northernmost region of Israel. As we drive past the rugged hills and occasional olive tree, Eitan mentions, “Someone famous performed most of his miracles here.”

You might have heard of that someone. His name is Jesus Christ.

The Son of God would be mentioned occasionally throughout the trip as a sort of background player. Like the keyboardist in a band. This surprises me, which makes me realize I’m more culturally Christian than I thought.

We drop off our luggage at the first of several hostels and head directly to hike Mt. Arbel. That night we watched the moon rise over the Sea of Galilee, drank cold Israeli beer, and talked about our backgrounds and what we hoped to learn on the trip.

Most days would be like that first one. Up at dawn for the first hike of the day, museums and synagogues, lectures by intense Zionists and Holocaust survivors, complex conversations in the evenings about the future of Israel.

We float down the Jordan River and hike up steep canyons. We go to a kibbutz in the Golan Heights called Misgav Am, where we have a regional view of Lebanon, Syria, and Hezbollah headquarters, as well as a passionate discourse on Israel’s right to fight by an expatriate American who has fought in four of Israel’s wars.

I especially enjoy the day we spend navigating the steep streets of Tzfat, built into a mountain and known for its artist colonies and as the birthplace of Kabballah.

Photo by E|NoStress|

Everyday Is Like 9/11

There is the salty air in the haunting ocean caves of Rosh Hanikra. There are the tears in the hallways of Yad Vashem, the Holocaust museum.

We navigate the crowded stalls of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv’s markets, squeezing peaches and bargaining with our best version of todah, Hebrew for “thank you.”

We wake up at 3am to climb Masada and are rewarded with breathtaking views of the Dead Sea at sunrise. We then swim in the Dead Sea, and are rewarded with stinging eyes and mud splattered bathing suits.

We see Jaffa at sunset (where the human race has had a city since the beginning of time). We pretend to be comfortable sleeping in a Bedouin tent and rise at dawn for a camel ride.

I pick up white chalky stones in the riverbed where David fought Goliath (I later put them on my desk at home to remind me I can overcome any obstacle).

I touch the smooth pillars in a small, non-descript chapel in Jerusalem where the Last Supper took place. I peer down into a deep, dark canyon where babies were sacrificed in ancient times-the canyon that inspired the concept of Hell.

Most significantly: we travel with eight Israeli soldiers who are impossibly exotic in our eyes, though they look just like the Americans we grew up with.

They have the same discussions on dating and pop culture as we do, yet their lives have been punctuated by periods in which “every day is like 9/11.”

Devotional Envy

Like most tourists, we visited the Western Wall during our tour of the old city. But on our trip, we went twice. Once in the day and once at night.

During the night visit, I stood with my forehead touching The Wall, the ground beneath me finally cool after a day of scorching heat. The air around me was filled with the hushed chatter of a thousand worshipers.

I know I’m supposed to be praying or asking forgiveness or in the very least thinking profound thoughts, but instead I’m mesmerized by the women around me, young and old, their hands pressed together, some bobbing rhythmically to the verses in their heads.

Watching them, I feel both disturbed by and strangely envious of their devotion.

For the first time in my life, I felt seduced by the idea of belonging to a religion.

Of belonging to a nation where fighting for its defense is the rule rather than the exception. So many of us Americans create our own problems. Depression. Anxiety.

Maybe having a common enemy, a constant threat to safety, is the ironical path to happiness.

The Value Of Identity

Perhaps creature comforts and national security aren’t actually the ingredients of contentment.

Have we forgotten that humans like to be challenged, have something to fight for, to believe in? We thrive on these feelings because they give us an identity.

I reached out and touched The Wall. I slipped my folded note into the ancient crevices, and I pressed my palm flat against the stone.

In that moment I felt a rush, of hope, of sorrow, of belonging.

And then, all at the same time, I became aware of a Jewish woman to my left reciting verses in Hebrew, and the tall minaret by the Dome of the Rock singing the Muslim call to prayer.

And quite softly but distinct still, church bells ringing somewhere nearby.

Portia Remnant

You’ve heard the rhetoric.You’ve seen the ads. You’ve chosen sides, and the other guy has, too. And it’s not your side.

It’s 2008 – election year. And once again, the fate of the world hangs in the balance – as it did four years ago and four years before that.

And here again, the same questions are popping up: Can we afford four years of hopelessness? Can we afford to let it all come crashing down around us, with THAT guy in office?

What drugs are the other guys on, anyway? How much worse can it get?

While they may be the same questions…maybe they’re not the right questions. Maybe we should be asking: why do they believe the way they do? How are we going to work together, if we can’t change each others’ minds? What makes us think so differently, anyway?

And why are these questions the same all over the world?

Contrary to popular belief, politics also happen outside the USA, and for the same reason: there’s a fundamental difference in how liberals and conservatives see the world.

Another Country, Another World

Psychologist John Gray became a celebrity overnight when he wrote “Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus.”

But at least men and women are in the same solar system – sometimes, people whose politics you don’t agree with seem like they’re from another galaxy.

What values do conservatives, liberals, libertarians and others have in common? How do they differ? Which ones are “right” and “wrong”?

Psychologists Jesse Graham and Jonathan Haidt of the University of Virginia developed a scale called the “Moral Foundations Questionnaire.” After putting it up at their website, www.yourmorals.org, and getting thousands of respondents, they discovered a fundamental difference in how distinct political groups view moral issues.

Even more amazing: the same trends appear in results from all over the world.

Care to find out where you fall on the morality scale? Click here to register, and look for the “Moral Foundations Questionnaire” at the top of the table of studies. Then come back here and see what it all means.

International Morality

Multiple Reagans / Mike Lict

Haidt and Graham believe that humans are born with a natural “first draft” of programming – that we’re not, as Rousseau called us, “blank slates.”

We’ve developed certain inborn traits over the millennia – we learn language faster than mathematics, for example, or our automatic fear responses to loud noises and sense of falling as babies.

Haidt and Graham found five moral foundations that all humans seem to possess, in their study of cultures throughout history and around the world:

• 1. Harm / care.

  This is the ability to feel the pain or suffering of other living things. It evolved from the maternal caring for one’s offspring to feel for others in the social group. People who score highly in this area are compassionate, sensitive to acts kindness and violence; low scores are quite select in who they care for.

• 2. Fairness / reciprocity (including issues of rights).

  This trait is the sense of “justice,” however it’s perceived in your culture. Fairness is necessary for any social group to work together. High scores here show the need to keep group members working together smoothly, and low scores suggest an attitude of “survival of the fittest.”

• 3. Ingroup / loyalty.

  Related to an almost instinctive tendency to form “tribes,” this measures the strength of bond with an organization. We see it in patriotism, heroism – and even (or especially) in sports fans. People who score highly in this area view dissent as betrayal or unfaithfulness, while low scores are individualistic.

• 4. Authority / respect.

  The tendency to create groups of leaders and followers is yet another ingrained pattern. Parents expect their children to “respect their elders” and obey authority figures – in some cultures, to the point of awe. Low scorers here think a little rebellion is healthy, while high scorers think “questioning authority” is close to treason.

• 5. Purity / sanctity.

  A sense of disgust appears in all cultures – some areas reflecting sexual role and behavior, others about cleanliness or what may be eaten, and so on. High scores may feel revulsion regarding sexual license or non-vegan diets; low scores tend toward “if it feels good, do it.”

Right and Left Wing Fly Together

How do political conservatives score, versus liberal mindset? Across the board, from one country to another, the results are strikingly similar.

Liberals tend to rank the first two traits – harm/care and fairness/reciprocity – higher than the other three traits. Conservatives rated each of the five traits almost equally.

What precisely does this mean?

In essence, the points of moral contention between liberals and conservatives reside in which moral bases are emphasized, and which are not. Neither group is more or less moral than the other by definition, but different areas are more pronounced than others.

So who’s right? Apparently, everyone is!

And that’s precisely the problem. We talk over each other because we can’t find the right perspective to understand each other.

The Nature Of Duality

Neither side can exist without the other. Together, they form a balance of philosophies which must work together to accomplish anything beyond partisan argument.

In a video lecture, Jonathan Haidt suggested we can escape the trap of the “moral matrix,” and move to a position where we can view ideas objectively instead of subjectively.

As Haidt says, everyone thinks they’re right – but if we step out of our need to be right, we can see where the other person is coming from. This opens a vastly wider world of potential – where cooperative dialogue can take place instead of pointless bickering.

What life will be like in the years ahead is being framed by a new set of questions. One thing is clear: we can no longer afford to ignore or condescend to people we don’t understand.

In the end, we ARE from the same planet – and it’s facing some pressing issues. We must shed our “self-righteousness” and work together if we’re going to solve them. And we must do this NOW.

This is the essence of inner travel. Anyone can fly thousands of miles, yet never see a thing. And anyone can talk for hours, yet never relate to their audience.

We need to shift our perspective, not just our location. How we approach today’s questions is a question only you can answer.

Real travel occurs when the walls come down.

Feature and above photo by M. V. Jantzen.

Iran’s President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, may be rubbing his hands over what he claims is the death rattle of the crumbling American Empire, but ‘Merica still boasts some significant holdings around the globe.

The following guide gives a brief summary of how each region came under US dominion and how modern day colonists can best experience its unique cultural and geographical bounty.

Commonwealth of Puerto Rico

Photo by Abnel Gonzalez.

Colonized by Spain in the late 15th century and then acquired by the United States as a spoil of the Spanish-American War in 1898, Puerto Rico’s political status is rather nebulous.

As a self-governing non-incorporated territory, citizens enjoy a relatively large amount of autonomy, similar to that of a state. Their government consists of an executive branch headed by a governor, a legislature, and a judicial branch.

Unlike a state, however, Puerto Rico has no voting representation in the US Congress-even though the citizens are still subject US federal law and taxes. In addition, Puerto Ricans are disenfranchised from presidential elections, only voting in primaries.

This vague political standing has created divides among Puerto Ricans; there are those who favor independence; those who want closer ties to the US as a full-fledged state; and those who support continued commonwealth status. Although a referendum is held every few years to revisit the island’s status, it remains a commonwealth.

Visiting:

A popular tourist destination in the Caribbean, Puerto Rico benefits from mild maritime tropical climate and exotic geography, if not economic prosperity.

Common recreational activities include horseback riding, scuba diving, rainforest exploration, and boat tours of bioluminescent bays.

While the locals are friendly and sociable, it’s generally not recommended to engage in political discussions, especially in regards to the United States.

And the rare upside to being a commonwealth? Drinking age is 18. Spring-breakers can start on those famous piña coladas a few years early.

Okinawa Prefecture, Nippon-koku (Japan)

Photo by A. P. Campbell.

Accounting for one-percent of Japan’s land mass, the Ryukyu Islands of the Okinawa Prefecture host over 25,000 U.S. soldiers-that’s two-thirds of the amount installed in Japan after WWII. Before being annexed into Japan in 1879, the islands were an autonomous kingdom, the remains of which have been sadly effaced by the mid-century military campaigns.

Already somewhat resentful of Japanese colonialism, the citizens of Okinawa outright oppose the US occupation of the islands, citing noise pollution, environmental damage, and crimes committed by the US military against civilians.

Despite their repeated appeals to the mainland government, the US still maintains a significant presence in the strategic position near China and Taiwan.

Visiting:

The only subtropical region of Japan, Okinawa has a perennially temperate climate and excellent waters for all types of sports and activities, such as surfing, diving, and fishing.

For those seeking adventure, the Iriomote National Park contains lush Amazon-like jungles and mangroves. Canoeing and guided cruises up the Urauchi River also prove quite popular with visitors.

Exploring the Ryukyu historical sites presents some problems as there are little traces left, but the restored Shuri castle and the village of Taketomi offer insights into the islanders’ heritage.

Factoid: Karate originated from Okinawa, a synthesis of Chinese kung fu with indigenous martial arts

United States Virgin Islands

Photo by Joe Shlabotnik.

Passed along from one colonizer to the next since the 17th century, the US finally came into possession of the Virgin Islands after buying them off Denmark in 1917.

By this time no indigenous populations remained, killed off by disease and massacre after first contact with the Europeans. Most of the existing population descends from the African slaves brought over to work on sugar plantations and are part of the Afro-Caribbean culture throughout the region.

The Virgin Islands have a system of government similar to other US territories but unlike the others, most citizens are quite apathetic towards self-determination and therefore remain a territory by default of lack of voter turn-out on referendums.

Visiting:

This is resort country. With tourism being the main generator of economic activity, the islands are geared for your (expensive) pleasure: golf courses, casinos, scuba diving, horseback riding, white sandy beaches, four star restaurants, and designer goods can all be found. Kind of like giant stationary cruise ships-in fact, this is on what many of the tourists arrive.

Republic of Korea (South Korea)

Photo by Gin_E.

Originally part of a unified country that was conquered by Japan in the early half of the 20th century, South Korea was severed from the northern region due to bungled Soviet and American attempts at de-colonization.

While the division was never intended as a permanent solution, the outbreak of the Cold War and subsequent Korean War ensured reunification remained a distant hope. Throughout its existence, capitalist South Korea has depended quite heavily upon the US, which effectively created the nascent nation.

Although Korea has emerged as an independent first world country within the last 20 years, the US still maintains 29,000 troops throughout its territory and uses what some observers call manipulative diplomatic/ economic tactics to influence its protégé.

Visiting:

As the fourth largest economy in Asia, South Korea offers all the luxuries of most modern countries. Museums, theater performances, resort hotels, nightclubs, sports stadiums, and consumer goods abound in the urban areas.

For more touristy destinations, visit Gyeongju, the capital of the ancient Silla Kingdom. Tombs, temples, and other archaeological sites serve to enrich visitors’ knowledge about Korea’s distant past.

Or if you’re feeling courageous, take a tour of the world’s most heavily guarded border, the Korean Demilitarized Zone near the 38th parallel. An observatory offers binoculars to view into the neighboring totalitarian state.

You can also take a peek at the Third Tunnel of Aggression, one of the many tunnels North Korea clandestinely dug under the DMZ for a possible future invasion.

South Korea is also a popular and lucrative destination for teaching English.

American Samoa

Photo by Taiger808.

Comprising the eastern part of the Samoa Islands chain in the South Pacific, American Samoa was made into a non-incorporated territory in 1899 after Germany and the US agreed to divvy up the archipelago.

Although officially listed by the UN as a non-self-governing territory, American Samoa maintains its own representative democracy. However, day-to-day government is rooted in time-honored customs which often supersede the edicts of federal law.

Villages consist of several extended families, or aiga, and are headed by fonos, or village councils. The fonos in turn are made up of chiefs, matais, which head each family. The matais and fonos primarily supervise communal property, as there is no real ownership within the family, and keep peace in the villages.

This sense of collectivity extends so far that traditional Samoan house are built with no walls, only blinds to be lowered during bad weather and intimate moments.

Visiting:

Given the American Samoans’ deep cultural beliefs based on courtesy, called fa’asamoa, visitors should follow some simple rules of etiquette.

Always ask for permission before doing anything within a village, no matter how inconsequential it may seem. Dusk is reserved as a moment for prayer, so if you happen to be within a village during that time, stop all activity and wait for the ritual to end. Do not eat or drink while walking around in a village. And always take off your shoes before entering someone’s home.

Fagatele Bay National Marine Sanctuary and National Park of American Samoa allow visitors to explore biologically diverse rainforests and coral reefs where you can see flying foxes, sea turtles, and an assortment of colorful tropical fish.

If you want a more relaxing activity, just take a walk along the gorgeous beaches or watch the traditional Samoan dance, the Siva, in which dancers’ delicate hand and food movements weave a story.

Republic of Iraq

Photo by James Gordon.

The cradle of some of the oldest civilizations on the planet, Iraq possesses a rich and varied history. Unfortunately, much of this unique heritage has been erased as archaeological sites and museums were destroyed and plundered during the initial years of U.S. occupation.

After 24 years of a brutal dictatorship, Iraqis again got the short end of the stick as the 2003 overthrow of Saddam Hussein ushered in an unwelcome foreign occupation and violent political instability.

Even though control has been officially handed over to the installed democratic government, the US maintains a heavy military presence with nearly 150,000 troops and no clear intentions towards departure.

Visiting:

Speaking English, driving cars late at night, being in city centers, traveling without armed security, and not wearing body armor in Iraq proper are not recommended as these actions can get you killed.

Although some optimists are already planning tourist resorts near Baghdad, it will be several years before those dreams are realistic.

However, if you absolutely have a yen to go, the northern region-Iraqi Kurdistan-experiences very little of the upheaval of the war-torn parts.

Distant Horizons offered the first organized tours earlier this summer and other intrepid travelers have made the trek without too much hazard to life and limb. With ancient citadels, Roman ruins, gorgeous mountainous terrain, and friendly locals, some consider it well worth the risks.

Territory of Guam

Photo by Drew Vigal.

Like Puerto Rico, Guam was ceded to the US as spoils of the Spanish-American War. Unlike Puerto Rico, however, Guam doesn’t experience the same relatively high level of self-government as a commonwealth, instead relegated to territory status.

Guam does, at least, have the popularly elected government following the typical Western three-branch structure. And while generally happy to be a part of the US, most Guam citizens still desire more autonomy, which the US has denied due to doubts over Guam’s solvency.

The fact that nearly one-third of Guam’s land-surface is covered by federal military bases might also play a significant part in the US’ decision.

Visiting:

A hotspot for tourists, Guam has all that you would imagine from a tropical island destination: excellent diving (you can see WWI and WWII shipwrecks), ecologically rich forests and oceans, and paradisiacal beaches.

The prevalent Chamarro culture, a blend of Micronesian, Spanish, American, and Asian traditions, offers a unique fusion cuisine with fresh seafood delicacies, world famous BBQ, red rice, Filipino noodles, and coconut and taro based dishes.

An aside-much like their neighbors the Samoans, the Chamarro are fairly devout and have a culture strongly rooted in respect. Try to err on the side of modesty and utmost civility and you will avoid any major faux pas.

Islamic Republic of Afghanistan

Photo by US Army.

The other theater of the two-front war on terror, Afghanistan has pretty much gotten the shaft for the past 30 years. Suffering from internal conflicts exacerbated by foreign meddling, chaos and violence have become routine for Afghans.

After the Soviet retreat in 1988 failed to stem civil war, the resulting power vacuum allowed the despotic and religiously radical Taliban to seize power. And unfortunately for the US, who spurred the Soviets into invading in the first place, the Taliban’s rise to power also aided the success of al-Qaeda training camps-as evidenced by the 9/11 attacks.

After enduring six years of draconian rule, Afghanistan was again invaded, this time by US forces intent on destroying the terrorist home base. It’s been seven years of near anarchy ever since.

Visiting:

Non-essential travel to Afghanistan is not recommended, especially in the southern and eastern regions where bombings occur on a regular basis. Dangers typically include remnants of the Taliban, al-Qaeda, roving bandits, land mines, clan warfare, drug traffickers, and US air strikes.

Guided tours may be your safest bet for first time excursions, but they shouldn’t be considered impervious to the political turmoil. Situations can shift in an instant and it’s advised to be aware of your surroundings at all times.

Keeping that in mind, essential sites to see include the effaced Buddhist statues of Bamiyan, the Blue Mosque in Mazari Sharif, and the archaeological-site rich cities of Herat and Balkh.

Those seeking less of a thrill are advised to attend the traveling exhibition of the newly revealed Bactrian Hoard. You’ll learn about Afghan culture without putting your life in peril.

Any of your own tips for visiting these American outposts? Share in the comments!

]]> http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2008/10/14/from-iraq-to-samoa-the-travelers-guide-to-outposts-of-the-american-empire/feed/ 0 http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2008/10/07/rick-steves-im-not-pro-drugs-im-pro-common-sense/ http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2008/10/07/rick-steves-im-not-pro-drugs-im-pro-common-sense/#comments Tue, 07 Oct 2008 16:00:46 +0000 Ian MacKenzie http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/?p=675

Many people know Rick Steves as the affable travel writer and host. But in fact, he takes an equally strong lead on being the spokesperson for reforming marijuana laws in the United States.

In this PBS interview, Rick says, “Because I’ve spent a third of my life overseas, where it would be laughable to lock people up for smoking a joint, I’ve got a different take on this.”

Ask the readers: do you think pot should be legalized? How much of your opinion on marijuana is based on accepted societal perceptions?

]]> http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2008/10/07/rick-steves-im-not-pro-drugs-im-pro-common-sense/feed/ 3 http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2008/09/28/lessons-abroad-why-ireland-wants-obama-as-americas-next-president/ http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2008/09/28/lessons-abroad-why-ireland-wants-obama-as-americas-next-president/#comments Mon, 29 Sep 2008 00:20:56 +0000 Erin Byrne http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/?p=667 While America debates on who to vote into the White House, Erin Byrne discovers the Irish have already made their decision.

On the road / Photo IrishFireside

In Ireland, the roads are lined with ivy-covered stone fences and sprinkled with livestock.

We’d rented a small car and my husband zoomed up and down hills with brash confidence, our teen-aged sons scrunched up and snoring in the backseat.

It was an unlikely place for thoughts of patriotism: a twisting, turning, narrow road under a green canopy in the hills of Ireland.

Patriotism is a slippery word in the United States. Dissent is linked to a lack of it, one’s choice of presidential candidate has become a litmus test for it, and the word itself is combustible.

Edward R. Murrow warned against this situation: “We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. When the loyal opposition dies, I think the soul of America dies with it.”

During my travels, fielding questions about U.S. actions in the world had left me empty of a response. A fellow from New Zealand wondered why my country didn’t provide healthcare for all its citizens. A Parisian in her small, humble apartment asked why people in the U.S. feel they are what they own.

Why are Americans so fearful? Why behave inconsistent in the U.N.? Why refuse the Kyoto accords? Why break the Geneva Conventions? And…Iraq?

Failing Our Ideals

The United States is a force for peace, I answered in 2002. We care for our people and land in a way that would impress any New Zealander , I feebly explained. As time went on, my responses wavered; they did not correspond with reality.

We are confident but do not bully, I insisted weakly. Generosity exceeds greed, hope outweighs fear, compassion is more precious than consumption, and equality trumps injustice, I whispered.

I am not naïve enough to think America has always lived up to these ideals, but until the last few years, I thought we aimed for them.

The future ahead / Photo Jordi C

By the time I left for Ireland, the simplistic, shark-like twisting and turning of facts that characterizes political advertising was picking up speed, a sign of things to come.

As red fuschias, indigo hydrangeas, and green of all textures flashed by the open window close enough to touch, I turned the dial on the radio.

Lilting Irish voices cheerfully discussed sport, weather, and world affairs. The broadcast was full of news, analysis, intelligent questions and answers; the Irish version of NPR. I was impressed with the range and thoughtful treatment of issues.

Soon these lyrical voices began discussing Bair-ack Obama as if he were a hero in an Irish ballad. He, like JFK, had a pair-fect “combination of confidence and desirability.” “What will Obama do, then, when he becomes president?”

They believe he would restore America, in word and deed.

A Shared History

Gene Kerrigan of the Irish Independent newspaper: “What (Obama’s) victory could do is neutralize the toxic extremism that currently prevails. As president, John McCain will find new extremes and new wars. Obama has other priorities.”

I pondered the friendship between Ireland and the United States. The Irish must be wondering, I thought, if we are friend or bully.

As our car stalled for a cow crossing, I pondered the friendship between Ireland and the United States. Our histories are woven together as tightly as wool in an Irish sweater.

There are between 27 and 34 million citizens in the U.S. of Irish ancestry. Irish soldiers accounted for nearly half of Washington’s Continental army. We’ve traditionally helped Ireland in their struggle against British occupation.

I wondered what the Irish thought of our presence in Iraq: the $474 million U.S. embassy in Baghdad; the one in five people displaced by violence; the Iraqi death toll (estimates range from 100,000 to 1 million).

This “presence” must remind the Irish of you-bloody-well-know who. The Irish must be wondering, I thought, if we are friend or bully.

As the Irish American Writers and Artists Association put it, Barack Obama presents “the surest way to stop the destructive drift in our nation’s foreign and domestic policies, and return dignity, tolerance, compassion and intelligence to the White House.”

Ireland on Obama

My husband John was determined to “do” the entire West Coast of Ireland, so as we zipped around corners and zoomed past farmhouses, I had plenty of time to be mesmerized by the voices on the radio. Ahr-land was con-sairned over the price of petrol.

The ‘Happiness Guy’ (Eric Weiner, The Geography of Bliss) was interviewed: Ireland was high on the list of happiest countries.

Should there be a holiday to commemorate the famine? Would Bair-ack Obama get elected? The broadcast consistently bounced back to Barack.

On the day we sailed around the paved waves of the Ring of Kerry, I gazed out at the dancing, sparkling blue Atlantic Ocean. I heard a dim voice on the radio and turned it up.

“I know how much I love America. I know that for more than two centuries, we have strived – at great cost and great sacrifice – to form a more perfect union; to seek, with other nations, a more hopeful world.

Our allegiance has never been to any particular tribe or kingdom – indeed, every language is spoken in our country; every culture has left its imprint on ours; every point of view is expressed in our public squares.

What has always united us – what has always driven our people, what drew my father to America’s shores – is a set of ideals that speak to aspirations shared by all people; that we can live free from fear and free from want; that we can speak our minds and assemble with whomever we choose and worship as we please.”

It was Barack Obama speaking in Berlin, describing America to the world.

I felt my patriotism surge.

The engine revved, carrying the little car over the crest of a hill and straight towards the wide Atlantic Ocean, where across the shining sea was my country.

Community Connection!

Thinking of a trip to Ireland? Check out Ireland On A Budget over at MatadorTrips.com. And find out what 50 other bloggers from around the world think of the US election.

The Matador Team is proud to support Barack Obama. Please take a moment to read our official endorsement of Obama for President.

]]> http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2008/09/28/lessons-abroad-why-ireland-wants-obama-as-americas-next-president/feed/ 0 http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2008/09/19/why-theres-no-way-im-voting-for-mccain/ http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2008/09/19/why-theres-no-way-im-voting-for-mccain/#comments Fri, 19 Sep 2008 16:12:37 +0000 Tim Patterson http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/?p=662 John McCain is angry, confused and out of touch. He must not succeed in blocking important political change in America.

McCain looking glum.

If elected, chances are that John McCain would preside over disasters far more bloody, expensive and misguided than those of President Bush.

McCain sees himself as a warrior, eager to go down fighting in a blaze of glory, destroying his enemies without mercy. He’s a gambler.

It’s easy to imagine McCain in the Oval Office, grumbling like Nixon after a bad day, ordering the Joint Chiefs to ‘bomb the enemy, wipe ‘em out, get the nukes ready, we’re going all-in.’

After witnessing one too many of McCain’s furious rages, a Republican Senator famously said, “I didn’t want this guy anywhere near a trigger.”

A Confused Old Fighter

John McCain’s eagerness to go to war is the wrong answer at a time when we need international cooperation to solve tough problems like terrorism, economic crisis, and climate change.

John McCain’s eagerness to go to war is the wrong answer at a time when we need international cooperation.

Even more troubling, however, is the fact that McCain is confused about the identity of the enemy.

McCain forgets who American troops are fighting against and where. He has an idea of some amorphous, terrifying and depraved enemy, and he’s willing to drop nuclear bombs to destroy that threat, but he doesn’t have a grasp of the real dangers of the 21st century.

John McCain is simply out of touch.

Economic cluelessness is just the tip of the iceberg.

Decades spent flying on his wife’s private plane from Washington meetings straight to one of his luxury vacation homes has kept McCain in a sheltered bubble of wealth.

All the man can do these days is stand in front of bright lights and say things like “The fundamentals of the economy are strong,” or “We’ve made great progress economically” under President Bush – clueless statements only a rich, corporate Republican could believe.

McCain’s economic policies are the same as those of President Bush. His economic adviser ran her company into the ground and then unashamedly collected over $20 million dollars. His big-money donors are old chums of President Bush.

“I Hate the Gooks”

McCain on the mic.

McCain’s experience as a prisoner of war in Vietnam is often cited as proof of his credentials. Sadly, his time in prison also made him hateful and prone to fits of rage.

Do we really want a President who stands by his statement “I hate the gooks” conducting diplomacy with Asia?

Does a man who allegedly calls his wife “you cunt” and “trollop” have the moral character to serve as President?

Incidentally, does anyone use the word “trollop” besides angry old aristocrats and English Lit. professors?

Bomb Bomb Bomb, Bomb Bomb Iran

John McCain is itching to start bombing.

America is blessed to have the best military in the world, but we must choose our battles wisely. As thousands of grieving American households know all too well, rash decisions and unnecessary wars have bloody and expensive consequences.

American bombing can save lives and create peace, as it did in Bosnia, or it can precipitate genocide, as it did in Cambodia. John McCain has made one thing clear: he will not hesitate to bomb countries regardless of whether or not they ever actually attacked America.

I’ve had too many friends die in Iraq to think more reckless bombing is a good idea.

Hope For Change

I’m confident Americans will elect Barack Obama in November. Obama is a true statesman with the potential to become the most inspirational president since JFK.

But I’m worried, because McCain is letting Bush political veterans run the sleaziest and most dishonest presidential campaign in modern history.

John McCain will go down fighting. Let’s hope he doesn’t get the chance to take America down with him.

Community Connection!

This is a critical moment in history. We must work hard to elect Barack Obama. Please, call your friends and family and tell them why their vote matters.

Are you traveling now? Please read 7 Things Americans Abroad Can Do For Obama.

If you haven’t already read up on Obama’s policies and character, please visit BarackObama.com.

]]> http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2008/09/19/why-theres-no-way-im-voting-for-mccain/feed/ 0 http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2008/09/15/10-revolutionary-acts-of-courage-by-ordinary-people/ http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2008/09/15/10-revolutionary-acts-of-courage-by-ordinary-people/#comments Mon, 15 Sep 2008 13:00:47 +0000 Robyn Johnson http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/?p=655 Here are 10 people who stood up for peace and human rights. And inspired countless others to do the same.

When looking back through the mystique of history, we tend to impose super-human status to those who stood up for their beliefs in a revolutionary way.

For some of them, the decision to act was conscious defiance to the status quo. For others, they were simply in the right place at the wrong time, and found themselves acting on behalf of others lacking the courage to speak out.

We should rightly remember these people. But we should also remember that they were (or are) ordinary human beings, who made a choice.

And just like them, the rest of us have the opportunity to choose to engage in creating a better world. In short, we can be revolutionary every day.

1. Lt. Ehren Watada Refusing The War

Lt. Ehren Watada

The first commissioned officer of the U.S. armed forces to refuse deployment to Iraq, First Lieutenant Ehren Watada created a furor with his objection and public denunciation of the war in January 2006.

Watada entered into the army fully believing the official justifications for the invasion. However, after researching the history of Iraq and the events leading to the American invasion, he concluded that the war was based on false evidence presented to Congress-specifically the existence of the elusive weapons of mass destruction.

Watada therefore believed his own involvement would be constituted as crimes against peace under command responsibility. He asked to be deployed to Afghanistan, where he felt there was a true moral imperative to defend the United States, but when the army refused his request or his resignation, Watada did not board the plane with his unit.

Military authorities subjected Watada to a court martial in February 2007 and the judge declared a mistrial after deciding Watada’s defense of not following unlawful orders could not be decided in a military court.

When a new court martial date was set, Watada’s attorney claimed double jeopardy-his client could not be tried again under the same charges. Today Watada works at Fort Lewis with the continuous threat of a 6-8 year prison term looming over him for the crime of speaking truth to power.

2. The Unknown Rebel at the 1989 Tiananmen Square Protests

The Unknown Rebel

Little can be verified about the lone protester who faced-off with the tanks of the People’s Liberation Army on June 5, 1989.

As the column of tanks drove down Chang’an Avenue to quell the Tiananmen Square protests, a single unarmed man in a white shirt blocked their path and continually thwarted their attempts to maneuver around him by stepping in their way.

Eventually onlookers pulled the student back into the crowd, where he disappeared.

Yet despite his anonymous, brief appearance, the media coverage of his nonviolent act resounded throughout the global community.

Stuart Franklin’s famous photo of the stand-off went on to become one of Life’s “100 Photos that Changed the World” and TIME listed the Unknown Rebel as one of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century.

Rumors still abound about the protester’s identity and whereabouts. Most believe he was executed shortly after the rebellion and others claim that he lives in hiding in mainland China or Taiwan.

3. Gandhi’s Salt March to Dandi

Gandhi with his supporters / Photo GandhiMemorial

Mahatma Gandhi’s Salt March to Dandi in 1930 alerted the world to the burgeoning Indian independence movement.

Gandhi’s defiant act was the first campaign against British imperialism since the National Congress’ declaration of independence earlier that same year.

A pioneer in mass non-violent protest ever since his expatriation in South Africa as a young man, Gandhi chose to defy the British salt laws by organizing a 248 mile trek to a coastal town to illegally make salt from the sea.

By the time he and his thousands of followers reached the sea, word had spread across the country and millions of impoverished and malcontented Indians took up the civil disobedience by disregarding the salt laws.

While Gandhi’s march did not directly bring about national independence, it was vital in turning world opinion against British policies in India.

For his life-long struggle for freedom, Gandhi is immortalized as the nation’s founding father and remains one of the world’s most beloved figures.

4. Rosa Parks’ Sit Down for Civil Rights

Rosa Parks refusing to sit at the back

Popularly remembered as the woman who quietly refused to give up her seat for a white passenger on a segregated bus, thereby launching the Civil Rights Movement, Rosa Parks was already steeped in black politics long before her iconic arrest.

A secretary of the Montgomery chapter of the NAACP since 1943, she was well aware of the group’s attempts to challenge the Jim Crow laws on public transportation and supported their plans to instigate a bus boycott.

Rosa Parks reputes the common myth that her unwillingness to get up was due to aching feet. “No” she said, “the only tired I was, was tired of giving in.”

Although instrumental to the Civil Rights movement, Parks went on to live in anonymity after the protests, working as a seamstress for almost a decade and not receiving national recognition until later in life.

5. Aung San Suu Kyi and Freedom From Fear

Aung San Suu Kyi remains under house arrest.

Aung San Suu Kyi came from a prominent political background-her father helped liberate Burma from British colonial control after WWII and her mother was the fledgling nation’s ambassador to India.

Spending most of her younger adult years studying and raising a family abroad, Aung San Suu Kyi always felt that the time might come for her to take up her family’s legacy and fight against the oppressive military dictatorship that had overthrown the civilian government initiated by her father.

That moment came when Aung San Suu Kyi returned to Burma in 1988 to care for her ailing mother. Her visit coincided massive public demonstrations against the junta, and she joined the fray.

Emerging as the most compelling leader of the popular revolt, Aung San Suu Kyi helped found an opposition political party, the National League of Democracy. In 1990 she was voted in as Prime Minister in the first multi-party elections – a triumph that was nullified by the military government, which had already placed her under house arrest.

When the junta offered her release in exchange for permanent exile, Aung San Suu Kyi refused. Instead, the courageous and principled leader continues to live under house arrest, despite the constant peril to her life and the decades-long separation from her family.

Aung San Suu Kyi’s tenacious dedication to see a better Burma has led to countless international awards, including the Nobel Peace Prize.

Read her essay Freedom From Fear.

6. John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s Bed-In for Peace

John Lennon and Yoko Ono on their bed

While most celebrities use the publicity surrounding their weddings as a way to further their careers, John Lennon and Yoko Ono actually took advantage of the media’s voyeurism to stage a protest for peace during their honeymoon.

Of course, being the bastions of the 60s avant-garde, their altruism necessarily took the unexpected and quirky form of a “bed-in.”

Between March 25-31, 1969, Lennon and Yoko invited the press, expecting to document a more scandalous spectacle, into their hotel room in the Amsterdam Hilton while they sat in bed and spoke of peace.

After the success of this inspired stunt, they went to Montreal’s Queen Elizabeth Hotel for another seven-day protest from May 26-June 1. It was here that they first recorded the anti-war anthem “Give Peace a Chance” among luminaries such as Timothy Leary and Allen Ginsberg.

Scoffed at by the major media, Lennon and Ono’s demonstration inspired many others throughout the decades to perform bed-ins in passive protest of war. “Give Peace a Chance” remains the emblematic anti-war song of the 1960s.

7. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have A Dream” Speech

Martin Luther King Jr. addresses the crowd.

One of the finest orators and civil rights leaders of the 20th century, Martin Luther King, Jr. did much to change the United States’ policy on racial discrimination.

After helping to launch the Civil Rights Movement by heading the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott, King founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, a black religious organization that directed nonviolent protests against segregationist authorities throughout the 1960s.

The zenith of Dr. King’s career came on August 28, 1963 with his “I Have A Dream” speech, given at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Watch the full speech here.

On the symbolic steps of the Lincoln Memorial, King spoke to 200,000-300,000 dissidents and millions of television viewers, rallying for a world free of prejudice in which people would not be “judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”

Dr. King’s historic speech was a major deciding factor in the passage of the National Voting Act and Civil Rights Act.

For his part in advocating racial harmony and equality through nonviolent means, King became the youngest ever recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964.

Although an assassin lamentably cut his momentous career short in 1968, Martin Luther King, Jr. and his words continue to inspire the oppressed everywhere.

8. Ahmad Batebi, Iran’s Happenstance Hero

Ahmad Batebi with the bloody shirt.

The subject of a provocative cover of The Economist that created a global backlash against Iranian human rights abuses, Ahmad Batebi’s accidental role in the Iran student protests of 1999 irrevocably altered the course of his life.

The famous photo shows Batebi waving a bloody shirt-that of a fellow protester shot by plainclothes police-an act many interpreted as a rallying cry of rebellion against the government’s autocratic policies.

However, according to a recent interview in the New York Times, Batebi had wandered into the crowd of dissidents, and after using the shirt to staunch the bullet wound of a fallen student, waved the bloodied garment to dissuade others from joining the rabble.

Regardless of his intent, the published photo sealed Batebi’s conviction as an agitator. The international recognition of advocacy groups did nothing to mitigate the eight years of unimaginable physical and psychological torture he suffered at the hands of prison guards.

However, global attention to his case did save Batebi from the fate that his more unfortunate comrades suffered – an anonymous and brutal death.

In 2008, Batebi finally escaped from prison with the help of underground Kurdish revolutionaries and now lives in the United States, where he works for nonviolent political reform in his homeland.

9. Nelson Mandela’s Dedication To Justice

Nelson Mandela just after his release

An anti-apartheid activist and leader of the African National Congress in his early political career, Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for 27 years for political agitation against the South African government.

Yet his struggles only galvanized the cause for racial equality, and he endured to become the nation’s first black president, a Nobel Peace Prize recipient, and an international symbol of freedom.

At first committed to passive resistance, Mandela played a major role in the ANC’s many demonstrations and conferences of the 1950s.

However, after the Treason Trial of 1956-1961, when 156 dissidents, including Mandela, were arrested, tried, and eventually acquitted, for a communist conspiracy to overthrow the government, the rebellion took a more violent turn. Mandela became head of the ANC’s militia, the Umkhonto we Sizwe.

After committing sabotage against several military and government installations, Mandela was arrested and this time found guilty. He spent nearly three decades in prison before mounting international pressure forced his release in 1990, when he made a speech addressed directly to the nation. Watch the video of his release.

Despite the years of hard labor and harsh conditions he had suffered, Mandela publicly took up the cause of armed struggle again if political negotiations to end apartheid were not initiated.

Because of his courage, commitment and leadership, the country went on to hold its first multi-racial elections in 1994 and dismantle racial segregation.

10. Thich Quang Duc’s Self-Immolation

Thich Quang Duc burns on the street.

The unprecedented media coverage of the Vietnam War brought the brutal realities of human conflict into the world’s living room for the first time, but few images failed to shock more than Thich Quang Duc’s suicide-protest.

A devout Mahayana Buddhist monk, Thich Quang Duc spent most of his life in service and teaching, heading monasteries and rebuilding nearly 30 temples. Because of his esteemed position within the community, he was chosen to carry out the infamous mission of martyrdom on behalf of persecuted Vietnamese Buddhists.

On June 11, 1963, the 76-year-old monk, seated in a full lotus position in the middle of a central Saigon intersection, publicly denounced the South Vietnamese government’s oppressive policies and called for religious equality.

Then, to the horrified onlookers, Thich Quang Duc’s fellow monks poured gasoline over his body and he calmly set himself aflame.

While many people still disagree about the tenor of Thich Quang Duc’s suicide, his deed was a decisive turning point in the Buddhist crisis in South Vietnam, which ultimately ushered in a regime change.

For his selfless act Thich Quang Duc was deemed a bodhisattva, an enlightened being who delays nirvana to help those in need, and his intact heart became a holy relic.

What do you think of this revolutionary courage? Share your thoughts in the comments!

]]> http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2008/09/15/10-revolutionary-acts-of-courage-by-ordinary-people/feed/ 24 http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2008/09/09/10-key-points-for-understanding-the-protests-in-thailand/ http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2008/09/09/10-key-points-for-understanding-the-protests-in-thailand/#comments Tue, 09 Sep 2008 14:42:23 +0000 Voralak Suwanvanichkij http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/?p=652

Photo by adaptorplug – Feature photo Craig Martell

Political passions are raging in Bangkok and the future of the Thai government is uncertain. Here’s what you need to know.

Last week, thousands of anti-government demonstrators besieged the offices of Thailand’s prime minister, demanding his resignation.

A state of emergency was imposed in the capital after anti-government demonstrators fought with government supporters, leaving one dead and dozens injured.

Images of protesters pushing down gates, cowering among clouds of tear gas and clashing with opposing groups have prompted calls from concerned friends and family abroad who ask:

“What’s happening?” What’s going on?”

Here are 10 key points that explain the latest political struggle in Thailand:

1. Who’s Involved?

The protesters largely represent the People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD). They have been gathering near the seat of government for months prior to last week’s aggressive acts. Their aim is to topple the current government of Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej, a proxy for the former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who was ousted in a non-violent coup in 2006.

2. What’s At Stake?

The PAD is loosely comprised of many groups, representing Thais from all walks of life. Staunchly anti-Thaksin, they are fed up with corruption and abuse of power by the government.

PAD supporters wear yellow, the color associated with the nation’s beloved constitutional monarch, indicating strong royalist sentiment.

Thaksin recently fled to England to escape corruption charges, and a huge wanted poster of the deposed premier and his wife graces the protest venue on Rajdamnoen Avenue.

Photo by adaptorplug

3. The PAD Does NOT Support Pure Democracy

The current government was elected last December, backed by the rural and urban poor, a majority of the Thai electorate. Thailand’s poor are overwhelmingly pro-Thaksin, won over by populist policies such as cheap healthcare.

This week, the Election Commission recommended that the Prime Minister’s party be dissolved due to an earlier conviction of one of its leaders for vote buying, a common practice in Thailand’s political culture.

4. National Pride Was Recently Wounded

Another grievance that fanned the flames of the PAD movement includes a Thai foreign minister’s endorsement of the long-disputed Preah Vihear temple as a Cambodian UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The decision was made without transparency, suggesting that a shady deal transpired. Detractors screamed over the alleged loss of national sovereignty, and the minister in question has since resigned.

5. Arrest Warrants Have Been Issued, But Not Served

Warrants for the nine PAD protest leaders have been issued for last week’s raid on a government television station and seizure of the Government House, but the leaders have not been arrested. They all face criminal charges punishable by death or life imprisonment.

6. The Prime Minister Is Unstable

Current Prime Minister Samak is a veteran of Thai politics, and is widely known for his gruff manner and cantankerous nature. His mental health has been publicly questioned on several occasions. In 1976, Samak ordered a massacre of student demonstrators in Bangkok but proclaimed in a recent CNN interview that only one protester died.

7. The Prime Minister May Resign

Rumors that Samak would resign were flying around Bangkok recently (one English-language daily ran the headline “Samak on the Brink of Exit”) but instead the Prime Minister announced, “Don’t even think I am going to quit. The country needs a leader, and the world is watching us.”

Samak has also said he will not dissolve Parliament. It’s confusing. His agenda is not entirely clear.

8. There Probably Won’t Be A Coup

It’s unlikely a coup will take place, despite the declared state of emergency. This decree bans gatherings of more than five people or any group that might cause disorder, and gives the army and police chiefs complete control of the city.

Many believe this declaration is unwarranted; violence has been relatively minimal and contained to a small section of the city.

Samak apparently attempted to use the state of emergency to justify the forceful expulsion of protesters from the government compound. However, the Army chief stressed that he would avoid the use of violence at all cost.

9. The Unions Are Mobilizing

Left-wing unions have joined with demonstrators to oppose the government. Workers in the transport sector, including rail, aviation, and shipping, have stopped work at times, causing monetary losses, disruption of services, and inconvenience to passengers and businesses.

Utilities workers have also threatened to cut off power and water to government offices, but this has not happened.

10. The People Will Decide

The latest development is that a referendum, a direct vote by the people, will be held with three questions:

Should the government continue in office, resign, or dissolve the House for a snap election? Should the PAD continue or end its protests? Should the PAD’s proposal for new politics to revamp the electoral system be accepted?

At this point, no one is certain what this means, how long it will take, or how things will end.

]]> http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2008/09/09/10-key-points-for-understanding-the-protests-in-thailand/feed/ 1 http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2008/09/08/will-religion-prevent-us-from-saving-the-planet/ http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2008/09/08/will-religion-prevent-us-from-saving-the-planet/#comments Mon, 08 Sep 2008 13:00:39 +0000 Derek C Wallace http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2007/01/29/the-other-inconvenient-truth/

Watching the world burn / Photo Kwest

It is not an exaggeration to say that nearly half the American population is eagerly anticipating the end of the world.

Petroleum is vitally important to each and every single aspect of modern human civilization. It not only runs our vehicles, but it’s also manufactured into our plastics and it’s what makes our huge factory farms possible.

Approximately 10 calories of fossil fuels are required to produce every 1 calorie of food eaten in the U.S.

Pesticides are made from oil, farming implements such as tractors and trailers are constructed and powered using oil, and food is distributed across oil-powered transportation networks.

In the U.S., the average piece of food travels almost 1,500 miles before it gets to your plate. As the peak oil website Life After the Oil Crash says, “in short, people gobble oil like two-legged SUVs”.

What can be done to turn the tide and become less dependent on oil?

Many pro-environment activists have this belief that if people were just educated, or if they were just taught morals at home, they’d behave differently. However, I don’t think that’s the truth.

Anticipating The End

What I’m about to suggest won’t win me many friends, but then again, for all of human history it’s been easier to look out a window and find faults with the world than it has been for us to look in the mirror and do the same thing.

I’m alluding to the fact that 44% of Americans are confident that Jesus will return to Earth sometime in the next 50 years. As New York Times best-selling author Sam Harris said in a recent article in TIME Magazine,

“Given the most common interpretation of Biblical prophecy, it is not an exaggeration to say that nearly half the American population is eagerly anticipating the end of the world.

It should be clear that this faith-based nihilism provides its adherents with absolutely no incentive to build a sustainable civilization – economically, environmentally or geopolitically.”

That is not to say that religion is the problem. But religion that is bought and sold for political purposes that reach no further than lining the pockets of those who use it as currency to get in power, that’s the problem.

Religious leaders who remain silent in the face of war profiteering, environmental devastation and health violations – that’s another.

Educate And Mobilize

What would Jesus do? / Photo EIRincon

I believe that religious leaders across the country and around the world have a moral imperative to educate and mobilize their congregations and constituents to not only vote against what they believe to be morally reprehensible – but also to vote FOR what they find morally responsible.

And what greater moral responsibility is there than taking care of the body you have, the land you live on and those you share it with?

Even if we are living in the End Times, (which I’m not convinced that we are), I cannot fathom how an almighty supreme being would view us giving up as being the moral thing to do.

Raping the planet where you live while knowing it will kill people in the process (yourself included), seems about as far from moral as I can possibly imagine.

The true litmus test of one’s moral character doesn’t come in the times of peace and prosperity. It comes when things are at their worst. And right now, the worst is just beyond our line of sight. BARELY.

And what greater moral responsibility is there than taking care of the body you have, the land you live on and those you share it with?

Most of us can’t see the problem firsthand like we could if, for instance, a dust cloud from an approaching army was rising up over the horizon.

My goal is to educate people so that they can see the coming storm themselves. And so that they can see that it’s not too late to avert this. That hastening the apocalypse is NOT something that a supreme being would want.

That no matter what your religious stance, or lack thereof, it is morally imperative that we become the changes in the world that we wish to see before we usher in a terrible self-fulfilling prophecy.

Human Powered Future

I feel the siren’s call to live a life better examined and in doing so often question myself, my own beliefs and my own capability for irrational action. But it always comes back to one simple answer:

Even if global warming is a hoax, even if the peak in oil production is millions of years away and even if we are living in the End Times…there are more than enough political, financial, humanitarian and national security reasons to change our living and working habits right here, right now, this instant.

All of our problems are caused by human and thusly can be solved by humans.

All of our problems are caused by human and thusly can be solved by humans.

The majority of problems have come from the divisions and distractions that the rich have perpetrated upon the poor. This power structure has been able to exist because of our lack of education, of resources, of technology, of communication and of organization.

But the leaps and bounds that we’ve had with the internet are leveling the playing field.

While many bad people around the world have pooled together their wealth and their political power to accomplish that which they wanted – it’s now time the progressives to do the same.

It’s time to write an agenda for a more perfect civilization and for all of us to do our part to help make that happen. It’s time to stop fighting weeds and to start planting seeds of social change.

It’s time for an organic revolution.

Do you agree that short-sighted religious doctrine is impeding environmental salvation? Share your thoughts in the comments!

]]> http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2008/09/08/will-religion-prevent-us-from-saving-the-planet/feed/ 6 http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2008/09/05/8-ridiculous-political-ads-from-the-2008-presidential-race/ http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2008/09/05/8-ridiculous-political-ads-from-the-2008-presidential-race/#comments Fri, 05 Sep 2008 16:26:23 +0000 Ian MacKenzie http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/?p=653 Here’s our picks for most ridiculous political ads (so far) from the 2008 campaign trail.

If there’s one thing I love about politics, it’s the political ads.

Basically you get to distill complex policy decisions into 25-60 second advertisements that will, in all likelihood, be riddled with leaps of logic and poorly constructed arguments.

But hey, it’s television right? Here’s 8 of the most ridiculous political ads we’ve seen so far from the 2008 presidential race.

1. John McCain – Obama The Celebrity

What does Obama have in common with Britney Spears and Paris Hilton? According to this ad, none of them are ready to lead. So it makes sense to put them all together in a political ad.

2. Hillary Clinton – If You Can’t Stand The Heat

The stock market crash. Pearl Harbour. The Cold War. No Gas. Osama Bin Laden. Judging by the onslaught of imagery, you’d think you’re about to watch a documentary on 20th century history. Instead, you get Hillary Clinton.

3. John McCain – Obama Is The One

Another attack on Obama that bizarrely seems to highlight his leadership as “the one.” Oh yes, and there’s Moses.

4. Hillary Clinton – Jack Nicholson Approved

Speaking of movies, Jack Nicholson decided to announce his support for Hillary with an ad highlighting scenes from his distinguished career. Unfortunately, the only thing you come away with is how old Jack looks at the end of the segment.

5. Mike Huckabee – Chuck Norris Approved

A classic. Chuck Norris doesn’t endorse…he tells America how it’s gonna be.

6. John McCain – Obama And Change

Obama wants change. Change apparently means putting your head on the Statue of Liberty? This will leave you scratching your head.

7. John McCain – The Mccain Girls

True, this isn’t a political ad endorsed by any candidate, but it’s too amazing for words. This is why the Internet was invented.

8. Barack Obama – I Got A Crush On Obama

Not to be left out, Obama fans also want to share their love with the world.

Any ridiculous political ads I missed? Share your picks in the comments!

]]> http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2008/09/05/8-ridiculous-political-ads-from-the-2008-presidential-race/feed/ 0 http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2008/08/19/white-skin-why-racism-in-asia-isnt-quite-what-you-think/ http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2008/08/19/white-skin-why-racism-in-asia-isnt-quite-what-you-think/#comments Tue, 19 Aug 2008 12:00:19 +0000 Matthew Kepnes http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/?p=639 Visitors to Asia may be shocked by overt forms of “racism.” But as the author discovers, it’s not the same understanding as the West.

In Asia, white skin is in / Photo William Wang

Over the last few decades, Western nations have tried to become a “post racial society.”

We try to look past skin color, ban discrimination, and teach tolerance. From our birth we are taught that everyone is equal and everyone deserves the same chance.

Even if we don’t always live up to our ideals, we still strive to reach them.

When I traveled to Asia and lived in Thailand, I was shocked to see so much “racism.” They loved whiteness. The whiter your skin the better you were.

From Korea to Japan to Thailand, dark skinned people are looked down upon. Everyone strives to be white- every skin product has whitening in it and everyone strives stays out of the sun.

It was the complete opposite for us in the West, where coming back from a vacation with a tan was considered a priority.

The Importance Of White?

While visiting the region, I was always shocked to hear people talk about how ugly black skin is, and how important it is to be white.

I’d constantly admonish my students about off color jokes only to have the another student waive me off “No, no, it’s OK. I am black and ugly.”

Asian countries look down on dark skin not because of racism but because they don’t want to be perceived as poor.

Another student later made it clear: “In the west, you always worry about color. You have a racism problem but here we just accept it. We don’t care.”

There’s a creation story in Thailand. In the beginning god created man. At first, he cooked the people too much (dark skinned people). Then he cooked them too little (pasty westerners). Finally, he cooked them just right (light skinned Asians).

When I first heard this story, it only reinforced my belief in a racist Asia. It wasn’t until later I learned about the cultural and class context and then I saw this “racism” in a different light.

In countries where “whiteness” is preferred, you’d think there would be racial tensions but there aren’t. In Asia, there are no race riots, no KKK, no nationalist parties, and no race based organizations.

Historically, dark skin was associated with people who worked in the fields (also known as the poor). The upper class stayed indoors and in the shade. Asian countries look down on dark skin not because of racism but because they don’t want to be perceived as poor.

Question Of Class

In Asia, it’s good to be white. TV stars are white. Models are white. Everyone is airbrushed until they look like ghosts. But I wouldn’t call them racist.

To them it’s not about race or ethnicity it is about class. If someone from the West promotes whiteness, it’s racist. “Oh you can’t do that. People will be offended.”

The more politically correct we get, the more uncomfortable with race we become.

But in Asia, it is different. Dark skin is poor, white skin is rich. They promote whiteness because no one wants to be perceived as poor. In Thailand, I saw plenty of dark skinned people in high ranking jobs- their current prime minister is dark skinned.

While they prefer white skinned, they don’t look at a dark skinned person and think “they are less of a person.” The same is true all over Southeast Asia. Driving a BMW in the West says you’re rich and classy; in Asia, the color of your skin says it.

In the West we obsess over discrimination as we try to live in a post-race world.

Yet the more anti-discrimination laws we pass, the more politically correct we get, the more uncomfortable with race we become.

Same Same, But Different

We see everything as black, white, or yellow.

The more we try to make race a non-issue the more of an issue it becomes. We may consider it racism but to Asians it’s not about race. Skin color is laughed and joked about in a way we find hard to understand. It still can make me uncomfortable.

Maybe we should take a cue from Asia. Maybe if we want to become a post racial world we need to stop worrying about race.

I’m not naïve enough to think Asia is a utopia. Discrimination does occur in Asia. But there it is more about questions of class rather than pure skin color.

When you stop making something an issue, it suddenly stops being one. Then we can all sit back and laugh and just enjoy each other- regardless of skin color.

What do you think about racism in Southeast Asia? Share your thoughts in the comments!

]]> http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2008/08/19/white-skin-why-racism-in-asia-isnt-quite-what-you-think/feed/ 26 http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2008/08/07/olympic-ethics-is-traveling-to-china-worse-than-the-usa/ http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2008/08/07/olympic-ethics-is-traveling-to-china-worse-than-the-usa/#comments Thu, 07 Aug 2008 13:00:19 +0000 Colin Scott http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/?p=632 On the eve of the Olympics, many are boycotting China for their crimes. But are they really unique among world superpowers?

Welcoming the world / Photo KelvinHu

“I see you are travelling in China at the moment. So what about the ethics of that? ” read the cheeky comment on my previous article.

Despite my initial belief that it was raised only to diminish the article’s argument, the comment preyed on my mind.

As an online journalist I accept comment and opinion, some fair, some disapproving, and often, as it seemed here, both. I consider myself a responsible traveler so I panicked. Perhaps it was true.

Was I committing a heinous crime simply by visiting a culture that has fascinated me for years?

Not that I’m oblivious to China’s crimes against humanity and the world but I wanted to see for myself. That’s the beauty of travel; you can discover these things in situ. I wanted to read about the politics having been there, and experienced Chinese lives up close, in order to fully understand.

To neglect the people of China over the crimes of their country would be to commit a crime of misguided punishment and ultimately hypocrisy.

I decided that as a Westerner, to neglect the people of China (all billion of them) over the crimes of their country would be to commit a crime of misguided punishment and ultimately hypocrisy.

And as I travelled through China, reading about their problems and criticisms, I realised that despite China’s human rights and environmental crimes being vast and various, none of them are new or even unique to the world’s newest superpower.

What follows is certainly not an exhaustive list of China’s crimes; I have merely skimmed the surface. And although it may appear that I am singling out the US for much criticism, this is not the case; much like China I have simply found them an easy target.

Questionable Human Rights

China’s human rights records are reportedly improving thanks to greater transparency in the country but there major issues remain.

Soldiers in formation / Photo Steve Webel

There are still reports of untried prisoners from the Tiananmen Square massacre in detention.

Also a “Re-education Through Labour” policy has seen the detention of possibly hundreds of thousands of people, each one at a high risk of torture or ill-treatment. But China is not alone.

The US is currently fielding similar criticisms resulting from the suspected torture and ill-treatment of long-term detainees without trial or charge in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

And of course there is the Bush administration’s current rendition policy of illegal apprehension and transfer for unlawful detention and torture, which many of their western allies in European states are suspected of supporting.

China is also believed to be the world leader in the use of the death penalty with an unknown number of executions each year, although they have committed to a goal of complete abolition. Meanwhile the US currently has 3,264 prisoners on death row.

The New Super-Polluter

Hangzhou pollution blankets the city / Photo sinosplice

China is ushering in a new wave of modernity thanks to huge investments from western businesses keen to take advantage of cheap labour and tax cuts. This has resulted in environmental issues and questions of western morality.

China now produces huge amounts of pollution. And the residents, now financially better off, seek luxuries like cars and cheap airfares in huge quantities. This behaviour has angered the Western world. But is this not a case of the pot and the kettle?

We have exported to China our most polluting industries, financially exploiting them, and then complain when they pollute as we have guilt free for the past century.

Further, Western businesses are bending over backwards to accommodate the Chinese government’s requests in order to trade, effectively helping them achieve the government’s controversial means.

“Some, like Google, have argued that despite having to limit access to the internet, they are contributing to an overall increase of freedom in China,” Naomi Klein commented in a recent article.

“This isn’t an unfortunate cost of doing business in China: It’s the goal of doing business in China. ‘Come help us spy!’ the Chinese government has said to the world. And the world’s leading technology companies are eagerly answering the call.”

And it isn’t just Google; consider also Cisco, Microsoft and Yahoo, who have all assisted in creating the “Great Firewall of China”.

So while many are boycotting the country, effectively abandoning the country’s people and denying them contact with the outside world, they continue to support the home-grown businesses that really are playing a hand in oppressing the Chinese, further denying them contact with the outside world.

The Tibet Issue

China’s treatment of Tibet has seen condemnation throughout the world.

Most recently the Chinese authorities used extreme force to squash protesting Tibetan monks resulting in an unknown death toll, although many suspect it reached 250.

But also this year, exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama extended the olive branch, insisting his people did not want to break away entirely from China. He also said China was changing through “wider contact with outside world.”

Wider contact that can be encouraged and supported through travel.

Extend the Olive Branch

I’m not exonerating China of their crimes and I’m certainly not trying to belittle worthy causes and battles against tyranny.

I have simply tried to illustrate that the actions of governments, politicians and companies are not necessarily crimes of the people, and they should not be punished as such.

It would be unfair to deny the country’s people, the real sufferers, the opportunities afforded from the positive Western investment of travelers feeding into and taking away from the country stories and experiences.

The Chinese people, much like us, are simply enjoying the opportunities afforded to them in the 21st century. So just as we continue to travel to Europe and the US, and use Microsoft and Google, why should we not travel to China?

Dispense with our self-righteous standpoint and witness for ourselves this evolving and fascinating land.

What are your thoughts of traveling to China? Share in the comments!

]]> http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2008/08/07/olympic-ethics-is-traveling-to-china-worse-than-the-usa/feed/ 3 http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2008/07/25/warning-do-you-know-whos-spying-on-your-private-data/ http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2008/07/25/warning-do-you-know-whos-spying-on-your-private-data/#comments Fri, 25 Jul 2008 12:00:01 +0000 Jacob Bielanski http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/?p=624 It’s now known the Bush government secretly wiretapped its citizens. But what’s less known is the private involvement of AT&T.

Who’s eavesdropping on your data? Photo doug Olson

In 2005, the New York Times reported that the Bush Administration and the National Security Agency (NSA) had been conducting warrant less wiretapping on American citizens since 2002.

The implication is that the NSA has been violating the Fourth Amendment, which protects Americans from warrant less searches and seizures.

But what is most intriguing is the private involvement in eavesdropping on your data.

A document written by Mark Klein, former technician for AT&T, documents what could be the tip of the iceberg in the case of citizens’ privacy. In 2003, Klein alleges, AT&T built a “secret room” in their San Francisco technology hub. Plans he obtained showed cables tapping into 16 trunks lines of AT&T’s domestic and international traffic.

This allows all of that information to be copied to a room “full of cabinets”. Access to the room is suspiciously granted only to those with a security clearance from the NSA.

Klein’s document is currently part of the testimony in a class-action lawsuit against AT&T, but it’s suspected that many other major carriers were involved.

The NSA wasn’t sitting in a white van outside of potential a terrorist’s home. They were–and possibly still are–monitoring everyone from the comfort of their D.C. offices.

Then And Now

Traditional phone taps could occur anywhere, from the telephone itself, to a device placed on the wiring from your home to the utility pole.

Modern digital communications make it possible to tap into any line and filter the necessary information.

However, these had to tap into the specific line being monitored. Modern digital communications make it possible to tap into any line and filter the necessary information.

If you think that sounds paranoid, consider the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA).

Enacted by congress in 1994, the law required every phone company, internet service provider (ISP) and Voice over IP companies (e.g.: Vonage) to ensure all of their facilities maintain easy access for surveillance by the FBI and other investigative bodies.

The deadline for every company to be ready and waiting for surveillance has passed–February 12, 2007.

Further legislation provides additional wiretapping capabilities for special circumstances. Long before we heard the words “sleeper cells”, the government was already considering wiretaps with regards to “foreign” entities within the U.S.

Spy versus Spy

In 1978 the passage of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) developed a court that would oversee and issue warrants on matters of national security, while not compromising their covert nature.

AT&T in bed with the NSA / Illustration EFF doug Olson

This private court skirts the fourth amendment by ensuring secret wiretaps receive proper judicial authorization, while not revealing sensitive facts about national security.

The act created a middle ground–foreign entities could be spied upon while citizens’ rights were closely guarded. FISA establishes penalties not less than $1,000 or $100 per day for citizens who communications were unlawfully monitored.

The implication that the NSA has spied on all of us is far reaching. The magnitude of such a project is staggering.

Is it really as serious as it sounds?

Enter Terrorist Information Awareness (TIA). Formerly called “Total Information Awareness,” TIA is an experiment plucked straight from an Orwellian police state.

TIA was a project put forth to mine massive amounts of private data and sort it into “information signatures”.

The implication that the NSA has spied on all of us is far reaching. The magnitude of such a project is staggering.

This data analysis project would look for patterns and associations that signaled criminal or terrorist activity. The project and the Information Awareness Office (IAO) were shut down in 2003 in a hail of legal concerns.

These 16 trunks that were diverted to an NSA room carried everything that passed on AT&T’s networks in that region. Cell and regular phone calls; web pages visits; emails (whether your account is hosted through AT&T/ComCast or not)–everything.

Such rooms are also generally hubs for interstate and international communications.

Who’s the Patriot?

The timing of construction on these rooms corresponded suspiciously to the bidding of various TIA contracts. The office of the Inspector General wrote off implications of wiretapping in these secret rooms, saying the purpose was “research” using “artificial synthetic data”.

The implications are staggering \ Photo Vaguely Artistic

But the class-action lawsuit, filed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation against AT&T for violating FISA, was put on hold following an invocation of the “executive state secrets privilege.”

The testimony in the lawsuit could “cause exceptionally grave damage to the national security of the United States,” according to Direction of National Intelligence John Negroponte.

Plans for this room labeled it “#3″, suggesting it was the third of its kind. Other “secret rooms” were suspected to have been installed in AT&T’s other major switching facilities throughout the U.S.

Was AT&T simply performing their patriotic duty?

Under FISA, AT&T’s participation in this act makes them liable to at least everyone in their 70 million subscriber base. At $100 a day per subscriber for over four years, AT&T is liable for two and a half trillion dollars; an amount that can sink even the mightiest corporate giant.

The Bush administration has argued that telecommunication companies should not be punished for cooperating with the government in good faith. To this, retroactive immunity for all companies was included in a bill that would amend the 2008 “Protect America Act”.

This amendment was subsequently shot down by the House of Representatives.

A Sinister Setback

On March 14th, the U.S. House of Representatives did approve a bittersweet amendment to FISA. The amendment legalizes domestic surveillance without a warrant, provided no single person is “targeted”.

The bill does not provide retroactive immunity to telecoms. The Bush administration has promised to veto any amendment that does not provide this immunity.

What does it take to protect America, or any other nation, for that matter?

What does it take to protect America, or any other nation, for that matter? While we cannot deny the need for law enforcement to foresee trouble, how can a project such as TIA provide a guarantee that it will not later serve a more sinister purpose?

When the fourth amendment was drawn up, the U.S. didn’t have telephones, much less the concepts of Internet Relay Chat (IRC). When Thomas Jefferson tried to mitigate the Barbary threat, he didn’t have to worry about agents of Tripoli being supplanted within the populace.

Benedict Arnold fought numerous successful campaigns for the United States’ revolution, yet he is forever known for his attempt to hand the fort at West Point over to the British.

We have marred traitors before and sent them peaceably on their way. Is AT&T that different?

If we say that it’s ok to perform these kind of data-mining experiments, are we leaving the door open for another system similar to TIA?

The ongoing democratic experiment continues to drive across uncharted territory, producing–like forks in the road–a plethora of questions that need to be answered.

The turns we take here–whether or not to forgive AT&T, Verizon, MCI, etc., and to what degree we hold the NSA and the office of the President responsible–will affect the way our privacy is handled for generations.

What do you think of the wiretapping fiasco? Share your thoughts in the comments!

]]> http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2008/07/25/warning-do-you-know-whos-spying-on-your-private-data/feed/ 0 http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2008/07/17/why-one-casualty-in-iraq-is-one-too-many/ http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2008/07/17/why-one-casualty-in-iraq-is-one-too-many/#comments Thu, 17 Jul 2008 14:50:43 +0000 Jacob Bielanski http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/?p=618 Statistics are designed for politicians, think-tanks, strategists and advocacy groups. But it’s far different for those personally affected by war.

Jonathan Schulze – a solider who committed suicide.

Jonathan Schulze was a proud Marine who loved his daughter, Kayley, and was described as willing to help “…anyone in need.”

During a tour in Iraq in May 2004, he wrote his parents that “I bet I easily pray over a dozen times a day…Our vehicle elements and Marines on patrols are getting hit hard by these bombs the Iraqis plant all over…”

His death in 2005 was not attributed to any foreign insurgency. Despite dying in his own apartment, hanging from an electrical cord, it’s hard not to blame the Iraq conflict for his death.

The United States Army classifies a casualty as “Any person who is lost to the organization by reasons of having been declared dead, missing, captured, interned, wounded, injured, or seriously ill.”

By this definition, the Pentagon has concluded that the Iraq war has produced over 34,000 casualties, 4,100 of which were fatalities.

A Blurry Line

The most ideal setting in any urban conflict is to limit casualties only to those carrying guns. Unfortunately, history has never shown this to be the case.

With over 100,000 Iraq and Afghanistan veterans being granted disability by the Veterans Affairs (VA), men like Mark Benjamin, writer for Salon.Com, have begun to question how the pentagon classifies a casualty.

Benjamin says that these disability claims may indicate a much larger casualty count, and are the basis for AntiWar.org’s estimate of 100,000 casualties.

But veterans’ benefit awards do not provide a clear picture of which veterans are directly affected by the conflict. While the Pentagon may overlook a finger when reporting casualties, the VA may award benefits for non-combat related hearing loss, or a back injury sustained in the gym.

The only prerequisite is that the injury occurred or was exacerbated during military service.

While one could believe that there are 70,000 unsung casualties, scraping to get by, one could just as easily surmise that 70,000 are considered partially disabled due to a botched bench press. The Department of Veterans Affairs does not make individual case details readily available.

Collateral Damage

The dead and wounded aren’t only from bullets and bombs. Soldiers such as Captain Gussie M. Jones, a medic who volunteered in 2004, die from non-combat causes. Though still under investigation, Gussie is believed to have succumbed to a heart attack. She was 41.

Broken soldier / Photo Hagit Berkovich

To date, over 700 of Iraq’s fatalities have been listed as non-hostile. Non-hostile, non-fatal wounds are not tracked by the government.

The most ideal setting in any urban conflict is to limit casualties only to those carrying guns. Unfortunately, history has never shown this to be the case.

In the Iraq conflict, civilians have continuously suffered losses at the hands of insurgents and coalition troops alike.

The question of how many civilians casualties inflicted can elicit fuzzier answers than troop casualties. There is no reliable way to track the number of civilians that have died due to the conflict. This has given rise to a variety of numbers that are easily bent in either direction to feed political means.

The Lancet published a study by John Hopkins University and Al-Mustansiriya University in 2006 that placed the Iraqi civilian death toll between 426,369 and 793,663 since the start of the war.

Many have attacked the study on two separate occasions for lacking the hallmarks of good research. This study does not differentiate security forces and police death from their numbers.

Counting The Dead

On the other end of the spectrum, some organizations try to use only news reports to derive an accurate estimate.

Perhaps the most chilling number about Iraqi casualties doesn’t come from the Pentagon, but rather our accounting offices.

The Associated Press currently 31,245 dead and 35,436 wounded between April of 2005 and March of 2008.

The Iraq Coalition Casualty Count (ICCC) estimates 42,563 based on news reports in the same time frame, but differentiate security forces from regular civilians.

Perhaps the most chilling number about Iraqi casualties doesn’t come from the Pentagon, but rather our accounting offices. In instances of accidental death by American forces, the Foreign Claims Act allows for a token payment to the surviving family, usually not in excess of $2,500.

As of early 2007, over 32 million dollars in such payments were made, not including condolence payments made at the discretion of unit commanders. In a best-case scenario, that’s 12,800 “Oop’s,” that cost a life; war does not typically operate in best-case scenarios.

Only The Dead See The End Of War

There are other numbers to consider, particularly with relation to our history of warfare.

In World War Two, for example, the pentagon reported as total of 405,399 deaths and 671,846 “not mortal” wounds. Though the number is large compared to the current conflict, the ratio is most intriguing.

Funeral for a Soldier / Photo Scott Spitzer

By the end of that war the ratio was little more than one wounded for every one that came home in a body bag (or not at all). In the Iraq conflict over 7 come home wounded.

Does this cheapen the cost of war? Or does it create a larger base for dissent?

Plato said, “Only the dead have seen the end of war”, but the wounded might get recycled once they recover. Can we justify further conflict simply because fewer have died now than in similar scenarios?

The only consistent facet of casualties seems to be their ability to support a cause.

Anti-war activists will find no shortage of flag-draped coffin pictures and disgruntled vet quotes to support a pullout. Pro-war advocates will dismiss casualty numbers, finding pictures of smiling Iraqi children posing with American soldiers as proof that freedom is taking hold.

Some-such as Gerard Alexander, associate professor of Political Science at the University of Virginia-will even argue that more people have been saved by the ousting of Saddam Hussein than have been collectively killed.

The Power Of One

At the end of the day, though, our views on war, death, pain and suffering are shaped by a single number.

Ten thousands stories are never as horrifying as the one we experience for ourselves.

The friend, the colleague, the schoolmate, the battle buddy, the spouse, the parent or-perhaps the worst-the child that has suffered from this conflict will haunt our views for generations. Ten thousands stories are never as horrifying as the one we experience for ourselves.

Thomas McDonough of Minnesota earned one of these gold stars when his son, was killed in action. He now campaigns in support of the war as a member of Vets for Freedom.

Cindy Sheehan also bears the weight of a gold star. The death of her son, Casey Sheehan, prompted numerous peace protests, ranging from campouts in a ditch outside of President’s Crawford, Texas ranch, to her chaining herself to the fence of the White House.

Today, she seeks to replace Nancy Pelosi as the congressional representative for California’s 8th district, citing Pelosi’s inability to successfully impeach President Bush.

It seems that tallies, semantic arguments and statistics are designed entirely for politicians, think-tanks, strategists and advocacy groups. No one probably thinks of Jonathan Schulze’s daughter, Kayley, when they weigh 4,100, 40,000 or even 400,000 casualties.

For those personally affected, the tally will never really get higher than that one, nor will it ever have to.

How do you define a casualty of the Iraq war? Share your thoughts in the comments!

]]> http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2008/07/17/why-one-casualty-in-iraq-is-one-too-many/feed/ 0 http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2008/07/09/whos-the-more-cultured-traveler-obama-or-mccain/ http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2008/07/09/whos-the-more-cultured-traveler-obama-or-mccain/#comments Wed, 09 Jul 2008 16:37:21 +0000 Dan Solomon http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/?p=613 Before their political careers started, one presidential candidate had a passport that resembled your average American traveler’s.

“Heading” around the globe.

In England, upon hearing my accent, I keep getting asked the same question – “Are you Canadian?”

Nothing about the way I speak sounds even remotely Canadian, even to English people with no previous experience with North Americans of any stripe. But I am from Texas, and I talk like Coach Taylor on Friday Night Lights.

It took a while before I figured out why they were asking – they were English, and as is characteristic of men and women of their country, they were just being polite.

Assuming someone is American can be downright rude.

It wasn’t always like this. There have been times, on and off since the Vietnam War, during which Americans have been widely beloved worldwide.

Even in the early days of the Bush presidency – particularly the dark ones following the fall of the twin towers – we were welcomed around the globe as pleasant guests, generous with our fat dollars to the point of over-tipping, acknowledged and adored by the world community for delivering them Tom Cruise and Puff Daddy.

But that was in the glory days before the world got to know us as the people who elected George W Bush. Twice.

Choosing A New Rep

All things pass. Tom Cruise is now more widely recognized in Europe as the public face of Scientology than for his film career; Puff Daddy has been Puffy, Sean John, P Diddy, and Diddy in the time since the Bush administration took office; and now the time has come for Americans to choose a new representative to the world-at-large.

The time has come for Americans to choose a new representative to the world-at-large. who’ll do a better job representing us?

Regardless of where you fall on the political spectrum, if you’ve been abroad much recently, you know that George W Bush hasn’t been good for our global image.

With the choices more or less officially narrowed down to John McCain and Barack Obama, a question for the American community abroad is: who’ll do a better job representing us?

One of the reasons George W Bush has given non-Americans a less-than-stellar impression of his constituents is a general – some would say proud – lack of intellectual curiosity.

Statements like “no one needs to tell me what to believe, but I do need someone to tell me where Kosovo is” generally made him, and by extension us, look ill-informed and stubbornly disinterested in changing that.

A young John Mccain

John McCain, while not prone to statements like that, seemed to show a similar lack of enthusiasm for exploring the world beyond the American borders before beginning his national political career.

The son of a military officer, he spent much of his childhood on naval bases in the Pacific, but upon returning to the US as a teenager, seemed content to stay home until his military service – at the very least, there’s no record or documentation for his travels as a young man.

In the Navy, he spent time abroad as part of his service – famously, he was in Vietnam for years as a POW – but the traveler’s curiosity is not a part of his persona.

A Familiar History

Like McCain, Barack Obama was born outside of the continental US (McCain on a naval base in Panama, Obama in Hawaii) and spent some of his childhood overseas – with his stepfather in Indonesia. He also returned to the States as a teenager, and stayed put until his mid-twenties.

At this point, Obama’s story might seem familiar – at least in part – to a number of American travelers.

A young Barack Obama in Kenya

After graduating from college, before embarking on his career as a community organizer in Chicago, he spent two months overseas, in both Europe and Africa.

While his time in Europe was essentially a backpacking trip like visitors to this site might have enjoyed, his time in Africa included a good deal of time in Kenya, where he met for the first time his family on his father’s side, himself a native Kenyan.

These familial ties made trips to Kenya, as well as Europe and other parts of Africa, a regular destination for Obama.

Considering these experiences, along with Obama’s childhood time in Indonesia, and it’s possible to speculate on how these things may have influenced his worldview.

Unlike both George W Bush and John McCain, he’s not monolingual, speaking Indonesian (Bahasa) and some Spanish, and a firsthand understanding of how children in poor parts of the world live is an experience that would make him unique among American presidents.

Influencing Their Political Worldview

Neither McCain’s experience on military bases nor as a POW (however inspiring it may be), does not seem to have offered his worldview a similar perspective.

Before their political careers started, it was Barack Obama whose passport more closely resembled your average American traveler’s.

As recently as 2000, when reflecting on his time in Vietnam, he has unrepentantly maintained that “[he] hates the gooks”.

Clarifications have made the claim that this is a reference to the specific men who tortured him as a prisoner, and not all people of Asian descent, but it’s clear that he may lack a certain sensitivity to people from other parts of the world.

Now, though, both McCain and Obama travel regularly as Senators.

It’s a part of the job, after all, and both have included trips abroad in their Presidential campaign itineraries – largely to court donations from typically wealthy expatriates whose pounds and euros trade high enough to make even a large campaign contribution seem downright modest.

But before their political careers started, it was Barack Obama whose passport more closely resembled your average American traveler’s.

That statement may be more than a little unfair to John McCain, however – Obama, six years old when McCain’s service in Vietnam and subsequent capture, had the option of spending his mid-twenties traveling the world.

John McCain was in a prison camp in the jungle.

Given the vast difference in both their experiences and their options, it’s up to the individual traveler to decide how they want those experiences to reflect back on him.

What do you think of the travel histories of Obama and Mccain? Share your thoughts in the comments!

]]> http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2008/07/09/whos-the-more-cultured-traveler-obama-or-mccain/feed/ 0 http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2008/07/04/why-travel-is-the-most-patriotic-act-you-can-do/ http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2008/07/04/why-travel-is-the-most-patriotic-act-you-can-do/#comments Fri, 04 Jul 2008 15:30:00 +0000 Julie Schwietert Collazo http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/?p=608 The most patriotic act is traveling outside your own country’s borders, and sharing your experiences when you come back.

Havana / Photo by bartpagoda

Today is July 4. Time to reflect on independence. Freedom. Patriotism. What it means to be an American.

In a sense, the country I call my homeland was founded upon the cherished value that the right to travel should be protected. The idea is implied by U.S. laws, which permit Americans to travel with greater ease and to more countries than perhaps any other government in the world.

It is also inspired by the dramatic journeys of the first colonists who traveled long distances to establish one of the world’s most radical social and political experiments.

America is not simply a nation of immigrants; it is a nation of travelers: Gold rush prospectors pushing their horses to pull wagons across the country in search of riches. Anthropolgists, sociologists, and naturalists convinced they could discover new people, new species, new lifeways.

Settlers who braved rough terrain to push the boundaries of the nation further and further west. And, as the nation progressed, aviators and risk-taking adventurers of all sorts who wanted to explore areas that seemed to exist beyond reach: the sky. Space. The deep sea.

America is not simply a nation of immigrants; it is a nation of travelers.

What united all of these travelers was not a simple hedonistic desire to see their country and the world, but to do so as representatives of the United States, traveling on behalf of their fellow Americans. In going, they would share news of America with the world. In returning, they would share news of the world with America.

That’s the reason I travel to Cuba, the one country to which Americans are technically forbidden to travel unless they possess a US government authorized license.

The Need To Explore

The thought of visiting Cuba never occurred to me until I befriended the man who who would become my husband.

What country had produced this human who was so funny, so caring, so smart, so complex? What was it about the country that compelled him to leave? And why was it so much a part of him that it influenced everything from our daily conversations to the food we ate to the music we listened to?

I traveled to Cuba because I wanted to learn and understand more about the country that my own government demonizes.

I had to find out.

I first traveled to Cuba in 2005 and have returned at least twice each year since. I traveled there because my husband couldn’t. I traveled there to be welcomed into Francisco’s family.

I traveled there so I could come back and share with Francisco what he could not see for himself: that his son, nine months old when he left, is so much like him. That his mother still loves to complain and boss people around. That his family is poor, but incredibly close and mostly happy.

I traveled to Cuba because I wanted to learn and understand more about the country that my own government demonizes.

I wanted to cut through the superficial analyses of anti-Castro reports that failed to acknowledge that Cuba has a lot to teach the world about agriculture, education, environmental responsibility, and medicine.

And just as much, I wanted to cut through the equally shallow and overly romanticized pro-Castro views, which fail to acknowledge the shortcomings and missteps of the Cuban Revolution. There was only so much that books could teach, especially since so many are written with either pro- or anti-Cuba agendas.

An Important Service

Peeking in Cojimar

Each time I went to Cuba, I understood more about the country.

With my own eyes, I saw how important family was. I saw how creative people could be under conditions of limited resources, and how the generosity of the human spirit soars in such circumstances. I saw joy and resilience that I’d not seen in any of the other countries I’ve visited.

I listened to people who openly told me what they thought about Castro and the Revolution: It was an important and worthwhile experiment, one that had achieved great successes and, at the same time-like any other country-suffered from oversights and mistakes.

Each time I wrote about my experiences because I believed they were important; that the power of words was so strong and the insight of first-hand experiences gained through travel have no match.

I knew what I was doing was important when I started receiving e-mails from people who wanted to know how they could travel to this forbidden country.

The power of travel was manifest when they went to Cuba, came back, and shared their stories. I attached my name to what I wrote despite the risks because I believe that the act of traveling and then sharing is the most American, the most patriotic, the most democratic act an ordinary citizen can take.

I’m not the only American who believes this.

Presidents On The Road

In his thoughtful article on the little-studied subject of the influence of travel experiences on world leaders, James B. Hunt wrote, “travel experiences [give people] perspectives on their own lives and help to forge an independent vision or voice of expression.”

John Quincy Adams was one such leader. Adams was able to travel at an early age thanks to his father’s diplomatic post.

At the age of 11, Adams found himself in France. His journals show a boy who was eager to immerse himself in the culture and even learn the language. With visible passion, he wrote home to his brother,

“As my thoughts are principally busied upon the French tongue, & as I wish you to turn yours the same way, earlier than I did, I cannot think of a Subject to write to you upon more agreeable & useful both to you & me than this….”

Before he turned 20, Adams had traveled to France, Spain, the Netherlands, Russia, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, and England. The effect, wrote Hunt, was an increase in “Adams’ cross-cultural awareness, self-confidence, maturity and the esteem of family and friends.”

Theodore Roosevelt was also an avid traveler, both in the United States and beyond. In his voluminous travelogue, A Book-Lover’s Holidays in the Open, Roosevelt describes his journeys and wilderness adventures in North and South America, sharing his insights.

During a trip to Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Uruguay, Roosevelt wrote,

“Darwin… in speaking of the backwardness of the countries bordering the Plate River, dwells on the way they lag behind… compared to the English settlers in Australia and North America. Were he alive now, the development of the countries around Buenos Ayres [sic] and Montevideo would make him revise his judgment.”

Upon the trip’s end, Roosevelt concluded that

“Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, and Brazil have far more to teach than to learn from the English-speaking countries which are so proud of their abounding material prosperity and of their wide-spread, but superficial, popular education and intelligence.”

A Patriotic Act

Were he alive now, I wonder what Roosevelt would say about what Cuba can teach the world.

And I wonder what he would say about a decades-old isolationist foreign policy that believes, erroneously, that a travel ban, just one part of a complex blockade, will actually make America and the world a better, safer, more democratic place.

Travel. It’s the most patriotic, American thing you can do. Happy Fourth of July.

]]> http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2008/07/04/why-travel-is-the-most-patriotic-act-you-can-do/feed/ 0 http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2008/07/01/goodbye-to-bush-europeans-react-to-presidents-farewell-tour/ http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2008/07/01/goodbye-to-bush-europeans-react-to-presidents-farewell-tour/#comments Tue, 01 Jul 2008 17:10:02 +0000 Erin Byrne http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/?p=606 President Bush’s motorcade will speed through European capitals, but for many, the Bush presidency is already in their rearview mirrors.

Goodbye to Bush / Photo lewishhamdreamer

You are sitting in a European sidewalk café. You overhear the word, Bush.

What’s next? Furrowed brows and incredulous questions? Whether or not you think our president deserves this disrespect, you’ve likely encountered it.

Between now and the election, fellow European travelers, we can cram hope in our suitcases right next to optimism.

I just returned from Europe, barely missing the president’s farewell tour. Before departing, President Bush stood on the White House lawn and declared, “We’ve got strong relations in Europe and this trip will help solidify those relations.”

FOX News reports, “Europeans feel US foreign policy will be better once he’s gone, and they’re already looking past him to his successor.”

Before reflecting on my own experience and what Europeans have to say about the tour, I think back to the highlights of yesteryear.

A Brief History Of Bush Protest

London, 2004: Bush was in the role of enemy. I saw furious protestors gathered outside the British Parliament, waving anti-Bush signs. Millions of people all over Europe had done the same. Throughout England and Scotland I was asked suspiciously, “Will Bush get re-elected?”

“There has always been disbelief that we could have elected him twice.”

Paris, 2005: Everyone from the hotel concierge to the sophisticated executive courteously demanded (as only the French can), “How could your country re-elect Bush?”

Wendy Hendrickson, a teacher and entrepreneur living in Vienna who voted for Bush still hears the same question today. “There has always been disbelief that we could have elected him twice.”

Italy, 2006: Denise and Cid Busby of Edmonds, Washington lived in Naples and traveled extensively around Europe. “We had many instances when people in all different countries of Europe immediately started in on George Bush: ‘He is a very bad man. He is not very smart. Why would you elect him?” ‘We just started saying we were from Canada. We felt so sad.”

Bordeaux, 2007: I could see the taxi driver’s face in the rearview mirror. The radio announcer was interviewing French people about Le Président Des Etats-Unis, and guerre (war). The driver’s eyes scanned mine for comprehension; I gazed out at the vineyards and chateaux.

“Boosh was dangereux and un tartufe (hypocrite). Eyes sparkled, the moustache twitched, and the driver chuckled discretely. The war was ridicule, inutile (unnecessary); about pétrole and la avidité (greed).”

Belly laughs boomed from the front seat. I leaned forward and asked the man in French if he liked the US President. He gave a horrified start and nearly wept with embarrassment, exuding sympathy for me.

Today – The European Reaction

Bush with Chancellor Merkel / AP photo

Back to 2008: The Boston Globe said last week, “President Bush’s motorcade will speed through European capitals, but for many Europeans, the Bush presidency already is in their rearview mirrors. ”

BBC News says, “Judging from the level of public antipathy towards Bush in Europe, perhaps ‘Good Riddance’ would be the more accurate message.”

Slovenia’s news source Delo says: “After eight years of George W. Bush, who embodied all the negative stereotypes and prejudices regarding the US, everyone wants a new American president.” The Slovene word for goodbye is Nasvidenje.

In Germany, our commander-in-chief threw his arm around the shoulder of Chancellor Angela Merkel, causing Europeans to recall July 18, 2006. Bush told Germans, “I could have used better rhetoric.” Will Germans ever again pine for war rhetoric? Nein.

They half-heartedly wished the president Auf Wiedersehen. Der Tagesspiegel newspaper: “Bush is not even popular in the role of the enemy anymore.”

“Monsieur Boosh should go”

We don’t just bomb people. Maybe your new president will try diplomacy.”

I Googled French news for their take on the president’s visit, and déjà vu! Radio France’s announcer once again interviewed people. “A man who takes himself to be a god.” “Monsieur Boosh should go.”

Aerospace executive John Byrne was in Italy last week when Italians bid Bush Arrivederci. He said, “They want Bush out.” Hendrickson says Austrians echo this sentiment. “I haven’t met an Austrian yet who doesn’t think getting Bush out of office will do the United States a world of good. They seem concerned about our loss of stature in the eyes of the world.”

“The attention is now on Obama and McCain,” says Antonio Missiroli, research director of the European Policy Centre in Brussels.

I found this to be true on my recent trip to Europe. After a terse comment on Bush’s sanity, Anne, a Parisian historian smiled. A window was flung open and a gust of fresh air blew in: “You will have a new president soon, yes?”

In Vienna my tour guide informed me, “We in the EU have to work out our differences. We don’t just bomb people”. Then-whoosh-”Maybe your new president will try diplomacy.”

Looking To The Future

Steven Kull, director of The Program on International Policy Attitudes comments, “Views of the US are being mitigated by hope that a new administration will move away from the foreign policies that have been so unpopular around the world.”

The Slovenian news indicates that this open window hinges on prospects for diplomacy: “If a candidate who wants to adhere to Bush’s course wins, the transatlantic rift will only grow deeper.”

Which candidate will have a longer shelf-life in Europe? I searched both John McCain and Barack Obama’s websites under Issues for their positions on foreign policy, looking for specific references to diplomacy. I urge you to do the same.

This summer, I’ll travel to England after the Brits cry, Cheerio. We’ll have tea and chat about hope. Then it’s off to Ireland, who wished the Bush Slán leat. I’ll lift a Guinness with the Irish and toast to diplomacy.

What do you think of Europe’s reaction to Bush’s farewell? Share your thoughts in the comments!

]]> http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2008/07/01/goodbye-to-bush-europeans-react-to-presidents-farewell-tour/feed/ 0 http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2008/06/18/womens-rights-saudi-arabia/ http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2008/06/18/womens-rights-saudi-arabia/#comments Wed, 18 Jun 2008 13:24:45 +0000 Matt Scott http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/?p=595 For women in Saudi Arabia, much of their lives are hidden behind the shadow of men. But how do they judge Western society?

Photo by Kelly Hart

“Ladies and Gentlemen, we have just entered Saudi airspace, if you need to change into the appropriate clothing, now is a good time to do so.”

I had heard this announcement would be made on the flight, but I had cast it aside as one of those travel myths; when visiting other cultures, the reality rarely matched what the media, or other people told you.

Several women stood up and headed towards the bathrooms to change.

After landing in Jeddah, I boarded the bus the the terminal. As I took my seat, a Saudi man caught my attention. He rose from his own seat and gestured to a standing woman. She refused the offer with a polite shake of her hand.

The man asked another, refusing to sit until a woman finally accepted his offer. Looking around the bus, each woman wore a black abaya, covering them from head to toe. I wondered if they would prefer to remove their adornments, rather than have a seat.

The terminal building was awash with white traditional thobes, and red chequered khiefahs of Saudi men. The only women were those Westerners I had seen on the plane; now pushing their luggage toward awaiting cars.

The black-robed figures navigating the terminal were to be a brief introduction to what I would see in the Kingdom, and a constant reminder of an issue that I would struggle to understand.

Strictly Men Only

As I walked along the seafront in Jeddah the first evening, I was surprised to see a busting social scene among the locals.

I found a small irony in the colours that so obviously divided the Kingdom.

Men and women walked together along the Cornice, others brought blankets and small picnics, lying on the beach as the sun set.

Children screamed with delight as they enjoyed the camel or donkey rides with their parents looking on close by, while some couples walked along the sea front; others sat on the sea wall while their children played on the sand.

This could have been any beachfront in the world, were it not for the abaya covering each women. “It is just clothing,” said Mohammed, one of our escorts in the kingdom, said “it doesn’t affect what’s underneath.”

Signs declaring “Family Entrance”, “Singles Only” and “Strictly Men Only” appeared in almost every public place. Restaurants would often have separate doors so men and women would not even pass each other as they made their way to separate rooms.

Looking down from the third floor of a shopping centre I was surprised to see how strictly, and obviously, this rule was enforced: the white dress of the men filled one side of the seating area, and the black abayas of the women the other.

I found a small irony in the colours that so obviously divided the Kingdom.

Comparing Cultures

Saudi customs dictates that men and women should not mix. This made it difficult to gain a Saudi woman’s perspective on their life in the kingdom, so I searched elsewhere for debate.

Photo by Kelly Hart

A letter in the English newspaper Arab News provided me with one insight: “Music, socialising… men and women in the same place” wrote a Saudi female university student about coffee shops such as Starbucks “with so many sins in one place, I think they should be banned.”

Without doubt, many women opposed to their lifestyles are unable to speak out. But even this simple comment made me realise that trying to console my own views with those of Saudis would be a fruitless exercise. “You can’t compare Saudi to Western states” was a phrase repeated in many articles on the region.

But judgment can also be made the opposite direction. Among the statements of devotion to Islam in the newspaper, I also found this sickening opinion:

“Western clothes can make young girls appear sexy,”wrote one man in the letters page of Arab News. He went on to say that the abaya should be worn by girls as young as six, to avoid this distraction.

“Before I went to Britain, all I knew about Western women was what I saw in the movies. You know what I mean?” said Wahid, a local hotel manager who had visited Britain a few years ago. “I now know women in the West don’t always think about sex. I know there is more to them than that.”

Although as our conversation continued, it became clear that he didn’t consider there to be much more.

“A good Saudi woman belongs in the home. She enjoys to cook and to sew. Why does she need to go out, play sport or drive? She enjoys a life with her family.”

The Other’s Perspective

A good Saudi woman belongs in the home. She enjoys to cook and to sew. Why does she need to go out, play sport or drive?

As our escort Mohammed explained later, this view of women was not universal. “My wife is the director of a children’s school and I think some people think women do not need to work, but this opinion is slowly changing.”

(Contrary to popular belief women are allowed to work and can even hold positions of authority, as long as it is only women below her).

“Women now carry ID cards and have the opportunity to access their finances (whereas before, only male members of the family would have access to a woman’s savings – if they had any at all). They are also running in local elections. There is even talk about allowing women to drive, but this will only ever be just talk, I think.”

Just a short drive from the city of Jeddah is a series of private beaches. With high walls and private security, ex-pats can enjoy swimming and sunbathing without adhering to Saudi’s strict dress code.

During a visit to one of these beaches to snorkel in the Red Sea, I was noticed none of our Saudi guides leered at the women that walked around in bikinis. With my first sight of female flesh in over a week, I’m ashamed to say I could barely look away.

A simple trip to the beach opened my eyes to how many men must feel here:

An unmarried man in Saudi will never see the face of a woman to which he is not related. With arranged marriages the norm, a groom will see his bride’s face for the first time only after the ceremony. The bare arms of a woman is as unknown and holds as much mystery as any other part of her body.

For devote Saudis, trying to understand Western culture is as difficult for me to understand theirs.

Have you had similar feelings of disconnect with other cultures? Share your thoughts in the comments!

]]> http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2008/06/18/womens-rights-saudi-arabia/feed/ 28 http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2008/06/13/is-the-bbc-indirectly-funding-burmas-military-regime/ http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2008/06/13/is-the-bbc-indirectly-funding-burmas-military-regime/#comments Fri, 13 Jun 2008 12:59:21 +0000 Colin Scott http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/?p=590 By promoting independent travel against the wishes of Burma’s democratic movement, a guide book may indirectly support its dictatorship.

Lieutenant-General Thein Sein.

Last week BBC Worldwide, the commercial arm of the BBC, entered Burma Campaign UK’s “Dirty List” of 154 companies they claim directly or indirectly finance Burma’s brutal military dictatorship.

The reason for the inclusion?

Thanks to their majority stake in Lonely Planet, BBC Worldwide are now responsible for the Lonely Planet guide to Burma, undermining the democracy movement’s calls for a tourist boycott.

But do the BBC, and the 30 other tourism groups listed, deserve to be thrown in alongside nefarious oil and gas companies?

London-based pressure group Burma Campaign UK, believes so, “Our reviews represent the views of the Burmese democracy movement,” says, Campaign Officer Johnny Chatterton. “By going to Burma on holiday tourists are paying for the military machine that keeps the regime in power.”

Brutal Regime’s Tourism Links

Since 1962 Burma has been controlled by a military dominated government. Current leader Senior General Than Shwe identified tourism as a vital income source and, having used forced labour to build tourist facilities, now profits from many hotels and airports.

“Burma will be here for many years,” Suu Kyi said. “So tell your friends to visit us later. Visiting now is tantamount to condoning the regime.”

Half this money is spent maintaining military strength, not educating or caring for Burma’s people.

In response, the leader of the democratically elected National League for Democracy Aung San Suu Kyi, now under house arrest without trial for over 12 years, requested tourists avoid visiting the country.

“Burma will be here for many years,” Suu Kyi said. “So tell your friends to visit us later. Visiting now is tantamount to condoning the regime.”

Currently, thanks to this unsettled political landscape, only 750,000 tourists visit Burma annually, compared to the millions who flock to neighbouring Thailand.

Rough Guide respects Suu Kyi’s request and refuses to publish a Burma guide. But BBC Worldwide, Burma Campaign UK argues, undermines Suu Kyi, effectively defending tourism to Burma.

A Brutal Regime

BBC Worldwide have stressed that their decision to publish a guide to Burma does not represent support for the current regime. It, they say, provides information and lets readers decide for themselves.

Lonely Planet guides pride themselves in being independently written, offering impartial advice without any political affiliations. In the Burma guide they choose not to specifically state which hotels are regime owned, (no comprehensive list is currently available), but they do advise that such establishments are easily identified

“The first chapter of the guide presents all the issues and includes the views of Aung San Suu Kyi and the Burma Campaign UK,” says BBC Worldwide Director of Corporate Affairs Jennie Allen.

“For travelers who decide to visit Burma, it provides information which, if followed, will help maximise support for the local population and minimise the prospect of money going to the military regime.”

There is no arguing the regime is indeed brutal and shouldn’t be supported.

In September 2007 Buddhist monks protesting against government were fired upon by security forces resulting in many deaths. More recently, obstruction of aid relief following Cyclone Nargis undoubtedly resulted in additional suffering to the country’s people.

But is discouraging independent travel the correct course of action?

The Moral Question

Voices for Burma, an independent international NGO believe that responsible, small scale tourism benefiting local communities and raising awareness has a place in Burma.

Isolation, they claim, will only make the military government stronger and the people poorer.

Hannah James, editor of Real Travel magazine, agrees, “Independent travelers return with tales of locals desperate for visitors to come and an understanding of a country that the dictatorship just won’t allow to escape otherwise.

“If we stop going, are we turning our back on the military dictatorship or on the Burmese people themselves?”

Johnny Chatterton disagrees, “I would say that the people of Burma – represented by their politicians and trade unions – are the best qualified to judge whether tourists can play a positive role in their country.”

Some argue that the Burmese regime is no more brutal than those of other tourist destinations. But the reality is that Burma is different. Human right breaches can be directly connected to the tourism industry and the resulting revenue is helping the regime continue.

Letting The Reader Decide

BBC Worldwide’s guide, which they say will continue to be published, simply presents the information, leaving the decision its readers.

Even Rough Guide, in supporting the request for a tourist boycott, stresses it is a personal choice for individual travelers to make.

“We’re here to inspire and encourage travel, but we try to do so in as responsible a way as possible,” says Hannah James.

“The independent traveler will go to Burma if they want to, and it’s our job to best equip them to deal with the experience in a suitable manner rather than ignore them, and therefore the Burmese people, entirely.”

Readers of Lonely Planet are generally knowledgeable of political situations and fully aware of ethical travel. Their journeys tends to benefit local communities and small businesses first and foremost.

Ultimately, in publishing the Lonely Planet guide to Burma it is difficult to argue that the BBC Worldwide is supporting the Than Shwe’s regime.

Travelers will decide on their own merit the ethical issues of traveling to this controversial but no doubt beautiful country. And hopefully they will help by either spreading knowledge or financial support.

What is your stance on the controversy? Share your thoughts in the comments!

]]> http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2008/06/13/is-the-bbc-indirectly-funding-burmas-military-regime/feed/ 8 http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2008/06/09/6-ways-to-avoid-aiding-repressive-governments/ http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2008/06/09/6-ways-to-avoid-aiding-repressive-governments/#comments Mon, 09 Jun 2008 13:52:10 +0000 Matthew Kepnes http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/?p=586 In the author’s opinion, the benefits of traveling to these countries outweigh the negatives of avoiding these countries.

Photo by wajakemek

Cuba. Syria. North Korea. Myanmar. China.

You’ve heard the names and the stories. Their governments are abhorred by the international community for being repressive, authoritative, and sometimes bloody.

They limit access to information, movement, and education. They limit the freedoms of their people and hoard the country’s wealth while their people suffer in poverty.

Since Cyclone Nargis and the chaos in Tibet, world attention on these countries has become more sharply focused.

As I recently wrote about Tibet, boycotting China only encourages a hard line. The same is also true for these repressive countries. Boycotting only hurts the locals and keeps these regimes in power by limiting the people’s access to the information that may foster change.

Should we travel to these places? Will our travel, however tightly controlled, help the people or the government in power?

This is a complex and personal issue but, in my opinion, the benefits of traveling to these countries outweigh the negatives.

Travelers expose the people who suffer under repressive governments to ideas they can’t otherwise access. Depriving them of that information keeps them uninformed and helps the government to continue its stranglehold. A vibrant travel industry can also bring money they desperately need to survive.

People are understandably worried that their travel might be viewed as support for the government but by avoiding these countries.

Can we travel without supporting the government? Yes, here’s how:

Avoid government run organizations.

Governments have their hands in all the cookie jars. They run bus services, tourist offices, tours, hotels, and most everything else. It can be difficult to avoid them but it can be done. Find an operation not owned by the government, no matter how bad, and go there. Look for independent people offering rooms, rides, or guides. Support them.

Donate.

Give money to aid organizations in the country, temples, schools, or other charities that help the people directly.

Love thy neighbor.

Be kind, be gentle, be polite. Doing so will show the locals you aren’t the “boogie man” government propaganda makes you out to be. It will help counter the government propaganda machine. It will show them that the outside world isn’t so scary.

Volunteer.

This is the best way to offer direct assistance. Build a house, teach children, or help the sick. Whatever you do, it will be appreciated and directly improve the lives of the local inhabitants. Helping through Volunteer tourism will last longer than money and give the people something they can use years to come.

Follow the rules.

Following the rules is extremely important. Not only does this keep you out of trouble, but it also helps counter the propaganda that all foreigners are trouble makers. Governments would love to parade you around as a rabble rouser. Don’t give them that chance! It gives them an excuse to tighten their grip and further limit freedoms, movement, and information.

Tip generously.

They need that dollar more than you do. As a backpacker, I know how a tight budget feels, but the victims of years of repressive policies need the cash more than you. By donating to them, you help improve their lives directly as well as show them a kindness they normally don’t see.

Travel shouldn’t only be about expanding your own mind, but also the minds of the locals you meet – and everyone is entitled to that opportunity.

Don’t punish the people of these countries because their governments are repressive – go and show them that there’s a bright world out there…and we want them to be a part of it!

Do you think traveling to repressed countries is better than boycotting them? Share your thoughts in the comments!

]]> http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2008/06/09/6-ways-to-avoid-aiding-repressive-governments/feed/ 23 http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2008/05/28/why-its-useless-to-boycott-the-bejiing-olympics/ http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2008/05/28/why-its-useless-to-boycott-the-bejiing-olympics/#comments Wed, 28 May 2008 12:00:38 +0000 Matthew Kepnes http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/?p=572 While China certainly needs to improve its human rights, boycotting the Olympics will not get them to do so.

Photo by Shapeshift

Amid the violence of Tibet, a debate has emerged in the west: Should we boycott the Beijing Olympic Games?

Protesters in Paris disrupted the torch relay forcing officials to extinguish the torch 5 times. Similar incidents happened when they lit the Olympic torch in Greece and London.

There is talk in the United States of boycotting the opening ceremonies, Germany is talking about boycotting the whole event, and many groups are calling for the general populace and for athletes to boycott the event altogether.

All of this is designed to “shame” China on their human rights record and thereby cause enough embarrassment that China will be forced to change their ways in order to seem credible on the world stage.

Will this be successful? Should we politicize this sporting event? Will we really push China in a new direction?

The answer, I believe, is a resounding NO.

While China certainly needs to improve its human rights, boycotting the Olympics will not get them to do so. Those who believe it will lack a complete understanding of Chinese psychology and history.

The Prism Of History

Chinese history is filled with incidents in which the West has subjugated China, and they still harbor a lot of resentment about this past.

China strongly maintains a policy of staying out of people’s affairs. They believe it’s no one’s place to tell them how to live their life and thereby take great offense when people tell them what to do.

Nationalist pride is at stake and they won’t be seen as bowing to foreign pressure.

Over the years, the Chinese government has stoked nationalism as a way to legitimatize itself amid a diminishing communist system. That is why in recent years there have been severe Chinese protests in response to what the Chinese people see as foreign pressure.

To them, the Olympics are a matter of honor. It is a matter of national pride, and they view western calls for a boycott as just another example of Western interference in China.

Chinese history is filled with incidents in which the West has subjugated China, and they still harbor a lot of resentment about this past.

Issues like Tibet and Taiwan are seen through the prism of historical events like the Opium Wars and partitioning of places like Hong Kong and Macau.

Any talk of what “China must do” only increases their resistance and hardens their position. Chinese youth have been educated in this system and, watching the news, one understands why they are behind the furor.

The Chinese government has raised a generation on nationalism. To them, this is just another example of Western interference and hypocrisy.

Starting A Dialogue

Photo by Yves

China entered the world through engagement in the 1970s and will only reform through further engagement.

The most effective action is to go, talk, and get the Chinese people involved. If there is both internal and external pressure, you might get some change.

The Chinese government is always more willing to work a deal when it is done behind closed doors. Saving face and avoiding shame is a must for a government who legitimizes itself through nationalistic pride.

If the people feel they caved, they lose all credibility making maintaining stability even harder to achieve. The government will never risk such an outcome.

If the Olympics are a disaster and China views the debacle as the West once again trying to control their affairs, China will only become more resistant to working with the West on other global issues.

We can’t let that happen. China is too important – we need them on climate change, Darfur, and Iran.

A Slap In The Face

Saving face and avoiding shame is a must for a government that legitimizes itself through nationalistic pride.

Looking at Chinese history will show you how they will act now. Chinese leaders are pragmatic. They need to be perceived as a global player and have done things in the past to change, albeit slowly.

However, they also know they have a population of 1.4 billion that wakes up each day and needs to be fed and cared for. Their first goal is stability – and they won’t risk stability for global recognition.

I don’t agree with many of China’s policies. I think they should do more on Darfur, talk to the Dalai Lama, and reduce abuses within their borders.

But the Chinese want to be taken seriously. They have come a long way from the China of Mao and one can’t expect a democracy that took Western civilization a thousand years to appear in thirty. We have prodded them this far and this is their way of showing the world they have arrived.

Boycotting the Olympics, an event the Chinese see as their coming out party, will only be viewed as a slap in the face.

So don’t boycott the Olympics. Go and spread ideas. Interact with the people. Dispel myths about westerners, show them they are respected, that we can work together.

Then you’ll begin change China. From the bottom up.

Should the international community boycott China? Share your thoughts in the comments!

]]> http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2008/05/28/why-its-useless-to-boycott-the-bejiing-olympics/feed/ 37 http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2008/05/21/why-we-still-need-to-write-about-african-poverty/ http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2008/05/21/why-we-still-need-to-write-about-african-poverty/#comments Wed, 21 May 2008 12:00:11 +0000 Sarah Stuteville http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/?p=566 The United Nations Population Fund estimates that 1 billion people live in slums like Kibera – one in every six people in the world.

Photo by Chrissy Olson

One of the first pieces of advice I received before leaving on this reporting project was from an Ethiopian diplomat in the States who requested that I “not be a typical journalist” in my coverage of Africa.

What he meant was that he didn’t want to see any more stories about African poverty in the news.

“Why don’t you write about positive things, like investment opportunities,” he suggested cheerfully as we toasted with Ethiopian honey wine in his spacious suburban home.

This is an increasingly common attitude in the media world as well, one I’ve even heard myself espousing at times. The concern is that coverage of Africa has been reduced to abstract misery; conflict, disaster, and of course, shocking poverty.

This numbing loop has left many Westerners dulled to images of violence and need.

A few days ago I had drinks with an American correspondent in Nairobi who said she felt that Americans were tired of images and descriptions of African poverty, that they no longer made an impact. Her answer was to focus her reporting on the Kenyan middle class as a way of humanizing African citizens.

This is another conversation I’m familiar with, one that pokes fun at reporters that go looking for the news clichés of “babies with flies in their eyes,” or “mothers that can’t find enough food to feed their families.”

Making An Impact

Before judging reporters for their insensitivity, keep in mind that our job is to get stories into the media and ensure a last impression.

Before judging reporters for their insensitivity, keep in mind that our job is to get stories into the media and our hope, most often, is to ensure that those stories will make a lasting impression when you read them over your morning coffee.

This is a job that often requires unsettling ethical calculations as we strategize ways to convince editors to take another story about infant mortality, and whether that story will emotionally resonate with our relatively comfortable audience thousands of miles away.

Recently a piece I wrote comparing my water-wasteful lifestyle in the United States with the stories I’d reported of water shortages in rural Ethiopia–specifically how one father had lost four children to waterborne diseases–was classified by one reader as just another “guilt trip.”

Yet most of the reporting our team has done on this trip has centered on the larger environmental and political explanations for water shortages and water-related problems in eastern Africa.

African poverty has certainly made appearances, but it hasn’t seemed like a crucial focus of our work. That is, it hadn’t until I visited Kibera township.

The Face Of Poverty

Photo by Chrissy Olson

I traveled on a series of crowded matatus (minibuses) blaring African rap and boasting stickers declaring “Kibera ni Moja–Kibera United” and ended up in one of the world’s largest slums.

It was about 7am on a Saturday when I arrived at one of Kibera’s many entrances. Despite it being the weekend I watched as an endless line of people passed on foot in the still faint dawn.

I stood quietly as Nairobi’s factory workers, maids, cooks, nannies, security guards and drivers entered Kibera at the end of a long nightshift or trudged out for another day of work.

There was no hard news reason for me to be here. The post-election violence that put Kibera on the media radar this winter was long over. The displaced people were still displaced and the burned homes stood in charred ruins.

All that was left for an American reporter to see was the cold reality of life in one of the world’s most impoverished communities.

A Desperate Affair

Life inside Kibera, whether journalists and editors deem it worth repeating or not, is a desperate affair for those that call it home.

The Kenyan rainy season has begun and the tiny paths that connect homes and businesses have turned into a slippery clay-like sludge. Open sewers flood with human waste, corroded pipes unload brown water into backyards, tiny kids dressed in almost humorously ill-fitted and tattered outfits chase each other over mountains of shredded plastic bags and scraps of rotting food.

Kibera has been growing steadily since it was first settled by Nubians brought here to build the country’s railroad, and a century later it is home to an estimated million people who still live without basic services.

The Kenyan government is hesitant to legitimize illegally squatted land. That means there is no sewer system, no garbage pick-up, no piped water, no regular electricity and no government schools.

It means that residents, most living on less than one U.S. dollar a day, must fend for themselves without any illusions that their government or the rest of the world cares.

And before I lose my readers’ attention with generic descriptions of urban squalor, before you decide–as I have on occasion–that this story has been told and doesn’t properly represent life in Africa, or think privately to yourself that there isn’t much you can do and anyway, “the poor are always with us,” let me place these scenes in the terrifying context they deserve.

By The Numbers

The United Nations Population Fund estimates that 1 billion people live in slums like Kibera. That’s one in every six people in the world. In Nairobi it’s 60% of the city’s population.

I was looking at the makings of the permanent underclass required to support the polarized global economy we are shaping today.

The UN predicts these numbers will double over the next few decades.

Given this perspective, investment opportunities and Africa’s “middle class” suddenly don’t seem like the most relevant stories to tell here.

The other day, as I stood in a cloudburst on a muddy hill above the train tracks that cut through Kibera and looked out on a landscape of rusted tin roofs, I couldn’t shake the rising fear that I was looking into the future.

I felt beyond a shadow that I was looking at the makings of the permanent underclass required to support the polarized global economy we are shaping today.

And I wondered if we, citizens in the rich world, hadn’t already steeled ourselves to this cruel reality. If this callous resignation isn’t the reason why we’ve tired of reading about twenty-first century poverty before the magnitude of it is even realized.

Because Kibera isn’t a story that’s already been told-it’s a story that’s being written.

What are your thoughts on writing about “real issues” such as global poverty? Share your thoughts in the comments!

]]> http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2008/05/21/why-we-still-need-to-write-about-african-poverty/feed/ 15 http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2008/05/14/can-you-face-your-own-nationality-abroad/ http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2008/05/14/can-you-face-your-own-nationality-abroad/#comments Wed, 14 May 2008 12:00:49 +0000 Olivia Hambrett http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/?p=559 Everything you do and say in your language, with your accent (and flag stitched on your backpack) is duly noted by other cultures.

Aussie Boys – Photo by Margaritanitz

Let’s not lie, in a line up of five travelers, you could easily pick out the nationality of each.

Socks and sandals? Hello Scandinavian. Short shorts and a platform flip flop? That would be the American. Moon tan and neatly laced sensible shoes? Let’s see, the Pom?

Painfully stylish with a permanent snooty look on their face? Clearly French. Singlet and board shorts and a pair of weather beaten thongs? That’s the Aussie, me.

We all know the myth of the Aussie. Laid-back, easy-going, perennially tanned, with a beer in hand. We take it easy, mate, have a smile for everyone and although some of us say g’day, none of us drink Fosters.

But we won’t hold it against you if you think we do. We’ll just pull your leg and tell you we ride kangaroos to school.

For a while now, Australians have enjoyed a pristine reputation as travelers.

We smile at New Yorkers on the subway, which really unnerves them. We try and drink the Germans under the table, refusing to admit defeat despite the fact that our livers simply aren’t up to the challenge. We are everybody’s friend.

The Land Down Undah

There is a new generation of Aussie travelers in town, tarnishing an image our predecessors worked very hard to carve.

Somebody hit the lights. There is a new generation of Aussie travelers in town, tarnishing an image our predecessors worked very hard (drank liters of beer and spun millions of tall tales) to carve.

This new Aussie traveler, whilst probably sun damaged, talkative and not at all averse to having a drink with Duncan (Australian joke … anyone?) is most likely between the ages of 18-25, and sporting a long mane in an effort to rebel against the all-too-fresh memory of school rules.

The new Aussie might grin at you in the check-in line, but they’ll also keep you awake till 3am by trawling up and down the hostel corridors alternately repeating the C and F words.

You see, this is a whole new brash, obnoxious Backpacker Generation for whom world travel is more about beer bongs and swapping hostel beds than it is any sort of cultural immersion.

Look, we’re lovely people, for the most part. And we generally enjoy a good reputation.

All I’m saying is we have to be careful. Because at any minute, the tables can turn. Our larrikin persona can, in the blink of an eye, be construed as obnoxious.

The Eyes Of The Other

Photo by Chilling Soul

Of course, it is easy to forget how we are perceived globally, to step outside our own little national bubble and see ourselves through the eyes of the other few billion that are out there.

And that goes for everyone, not just the little brats of the international family. Hot pants can be too hot, comments too presumptuous and arrogance is never welcome.

In one’s own context, so much is permissible and taken for granted – phrases, manners, social norms – that it is easy to forget that it may not be the case elsewhere.

That people who function in the exact same way we do, just a few thousand miles away, may be repulsed by what we find perfectly okay.

Spitting, nose-blowing, touching – fine some places, absolutely not in others. And nor should you, as a traveler, expect what is okay in your own backyard, to be okay everywhere else (ignorance is one of the most reviled traits in travelers).

Of course, many hang ups and reputations are so deeply ingrained they are nearly impossible to reverse; we can only remedy them bit by bit.

Practice Awareness

At the end of the day, Poms look down on Australians (when they’re not roasting their skin beneath its rays) as being a country of their unwanted convicts, just as they look down on Americans for being loud and generally ignorant.

Americans, for their part, are genuinely surprised the rest of the world sees them any other way than how they see themselves, and are equally as surprised crocodiles don’t live in the backyard swimming pools of Australians.

Europeans had it all figured out a long time ago and so look on with the gentle humour of a parent.

And Asian cultures run the gamut from the Japanese, who are obsessed with anything Anglo-kitsch to the Thai (who are probably sick of all things Anglo-Kitsch).

But, it’s worth everyone’s while to just be aware. Everything you do and say in your language, with your accent (and probably your flag stitched on your backpack) is duly noted.

And whilst perhaps not commented on at the time by a polite local, the reputation you build as a result, speaks volumes.

What do you think of your own nationality abroad? Share your thoughts in the comments!

]]> http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2008/05/14/can-you-face-your-own-nationality-abroad/feed/ 33 http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2008/05/07/could-you-be-a-war-photographer/ http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2008/05/07/could-you-be-a-war-photographer/#comments Wed, 07 May 2008 12:00:10 +0000 Ellen Wilson http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/?p=553 War photographers are accused of being adrenaline junkies. But they bear a terrible burden for witnessing the worst.

Photo by Mark Brecke

A photographer is a witness. Witnessing war is one of the ultimate human tragedies.

But what if you held a camera and not a gun? What would you see? What would you choose to shoot?

But perhaps, more importantly, what would happen to you after you took the shot? How would the experience change your view of humanity? How would it change your view of yourself?

War photographers are accused of being adrenaline junkies. Continually on the hunt for the next war, the next picture, they shove their lenses into the faces of their traumatized victims.

They are portrayed as voyeurs of suffering, and scavengers of the worst that humanity has to offer – mere human robots snapping pictures in the theater of war.

But there is a price to be paid for viewing all of this suffering.

Haunting Memories

The photographers all spoke of filming scenes of such grotesqueness that they knew the photos would never be published.

According to a study published in the Columbia Journalism Review, war journalists had significantly more post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, and psychological distress than their domestic counterparts.

The war group also experienced a rate of PTSD over the course of their lives that far exceeded that of firefighters and police officers. In fact, war journalists approximated the PTSD rate recorded in combat veterans.

The photographers in the study all spoke of filming scenes of such grotesqueness that they knew the photos would never be published. Yet, even in the light of public squeamishness or editorial sensitivities, they felt compelled to record a visual testament.

Although the images never went further then the vaults of their mind, the collective weight of their memory would often intrude on their waking consciousness and nightly dreams.

With all the invasion of privacy, with all the peril, there is still this sense of mission.

Bearing Witness

World famous war photographer James Nachtwey has traveled everywhere wars and atrocities have been committed in the last decades: Iraq, Israel, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Indonesia, Kosovo, Chechnya, Rwanda, Bosnia, Sudan, Somalia, and many other countries.

Nachtwey believes his photography serves a purpose beyond visual remembrance.

He knows the gripping effect his photographs will have on people, and he has never stopped hoping that this effect will serve to stop the war, the hunger, and the poverty that is portrayed in his work:

“It’s more difficult to get publications to focus on issues that are more critical, that do not provide people with an escape from reality but attempt to get them deeper into reality. To be concerned about something much greater than themselves. And I think people are concerned. I think quite often, publishers don’t give their audience enough credit for that.

In fact, at the end of the day, I believe people do want to know when there’s some major tragedy going on; when there’s some unacceptable situation happening in this world. And they want something done about it. That’s what I believe. We must look at it. We’re required to look at it. We’re requited to do what we can about it. If we don’t, who will?”

There must be a reconciliation of the opposites of viewing the ugliest of humanity versus the beautiful good that humanity can create.

Shifting Morality

Photo by Christian Frei Film Productions

After 20 years of being a war photographer, Don McCullin wondered, “…these moral questions, later on, they came to haunt me.”

He speaks of a time when he was in the Congo, where the government soldiers had rounded up some young rebels fighting for Patrice Lumumba, and they were stripped, and the soldiers were goading them with rifles.

The young rebels looked at Mr. McCullin, pleading with him, with their eyes – to save them. There was nothing he could do. The government soldiers would have shot him.

As a witness, he took the picture, recognizing that he could be castigated for doing so. The photo, and the moment, will not be forgotten.

“I don’t approach these people as places as current events,” says Mark Brecke, a war photographer who travels light, and alone. “That’s not why I do this.”

Finding The Spirit

Brecke speaks of the people he has encountered, of stripping it all to the bare bones. He says, “It’s as if, in the face of it, stripped of everything else, they find the center, something spiritual – that thing that is most human.”

Even so, there is only so much humanity a human can take. “The day after a Congo grenade attack, I paid a guide to take me into the mountains to photograph the silverback gorillas,” says Brecke. “I’d had enough of people for a while.”

Perhaps this is why Don McCullin retired to Somerset, land of Arthurian legend, where he now gardens and advocates for the preservation of the English countryside.

Mixed within the fruits and berries of his garden pictures are Indian Gods and Goddesses. “I think I’m allowed to use this as a kind of herbal medicine for my mind,” McCullin says. “To love the environment where I live.”

Community Connection

Check out The Face Of War in A Child, a profile of Mark Brecke published last year in Traverse magazine.

What do you think of war photographers? Crucial service or crass opportunism? Share your thoughts in the comments!

]]> http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2008/05/07/could-you-be-a-war-photographer/feed/ 12 http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2008/04/30/can-tribal-tourism-actually-help-preserve-indigenous-culture/ http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2008/04/30/can-tribal-tourism-actually-help-preserve-indigenous-culture/#comments Wed, 30 Apr 2008 12:00:54 +0000 Lucy Corne http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/?p=547 When the principal attraction of a trip is looking at other people’s lives, there’s a fine line between human interest and human zoo.

Photo by Monia Sassi

While much of Africa is best known for its stunning wildlife and superlative National Parks, Ethiopia’s main travel draws are scenic natural beauty and fascinating people.

Therefore, it seemed only natural that when our overland trip passed through Ethiopia, we took a detour to the Omo Valley, an area rich in colorful tribes.

But seeing the excursion on our itinerary alongside temple visits, camel treks and countless game drives made me feel a little uncomfortable. When the principal attraction of a trip is looking at how other people live, there’s a fine line between human interest and human zoo.

In our short visit to this tribal region could we really learn much about a people’s traditions or were we just wandering through to gawk and collect a few snaps for Facebook?

On the jarring 12-hour truck ride to Turmi, a dusty town deep in the valley, we quizzed our guide Wesigne about the Hamer people, their customs and whether or not they would welcome interlopers.

When the principal attraction of a trip is looking at how other people live, there’s a fine line between human interest and human zoo.

He assured us that as well as being the most populous, the Hamer were the friendliest tribe in the region.

Sure enough, as our truck neared its destination the faces gazing at us from the roadside were smiling, though it is a little tough to appreciate a friendly wave when the outstretched hand is clutching a Kalashnikov.

Automatic weapons aside, the Hamer are a striking people, their chiseled, androgynous beauty marred only by the occasional decorative scars scored with inch-long thorns.

The Appeal of Tribal Tourism

For some reason, tribal living holds an undeniable worldwide appeal for tourists.

Admiring unique styles of dress and witnessing time-honored practices that have long-since become obsolete in western culture, offer a peek into a world that we only know from books and documentaries.

Photo by Monia Sassi

In fact, many people travel just to seek traditional cultures, shunning Western countries as boring, safe destinations. They want to visit those remaining corners where ancient lifestyles prevail before outside influences dilute and destroy them forever.

Yet by insisting on visiting these societies, perhaps we travelers are the very ones who contribute most to their decline.

Tourist visits inevitably bring items with them that are alien to certain cultures, items which many people believe pollute traditional societies by inflicting ‘westernisation’.

During our brief visit to the Hamer, Wesigne was quick to scold a travel companion for giving his old sunglasses to a teenage member of the tribe. He claimed that, while seemingly insignificant, a gesture like this could gradually change the tribe – starting with their traditional dress.

But are these minor changes such a terrible thing? Why should we as outsiders be so intent on keeping tribal cultures so traditional?

Is cultural preservation a selfish desire, so we can take striking photos and have a riveting tale for our next email home?

Agents of Cultural Decay

We presume that anything western would be a pollutant, but perhaps even the most traditional of tribes would enjoy a few modern conveniences to make life a little easier.

It seems that Westerners are intent on preserving other people’s cultures, even if that means making those people work a little harder for their daily bread.

The Hamer have already swapped their traditional spears for rather alarming machine guns. No, they’re not part of the typical costume, but when you’re dealing with AK47-wielding cattle rustlers, maybe you need something more than a spear to defend your livelihood.

At times it seems that Westerners are intent on preserving other people’s cultures, even if that means making those people work a little harder for their daily bread.

While wandering through the hassle-free market (aimed at locals, not the trickle of tourists that venture to this remote corner of southern Ethiopia) our guide bumped into his good friend Kale, a Hamer warrior.

Curious to learn a local perspective, we asked what he thought of tourists visiting his tribe and were surprised by his response. Translated through Wesigne, he told us that tourism might actually benefit the Hamer.

“If we know that people are visiting to see our customs, we become more proud of them and maybe that means there’s more chance of us keeping our traditions alive,” he said.

It was a point of view that I had never considered.

Pride and Tradition

If outside interest maintains pride in tribal traditions and travelers provide a small cash injection that enables rural dwellers to avoid the worldwide trend of moving to urban slums, is it possible ‘tribal tourism’ could actually help to conserve traditional life?

As we left Turmi a day later, I tasted much food for thought. We’d worried that our visit might be met with hostility, but what we found was an overwhelming indifference towards tourists.

Perhaps it was shyness, perhaps a way of masking distrust, but I think that we were seen by the villagers as an inevitable occurrence that, for the moment at least, has little bearing on daily life.

On our return truck ride along the bumpy dirt roads I noticed two Ethiopians from out of town heading back to their homes after a day of trading with the Hamer. Their Nike shirts and shorts were coupled with the headbands and gold bangles sported by tribal warriors in a style I like to think of as ‘Hamer Chic’.

It appeared that while outside influences are bound to change the tribe, cultural exchange is not always a one-way street.

Community Connection!

Check out Matador founder Ross Borden’s 10 Essential Tips For Visiting Indigenous Peoples

Do travelers damage traditional cultures, or does tribal tourism keep traditions vibrant and alive? Make your voice heard by leaving a comment below.

]]> http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2008/04/30/can-tribal-tourism-actually-help-preserve-indigenous-culture/feed/ 9 http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2008/04/23/how-i-made-peace-with-my-american-identity/ http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2008/04/23/how-i-made-peace-with-my-american-identity/#comments Wed, 23 Apr 2008 13:00:26 +0000 Rachel Friedman http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/?p=540 Turns out not everyone loves Americans. For Rachel Friedman, the shock of seeing her nation from abroad led to feelings of betrayal, denial and awakening.

Photo by Scott Muscatello

My first solo trip abroad was less than a year after 9/11.

Life in the U.S. was still tense, especially on the East coast, where I was a junior in college.

Airports were enveloped in almost sanctuary-like silence. While I waited to board my flight to Dublin I watched people remove shoes and sweaters and belts.

Women hadn’t yet learned not to wear knee-high boots or anything with complicated laces. Security guards went through their motions with heavy, serious expressions.

Tomorrow I would be in Ireland for the start of a long summer away from home and I felt a distinct sense of relief when the U.S. gave way to the Atlantic Ocean.

I thought that, in addition to leaving behind all of my personal worries (like what to do now that graduation was approaching, or how to heal my failing relationship), I was also leaving behind some of the cultural worries you couldn’t help but absorb in the United States in 2002.

I was going to escape my American identity and cultural baggage. In Ireland I would reinvent myself completely.

No Escape?

It’s true that I was temporarily able to detach myself from the personal decisions and messes I left behind in the U.S

Now that I’m a little bit older and a little more travel-savvy, I realize that my idea of complete escape and self-renewal was naive.

It’s true that I was temporarily able to detach myself from the personal decisions and messes I left behind in the U.S. For four months, I managed to ignore the aspects of my life back home that no one in Ireland knew about.

However, I soon found that escaping my cultural life and American identity in Ireland proved impossible from the outset.

From the moment I landed in Ireland and opened my mouth to ask directions, I revealed my nationality and, given the current state of world affairs, there was no denying my American roots.

In fact, now that I was a foreigner, I felt more American than ever, since in my own country I took this part of myself for granted.

A New York State Of Mind

In Ireland, when I told people I was from New York, sincere expressions of sympathy and empathy greeted me.

I made half-hearted attempts to explain that I was from upstate New York (like way, way upstate with farms and cows and no Bloomingdales) and had only visited the city a handful of times. A few weeks later when I had made some Irish friends I realized a good half of them had spent more time in New York City than I had.

But it didn’t matter. People heard New York and that was all it took.

Before then I had never really thought how citizens from other countries were affected by the terrorist attacks in America. I was so wrapped up in my own shock and sadness that I hadn’t given a sustained thought to the rest of the world.

That others were sympathetic to what I previously considered a wholly American trauma was not the only thing I learned as an American abroad. I also found out (and please stifle your giggles) that Americans are often considered loud and ignorant.

The idea that I might embody either of these traits to even a small degree truly flabbergasted me. And then I found something even more disturbing.

Apparently, even though we are an affable and fun-loving people, there are those (some might say many) out there who don’t like us, who, it might even be said, downright loath Americans.

Coming To Terms

Photo by La Petite Gourmande

I grappled with these revelations in different ways.

First I was surprised by what other people thought of Americans, the stereotypes and then, especially as time ticked further away from the immediate post 9/11 sympathy, the overt frustration and cynicism many expressed over the actions of the U.S. government leading up to the war in Iraq.

At the same time, I was meeting people from other countries who offered me wholly new perspectives on things like universal health care, affordable education and the consumptive lifestyles we in the U.S. tend to lead.

After getting over my initial shock, I began to experience something like betrayal. A lot of childhood messages instilled in me about being American – essentially that we do everything better than everyone else – started to ring false.

After surprise and betrayal came embarrassment and even denial. (Yes, I once or twice pretended to be Canadian).

After that came self-deprecation, heartily lamenting the state of my government alongside people from other countries and listening to diatribe after diatribe while I tried to convince people that Americans themselves, especially those who travel, were clearly distinguishable from George W. Bush.

Home Sweet Home?

When I returned home after two years, I was still in this weird place where I both knew that I was definitively American, but didn’t really want to be.

When I got off the plane in New York, I saw my own people through the eyes of the travelers I had met.

When I got off the plane in New York, I saw my own people through the eyes of the travelers I had met. We were loud and nosy and unaware of other people’s personal space. I felt more like a foreigner than ever.

But eventually, after I settled back into my life and reconnected with family and friends, I started to remember the good things about Americans as well–our chatty warmth, our willingness to make fools of ourselves, our desire to be better and to have a better country than we do now.

I also realized that I was the only one responsible for the way that I lived. If I wanted to, say, start a recycling program in my neighborhood, I could. If I wanted to enter politics and become an advocate for universal health care, I could.

And if I wanted to change perceptions about Americans by writing about my travels and continue to make connections with others around the world who also believed in the revelatory power of travel, I could do that too.

Making Peace With Myself

Somewhere in the months after I returned home, I stopped apologizing for things outside of my direct control, for my government and my politicians.

Instead, I looked for similarities between people and places and, when I began doing that, I started to feel better about who I was and my place in the world. Although I still struggle with my identity, I realized that I had to make peace with the American in me in order to move forward.

So I did. Mostly.

Do you struggle with your nationality abroad? Share your thoughts in the comments!

]]> http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2008/04/23/how-i-made-peace-with-my-american-identity/feed/ 24 http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2008/04/02/should-english-be-the-worlds-international-language/ http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2008/04/02/should-english-be-the-worlds-international-language/#comments Wed, 02 Apr 2008 13:00:43 +0000 Terry Dip http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2008/04/02/should-english-be-the-worlds-international-language/ English is spoken in every major city in the world, especially tourist destinations. Terry Dip thinks there’s a problem with that.

Photo by BingBing

Paris. At a cafe outside the Pantheon, I see a group of Japanese tourists, all women between their 20’s and 50’s, telling a waiter in broken English, “Something to drink, please… non-alcoholic.”

Costa Rica. Far away from any major city, I get an ear infection and go to the doctor, who asks me if I speak Spanish. I can chat in the language, but I couldn’t discuss my medical status in necessary detail. The doctor speaks to me in English.

Ho Chi Minh City. I go out with a friend who is bilingual in Cantonese and Vietnamese. I speak neither language. We stay at his friend’s house who speaks only Vietnamese. The friend tries to communicate with me in English.

These scenarios happen the world over.

English is spoken in every major city in the world, especially tourist destinations. You might think that means it has the most speakers. Not true – Mandarin is spoken by more people, but Mandarin is not spoken much outside China.

Mandarin was never a colonial language on a global scale. English claimed the title from French, which was a colonial language but has been losing power ever since America became the dominant world power.

If there’s a world language, it is English.

A Lack Of Colour

I find myself annoyed when Americans tour the world expecting to be understood whenever they speak in English.

I find myself annoyed when Americans tour the world expecting to be understood whenever they speak in English.

I am even more irritated when I hear travelers from outside the English-speaking world visiting another foreign country where English is not the official language and trying to get around by speaking English.

To be fair, there’s nothing linguistically wrong with the English language, and I admit it’s very convenient (for Americans, Brits, and Aussies).

But I strongly believe the prevalence of English is one of the biggest reasons the majority of America’s youth know next to nothing about the outside world. And the ignorance is not limited to just that age group. FDR ended American’s “age of isolationism” more than half a century ago.

It’s time Americans did some serious footwork to catch up.

Studying Abroad

Studying abroad has become more popular over the years for cultural immersion – yet the most common destinations for Americans are still Britain and Australia, followed by Italy, France, and Spain.

You couldn’t live in Rome without speaking Italian, Paris without speaking French, or Seville without speaking Spanish, but English could arguably get you through a summer or semester, which is typically the amount of time college undergrads spend abroad before they get back to the U.S. in the fall.

Even if American college students stay abroad long enough to understand the language and culture to a modest degree, most are still studying in the West.

In comparison, India and China send more students to America for higher education than any other countries in the world. This is a severe global cultural imbalance (not unlike the import-export gap America has with China, and look where that’s gotten the US economy).

Pop Culture USA

Photo by Terry Dip

American movies and TV rule the world. That’s a fact. When was the last time you saw a TV ad or a billboard for a foreign film? Yes, we all know Bollywood, but the Indian actor/character Americans are most familiar with is undoubtedly Apu.

Advertisements for Hero, House of Flying Daggers, and Fearless have gotten some airtime, but any publicity is minuscule compared to what any standard American movie gets. Furthermore, even big foreign films have only limited releases.

During my time own study abroad term in Sweden, Pirates of the Caribbean II and Superman Returns were playing in major movie theaters whereas domestic Swedish films had posters in alleyways and were played in small movie houses.

Friends is insanely popular in France. I know friends who stay up watching 24 in Hong Kong and Japan.

I myself spent many weeknights watching Family Guy, in the original English (Swedes never dub their imported American TV shows), with fellow international students when we could’ve been exploring the nooks and crannies of Lund, the local town.

In Sweden, I had the privilege of taking an academic trip to Brussels with a number of colleagues. While at a mini-conference with some representatives from the EU Commission, an American student raised her hand and asked, “Is the EU thinking about having a single official language?”

The EU now has over 20 official languages, and annual translation costs are over $1 billion USD – so if if her question was thoroughly impractical, it did show some concern for the cost.

But then she added, “Maybe English?”

War Of Confusion

While it’s possible that miscommunication due to ignorance of each other’s languages has been a driving force of ethnic wars, I don’t think having an international language is the solution.

Our entire concept of everyday reality is shaped around language. Language, more than anything else, I think, defines a people.

If English is the world language, it could burn away the cultural differences that make our world so interesting, reducing our vibrant global inheritance of culture to ashes (does anyone remember The Giver?)

Our entire concept of everyday reality is shaped around language. If you speak multiple languages, you start to see things in many more shades because some concepts just cannot be translated, directly or indirectly.

Language, more than anything else, I think, defines a people. You can’t fully understand a culture without first learning the language. Forgive me for mentioning pop culture, which some might find vapid, but you can’t deny the influence it has on the members of our society, especially the young.

Have you ever tried to call someone a chicken in Spanish by directly translating the word? Didn’t make much sense, did it?

Did you know that the famous Japanese phrase itadakimasu, said before every meal, simply means “to receive with gratitude” in formal speech? Imagine saying “Receive!” right before dinner.

Even “Let’s eat,” which is the typical translation in anime and Japanese dramas and movies doesn’t quite have the same effect.

Our different languages have shaped who we are, our history, our heritage, our culture, our identity. Why should the world have one language when it can have many?

The Power Of Words

In the end, it is unclear whether our global America-dominated media culture is an advantage to Americans or not.

When I was in Sweden, most Swedes knew more about American politics than I did. The reason is simple: economically and politically, it is more important for them to know about America than it is for Americans to know about Sweden.

If you’re an American, are you comfortable with the rest of the world knowing more about you than you do about them?

English shouldn’t be the international language. Neither should Spanish, French, Mandarin, or Esperanto. The world doesn’t need an international language. What it needs is more cultural exchange and less cultural imperialism.

What do you think about English as the world’s international language? Share your thoughts in the comments!

]]> http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2008/04/02/should-english-be-the-worlds-international-language/feed/ 175 http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2008/03/21/will-the-coming-us-recession-lead-to-reflection/ http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2008/03/21/will-the-coming-us-recession-lead-to-reflection/#comments Fri, 21 Mar 2008 13:00:20 +0000 Tim Patterson http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2008/03/21/will-the-coming-us-recession-lead-to-reflection/ Too much economic growth under the Wall Street model is not good. It is rapacious and deadly.

Photo by zacden

Bad times for the United States economy.

Consumer spending is down. Economic growth is turning negative. We’re headed for a recession. Our politicians are desperate to solve this problem, to squeeze a few more micro-points of economic growth out of the American people.

This is not a crisis. It is an opportunity.

America, and the world, needs to chill out and slow down. We need to relax. We need to hug our children. We need to stop frantically racing around, constantly trying to get ahead.

We need to take a deep breath, walk down to the river or to the sea and watch the water and feel the sun. We need to remember that the world is beautiful and our needs are simple.

We must enjoy the easy pleasures of a rich, healthy, spiritually fulfilling life.

We can drive our cars less often. We can get by with hand-me-down jeans. We can let our brothers and sisters in Iraq come home.

More of us need to realize a single, essential, illuminating truth: Too much economic growth under the Wall Street model is not good. It is rapacious and deadly.

Breast-cancer rates are sky high. There is not much forest left. The air is becoming unfit to breathe. The wise people who understand the climate best tell us – they shout from the top of their lungs in fact – that we are headed for disaster.

America the Beautiful

The problem is that too often we cannot see what work our money is doing, or judge its merit for ourselves.

Even in the United States – a wide, fertile country of temperate seacoasts and golden fields – we are beginning to feel the impact of our economic curse: the frantic, desperate consumption of earth and water and forest, devastated by engines of greed.

Worse than human greed, however, is the economic beast’s newfound ability to strip away the capacity for human reason and moral judgment.

Without reason and without morality, we begin to lose the spiritual grace that makes us human.

How does the economy remove our humanity?

Efficiently.

Our Money At Work

Our money – the money we work for, the money in our retirement accounts, the money in our college funds – that money is working.

Photo by nighthawk7

It is earning interest. It is feeding 6 billion people, but it is also poisoning our lands and poisoning our government.

The problem is that too often we cannot see what work our money is doing, or judge its merit for ourselves.

We are in our homes in America. Our money is in Shanghai and Dubai and Moscow and Baghdad. It is working hard. It is telling us we NEED a new SUV, that fulfillment is on the far side of a flat-screen TV.

Our money is spilling millions of tons of poisonous chemicals on our farmland. It is building bombs and voting machines and artificial hearts.

Our money is building the laptop that I’m writing on right now. I can use this laptop to read the Dhammapada, or to learn about, empathize with and perhaps even help the bloody children in Darfur.

Or I can use my laptop (and a whole lot of my money) to buy shares in PetroChina, or Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, or perhaps Barrick Gold.

Our money is not bad. Or good. It has no morals. It is merely a tool.

Good People + Bad System = Sick And Dangerous World

The stewards of our money – the bankers, the lawyers, the politicians and the producers of corporate media – are not bad people. On the contrary, they are often among the best and brightest people in society.

The poor who work so hard to join the rich are good, strong, moral people too.

But all these good people are in the thrall of an illusion.

They are human, and even as they die of cancer, car crashes, stress and car-bombs, they cling to the belief that more money will make them happy, that more economic growth is the only answer, the sacred balm that will heal all wounds.

This is ridiculous. In the words of a wise man, “Mo’ Money, Mo’ Problems.” Or, put another way, “Money Does Not Equal Happiness”.

Here is what we must do.

We must simultaneously extend our compassion across the oceans and bring our money home to our hearts and hearths.

We must use our money well, to help each other, to communicate, to heal the sick, to grow healthy, delicious food, to refine the technology of solar panels and to make better filters for our water – in short, to work to cherish and protect all the precious bits of beauty in the world.

We must relax and be happy. We must love our neighbors (and love them like Jesus meant, not like in Desperate Housewives).

So take ten deep, slow breaths. Go on. See if you can do it.

Smile. Stand up. Stretch.

This Internet session is now over. Go outside and find something beautiful in the world.

What do you think of the future? Share your thoughts in the comments!

]]> http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2008/03/21/will-the-coming-us-recession-lead-to-reflection/feed/ 12 http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2008/03/19/budget-travelers-are-hippie-scum/ http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2008/03/19/budget-travelers-are-hippie-scum/#comments Wed, 19 Mar 2008 13:00:10 +0000 F. Daniel Harbecke http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2008/03/19/budget-travelers-are-hippie-scum/ The worst thing about hippies: they’re out there. Somewhere. And you can’t tell by looking at ‘em anymore.

Photo courtesy of hippies.

Why don’t all you damn hippies get a life?

Looking around, you don’t see many hippies these days. Sure, you see bellbottoms, tie-dyes and Birkenstocks – why not, they’re comfortable – but the people in them don’t consider themselves hippies.

They don’t live on communes. They’re skeptical about love being “free.” And though some will hug trees, you can’t make them do it for very long.

Weird.

To the literal-minded observer, this is sheer chaos. How do you make sweeping judgments if you can’t go by appearances?

What’s wrong with these people? Did they miss orientation? Are imitation hippies worse than hippie hippies? Who’s counterfeiting hippies?

Shockingly, hippies aren’t not the only ones doing it wrong. It’s common to see baseball caps without baseball players under them. Biker jackets, in Buicks. Cowboy boots nowhere near the Range.

Even me – not only have I never been to Hawaii, I’m pretty sure my shirt hasn’t, either. I’m sure it’s the hippies’ fault we’re all so confused.

Hippies Ruin Pure Travel

The problem of knowing who’s a hippie and who’s just dirty is magnified when abroad. Travel is a grungy business – many of us leave our Armanis and Donna Karans at home.

The Hippie Movement was a vibrant exploration of repressed human nature – in a nutshell, they believed “all you need is love.”

By dressing comfortably, we lose the trappings of respectability and ethnocentrism, risking hippie contamination. We may even appear… unemployed (hippies love unemployment).

“Budget travel” and “relaxing” are travel trends that lead us to mix with “different” company – some “very” “different” “company” indeed.

The downward spiral begins innocently: You meet someone from another country, perhaps talk to them. You accept a bottle from a friendly young lady. You begin to notice aesthetics and music.

You voice opinions and express your personality. Soon you’ll quit your job at the bank, view foreign policy as important and accept anything natural without question.

You are now a hippie.

Damn the Hippie Swine!

Once, being a hippie was a political statement. The Hippie Movement was a vibrant exploration of repressed human nature – in a nutshell, they believed “all you need is love.”

They promoted avoiding violence and materialism. They wanted closer relations with nature and one another.

But the hippie movement showed us dangerous new dimensions as well: an empowered youth, bold artwork and music, and a bigger choice on the menu than blind obedience. Many hippies today are harmless, nothing more than walking fashion statements. For some though, the hippie ideal remains a lifestyle choice.

Even though many of them wash their hair, there is no question that young people today embrace the most dangerous element of the hippie attitude: the independent spirit to question authority.

The damage is incalculable.

What Makes Hippies Tick?

A hippie digging for marijuana. Photo by Hendrik Dacquin

Recent studies of hippies trapped in the wild confirm our deepest fears.

Hippies thwart global capitalism, scare children and cause pets to mess themselves. Hippies screw up the train schedule, pick on old ladies and fart in church.

They open the door to terrorists, the housing crunch and reality television. They foul the water supply. Hippies make policemen cranky. They promote male-pattern balding.

They disable psell check. Their music is… actually pretty good.

Aside from that, history shows meager reward from the hippie mindset (except that they eventually get older and own everything).

The worst thing about hippies: they’re out there. Somewhere. And you can’t tell by looking at ‘em anymore. Depending on how paranoid you are, they can be anywhere. Plotting. Scheming. Conspiring to undermine your Way of Life ® and gank your cheese. (Is “gank” a hippie word? Forget I said it.)

We Must Prepare

Perhaps it was Frank Zappa who said it best, when asked if he was a woman because he had long hair. He replied, “You have a wooden leg. Does that make you a table?”

How do we separate those contributing to society from fun-loving degenerates?

Or perhaps this is just a satanic riddle, since Mr. Zappa looked like and was no doubt a hippie. But since the interviewer was almost certainly not a table, there may be some wisdom here.

If we can’t tell hippies from traveling pseudo-hippies, how do we tell hippies from non-hip? How do we separate those contributing to society from fun-loving degenerates? How do you avoid being mistaken for one o’ them damn fashionably attired traveler hippies?

The key to sheltered travel is to avoid introspection at all costs. JUDGE EVERYONE.

Remain vigilant against friendly and open-minded people abroad. Refuse to lighten up or engage in anything unfamiliar – repeat: do not engage.

If temptation strikes, repeat this phrase: “I’m not from around here.” And, if you meet people of a foreign lifestyle, call them hippies and make obscene gestures at them.

Whether they are or not is irrelevant: you’ll feel all warm and powerful. After all, the whole point of travel is to reinforce your previous beliefs and stereotypes through perpetual distance.

Do you call yourself a budget traveler? If so, you’re hippie scum. Share your thoughts in the comments!

]]> http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2008/03/19/budget-travelers-are-hippie-scum/feed/ 30 http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2008/01/29/democracy-in-kenya/ http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2008/01/29/democracy-in-kenya/#comments Tue, 29 Jan 2008 14:00:06 +0000 Rehana Tejpar http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2008/01/29/democracy-in-kenya/

We’re in week three of a nation-wide civil uprising in response to the fraudulent December 27th Presidential elections in Kenya, and among the areas most affected are the slums of Nairobi.

The massive civil unrest began upon the announcement of the incumbent President Mwai Kibaki’s electoral victory, despite numerous local and international observers claiming widespread fraud.

During the President’s immediate inauguration, the people of Kenya took to the streets to fight for justice.

They’re fighting for Raila Odinga, leader of the opposition Orange Democratic Movement, who has successfully won the hearts and minds of the popular masses of Kenya, especially the most marginalised factions of society.

The poor, the unemployed, the landless, the homeless and the youth of Kenya participated whole-heartedly in the elections for the first time in Kenyan history, placing their faith in the democratic process. They believed that if they voted for Raila Odinga, their interests would finally be represented in politics.

But when the election was perceived as stolen, it was the last straw for many, and the protests began.

Tribal Politics

To make things even more complicated, President Kibaki is a member of the historically dominant and now much-resented Kikuyu tribe, while Raila is a member of the Luo tribe, a tribe that has never had a President in power since Kenyan independence in 1963.

Evidence of vote rigging was found in virtually every district, on both the government and opposition sides.

Evidence of vote rigging was found in virtually every district, on both the government and opposition sides.

Ballot boxes were stuffed with more votes than voters in certain constituencies; names beginning with A-E were removed from voter’s lists in areas dominated by Luo tribe members, such as the slum of Kibera, as most Luo names begin with such letters.

Incredibly, the opposition leader Raila himself was not even on the registrar.

After the election, it was only a matter of days before the entire country was up in arms. Neighbours who had lived together harmoniously began attacking one another. Members of the Kikuyu tribe have been the most affected. Many Kikuya houses and shops have been looted and burned to the ground, leaving roughly 300,000 people, mostly women and children, displaced in transit refugee camps across the country.

Entire villages have been pillaged, 1500 women have been reported raped and recent counts put the death toll at 700, though it’s known to be swelling higher as each day passes.

And yet despite all the violence and suffering, the opposition movement continues to call for nationwide protests, saying they will not stop until Kibaki steps down.

Fighting For Justice

Is this what democracy looks like?

While the poorest of the poor are out in the streets fighting for “justice,” up against heavily armed Kenyan police officers who are notorious for excessive use of force, the political leaders give orders while they sit comfortably behind walled compounds, seemingly unfazed by the bloodshed committed in their names.

Negotiations are failing. South Africa’s Archbishop Desmond Tutu and the African Union and Ghanaian President Kuffuor have both come to help mediate a dialogue between Kibaki and Raila, yet both sides seem unwilling to budge from their positions.

Kibaki will not step down and Raila has said that he will continue to call nationwide protests and encourage actions that cripple Kenya’s economy until Kibaki relinquishes power.

How many lives must be lost, how many people displaced and how many livelihoods ruined before our political leaders step aside from their egos and think about how much their selfish decisions impact the people of Kenya?

Estimates say there will be 500,000 more people unemployed as a result of this post-election violence. In a country with 40% unemployment, you tell me how that’s just.

Everyday Kenya loses 33 million dollars in investments and already 14 countries have halted their development aid.

Fighting For Change

If the people of Kenya are fighting for change, for a just leader who will help alleviate their poverty, then why are the actions taken to achieve justice exacerbating the suffering and poverty of the very same people who are fighting?

Children in the slums of Kibera, Mathare and Dandora eat tear gas instead of food and can’t go to school.

People can’t go to work and price inflation is rampant. Children in the slums of Kibera, Mathare and Dandora eat tear gas instead of food and can’t go to school; the death toll is rising by the minute with police brutality at its most vicious – officers shooting at random, breaking down innocent slum dwellers’ homes and killing them for no reason other than their geographical location.

The people of Kenya are living in a constant state of fear. For how long can this go on?

While protesters continue chanting “No Raila, No Peace,” it’s very difficult to predict where the future of Kenya lies.

The Road To Reconciliation

Thinking about what it will take for Kenya to return to a state of normalcy is not easy. The violence and fear will not disappear overnight. A return to stability will require a long process of reconciliation.

The aggression, violence and ethnic cleansing the country has witnessed in the past three weeks are symptoms of years of deep-rooted resentment and frustration. In many ways the current violence is revenge against the historically dominant and affluent Kikuyu people, yet some of the poorest Kenyans are Kikuyu and many of those worst affected by the violence are members of the other 41 tribes in Kenya.

At this point, most Kenyans are looking inward, trying to understand what it means to be Ukoo Flani – of a certain tribe, and what it means to be Kenyan in a country of 42 tribes.

At the end of the day, we are defined by our actions, by our thoughts and by our words – not by our tribe.

Last month a Luo was able to share the traditional maize meal of ugali na sukuma with their Kikuyu neighbour. Today such simple acts of shared humanity may seem impossible.

At the end of the day, we are defined by our actions, by our thoughts and by our words – not by our tribe.

Who we are cannot be classified simply along ethnic lines, because underneath the differences of custom, language, music and geography, all of us are human.

All Kenyans are Kenyan. Kenya is a beautiful country full of talented, energetic people who share a strong sense of brotherhood and sisterhood, whose people have chosen to stand together under the national language of Swahili.

We mustn’t classify this conflict as yet another failed African state immersed in the abyss of tribal conflict. We must look deeper and strive to understand why ethnic, racist and religious conflicts continue to arise.

A Final Prayer

Why does humanity fear difference and struggle for sameness when homogeneity defies everything that is natural? The beauty of our uniqueness and diversity is what makes us human, and our differences must be cherished.

Perhaps one day we will truly understand the meaning of togetherness, tolerance, acceptance and forgiveness, and realize that what hurts our brothers and sisters hurts us all.

I pray for understanding.

What do you think of the situation in Kenya? Please share your thoughts in the comments

Rehana T is a youth poverty and gender activist, currently working with Carolina for Kibera a youth oriented non-governmental organisation in the Kibera slum of Nairobi. A graduate from the University of Ottawa in Political Science, Rehana is focused on alternative means of education and building youth leadership through theatre and sports.

]]> http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2008/01/29/democracy-in-kenya/feed/ 4 http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2008/01/23/why-travelers-everywhere-must-resist-violence-against-women/ http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2008/01/23/why-travelers-everywhere-must-resist-violence-against-women/#comments Wed, 23 Jan 2008 13:00:42 +0000 Emily Hansen http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2008/01/23/why-travelers-everywhere-must-resist-violence-against-women/ This New Year’s, I was horrified to read in The Hindustan Times that in Mumbai, India, outside of the JW Marriot Hotel, two women were felt up and groped by a mob of seventy men on the open street as their companions looked on helplessly.

The photograph on the front of the paper, showing the perpetrators piled up on top of the women, instilled in me a sense of outrage that I have not felt since I was in Thailand, and was assaulted by a mototaxi driver as I attempted to go to a job interview alone.

During the awful experience in Thailand, just like the assault on the women in Mumbai, passersby simply stood and watched, unsure of how to react, perhaps afraid to get involved.

When I made a complaint to police, freshly emerged from the scuffle with torn clothes, it was my behavior that was questioned. The police wanted to know what I had done to encourage the assault. Seeing that “boys will be boys,” they assumed I had done something to warrant the violence.

I was simply told not to travel alone again, and they considered the issue solved, for it was seen to be my problem, and not the driver’s, unrelated to the wider social hostility towards independent women.

“She Had It Coming”

The public reaction to the women being mobbed in Mumbai contained similar sentiments. While The Hindustan Times responded to the incident by publishing an article on violence against women, many people who they spoke to as part of the piece felt that the women somehow deserved the attack because they had been drinking, were dressed in provocative clothing, and were out late at night.

Such incidences of sexual harassment, and reactions to them, are not uncommon, and violence against women is still a major problem.

Such incidences of sexual harassment, and reactions to them, are not uncommon, and violence against women is still a major problem.

It is not that men, too, do not suffer acts of aggression, however the problem of violence against women comes in a specific context. While it has always been accepted that men will travel alone, women are still fighting their way through the 21st century amidst the notion that they are, by being independent and female, open to abuse.

The question is, as women, what can we do to speak back to this violence and protect ourselves while traveling?

Women everywhere are victims and at the same time catalysts for change. Men can also be helpful in eradicating the violence, by supporting women in their struggle to be free. While it is true that the male presence deters many violent incidents from happening, sadly, even the women who were mobbed in Mumbai were in the company of their boyfriends.

What To Do?

In cultures where it is not acceptable for women to show skin, we might do ourselves some good by covering up. Observing local norms of dress is as much an act of respect as taking off one’s shoes before entering a temple.

However, we should not fool ourselves into thinking that we will be safer in a sari than we would be in shorts and a T-shirt, and no one is right to say that a woman dressed ‘provocatively’ is asking for violence.

If we abide by this theory, then we are saying that no woman wearing a burqa has ever been raped.

Sex Or Power?

There is also the misguided perception that men perpetrate violence against women because of sexual frustration, particularly in cultures where sex before marriage is taboo.

In this case, then women, having sexual urges as well, would be as ravenous. As well, married men, who can be assumed to have at least some access to regular sex, would never harass women. This is not the case, which signifies to me that sexual harassment is less about sex, and more about power.

Given this predicament, perhaps women could work to resist violence by claiming some of it back.

In Canada, many of my female friends carry pepper spray, or take self-defense courses so that they may fend off any unwanted attention. Some do not walk after dark, but some do, hoping that “looking confident” will be enough to discourage violence.

Resist!

Here where I live now in India, I have read about many women who are resisting abuse in similar fashions.

An Indian women’s blogging site, called Blank Noise, collects the views of women who are determined to secure their free place in the world, particularly as it relates to street harassment. One woman, Annie Zaidi, asserts that the first step in eradicating violence against women is not tolerating it. She writes:

I WILL NOT ACCEPT IT. I will not stop buying “provocative” clothes…I will not make unwanted rules for myself. I will crush the beast where I see it. With a stare, with a slur, with a scream, with a camera…I will take my rights as a citizen and nothing less.

Perhaps then, when we travel alone, we should use our cameras, not only to capture the beauty of the horizon, but also to document the unspeakable acts of a few men who think they have power over us.

When we put a lens in front of someone’s face and call harassment a crime, we are putting a name to the problem of female abuse everywhere, and bringing it out in the open where it can be mediated.

Fight Or Flight?

A topic that many women debate is the “fight or flight” reaction, which comes at the height of a trauma.

When confronted by the mototaxi driver, I found myself, at five foot three, instinctually swinging at my attacker like The Terminator. This was effective in fending off what could have been a possible rape. I had a friend in Canada who, in South America, managed to overtake three attackers in a park.

While not every woman gets the “fight” reaction, and for some, it may present even further danger, certainly we are capable of kicking butt.

Should instinct, our greatest weapon, tell us to “flee” an attack, a functioning cell phone is invaluable, as is being in an area in which other people are reachable.

Staying in a busy neighborhood, and traveling in groups, sometimes helps us to escape attack when we are not able to fight on our own, but the most important thing women can do to protect themselves is to listen to their inner voice.

Mr. Nice Guy?

One problem in distinguishing our risk of danger is that often, men who want to attack women are nice to them first. They attempt a cheerful dialogue, or a few drinks and a chat.

I meet many a woman who confess that they “feel like a bitch” if they express their discomfort in circumstances where the man appears to be friendly.

We need not be paranoid in meeting strangers, but if we get that feeling of “something being off” we must trust ourselves and respond accordingly.

Here in India, where street harassment is common, sometimes the line, “Excuse me, but did I ask for this conversation?” or, “I’m just fine by myself here!” manages to ward off unwanted attention.

I might sound like a bitch, but if I’m getting a negative feeling from someone, chances are it’s warranted, and even if it isn’t, I’ll never see them again.

Also, in many countries, there are crisis centers, often mentioned in travel guides, which could be of service. Even putting a notice on the hostel bulletin board about any dangerous acquaintances might be effective in protecting other women.

“Oops, Gotta Run!”

It’s common on the road for women to meet handsome strangers, who at some point turn out to be creeps.

A simple arrangement for someone, even a hostel-mate, to call midway into the evening, could prove a wonderful opportunity for escape. We can easily tell the offending bloke that our “friend” is “having an emergency” and make our speedy exit. It’s the oldest trick in the book.

Women should not be fearful of venturing out, but they should be prepared to confront the problem of violence.

We should be less wary of wounding someone’s ego, and more concerned about our internal alarm system, which is telling us that there is danger ahead. Even if we have to feign a semi-psychotic episode (”I forgot to take my meds. Gotta run!”) it’s best to just leave the scene.

Traveling is about as “safe” as anything else we do, however some people in the world have yet to catch up with the independent lives that many women now lead.

Women should not be fearful of venturing out, but they should be prepared to confront the problem of violence. Silence is not a weapon: our minds and our voices are.

We do not ask to be violated, we ask for violence against women to stop.

Emily Hansen is a travel writer and teacher based in Shimla, India, where she is working on a book about her experiences as an expat. Her native land is Canada, and she has traveled to over 30 countries, and has lived in six, including Germany, China, Korea, Thailand, Taiwan, and now, India.

“Beat Me And Break Me” and “Fallen Flower” Photos by Ryan Libre.

Your thoughts are important! Let’s start a conversation below.

]]> http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2008/01/23/why-travelers-everywhere-must-resist-violence-against-women/feed/ 18 http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2008/01/09/globalization-from-the-eyes-of-a-chinese-expat/ http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2008/01/09/globalization-from-the-eyes-of-a-chinese-expat/#comments Wed, 09 Jan 2008 15:00:36 +0000 Emily Hansen http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2008/01/09/globalization-from-the-eyes-of-a-chinese-expat/ I once had a university professor who I will describe as “mentally diverse.”

She was my favorite professor, although you never knew when the light was on, off, or just catastrophically-flickering as in Poltergeist.

Full of prophecies which would make a Buddha cry, she managed to turn my reality upside down like milk in a butter-making jar, shaking me from solid form, into a frothing mixture of wild ideas, random plans of action, and, well, “mental diversity.”

I am forever grateful.

This is because with the help of Edward Soja, she divided the world into three parts: one of reality, another of imagination, and something else she simply called, “real-and-imagined life”, a sort of hybrid of the two.

Initially, I concluded that she was either on drugs, or completely barking mad, until the third class, when, finally, I got it. With her help, all of my travel experiences, particularly my last four years as an expat, have become real-and-imagined journeys of the mind.

My life has happily gone from black-and-white into complete Kodachrome chaos, with all of my thoughts, in all their diversity, blinking and flashing like Asian lights in one big mutating rainbow.

The Real World

Allow me to explain. Edward Soja, in rambling on about Los Angeles and Foucault in a completely convoluted book you never want to read, called Journeys to Los Angeles and Other Real-And Imagined Places, proposed the idea that what we think about our reality is just as important as how it’s seen in “the real world”, a space coded with (often unfair) social and political ideas.

As living, breathing, thinking people of this world, we are, however, in the grand position to reinvent a few things.

As the products of this whirlwind, we exist in an inner-outer predicament, where our own thoughts are as crucial as the rules imposed upon us. We have the power to think, and make the required changes, like fashion designers with a pair of scissors and an idea for a great pair of pants.

In layman’s terms, any positive change in the world comes from realizing that there are some things you can alter, and some things you can’t. Pants will always be pants, like travel will always be travel – both are uplifting and oppressive at the same time.

As living, breathing, thinking people of this world, we are, however, in the grand position to reinvent a few things.

In 2003 I began my four years in Chongqing, China, where I was introduced to the vocation of English-selling, or in “real world” terms, English teaching. I spent a full twelve hours a day in crass amounts of pollution and construction dust on the brink of the Yangtze river demonstrating to Chinese children everywhere in the city, that my language and culture was a product to be sold.

Some people would call it colonization, or just global economics. What better product to sell to an upcoming global superpower? In fact, in every speech I had to make for the company during my unpaid after-hours appearances as an English peddler on TV stations and radio, I had to repeat the words, “China Superpower”.

I couldn’t help but ask myself, after five years in a social justice program at university, what the hell was I doing? Making money? Having a cultural experience? Or having an out-of-body medical experience?

From Punk to Police

My lungs were so filled with coal dust, I could hardly keep myself out of the hospital and off the antibiotics the nurses gave me time and time again, just to make sure that my immune system would never, ever return.

Looking back, I loved China. It’s hard to believe, but even in those moments of pulse-crushing, heavy, oppressiveness, I saw at least some value in what I was doing, for myself and for others.

During my time there, for example, I had the opportunity to explore the New Wave Metal punk scene, in which Chinese youth were dispersing the counter-culture spirit of an emerging generation while rejecting the gaze of communist eyes.

Even young women, layered angry voices on top of “The People’s Republic”, pounding out the sounds of punk-rock rebellion with second-hand drums in abandoned warehouses, in the city that never slept (or just slept with one eye open).

Young men took Nirvana’s grunge fury and made it their own, beer-belching their way to imagined stardom. If complacency was the image that the West (or the Chinese government itself) wanted to imagine for a fast-developing China, this reality did not fit the mold.

At work I met many people who were afraid to talk about Chinese politics. I did not even attempt to start a political conversation with them the whole time I was there, for fear that it would endanger one of my friends, coworkers, or acquaintances. Instead, I let them come to me if they had something to say.

At one point, the communist police searched our apartments on the premise of “maintaining safety”.

At one point, the communist police searched our apartments on the premise of “maintaining safety”. We were interviewed on the spot about what websites we were accessing, why, and whether or not we were religious, and if so, to which group we belonged.

There was never any explanation given for this inquisition. Yet, beneath this curtain of regulation, there were plenty of unregulated moments.

People went on with their lives, making miracles in study, business, and family life. One of my Chinese coworkers, who wanted to become a UN representative, provided me with a thoughtful conversation about how as “women of the moon”, we have a special power to shake up the forces that be, not by bowing to them, but by nurturing the world.

Revolutionary Dreams

Thoughts like that, which seemed to jump out of nowhere, must have come from somewhere, lurking like revolutionary dreams in the underbelly of a repressed society.

And what better way to prepare yourself for a revolution, than to speak the language of your oppressors? Armed with Chinese and English, ambassadors for a New China, the willing adults, became empowered to more fully speak their minds.

I helped them, but they did most of the work.

One of the fastest pathways to change is to make oneself able to be heard. I hope that one day this happens full-circle, for those who wish to escape the gloom of any kind of slavery, whether in China, Canada, or elsewhere in the world. First, we must be able to understand each other.

Travel then, is about moving towards understanding, or at least it should be. We leave many gratuitous marks on the planet, wherever we may go, whether it is through our stubborn attitudes, the waste we make, or in the people we sometimes force our language and culture upon.

Travel can be good and travel bad, but I know that in my real-and-imagined life, my experiences attempt to interact with, and redirect, the rip tide of forces that govern us. In this sense, the spirit of people, and the spirit of travel, need not be lost on anyone.

Emily Hansen is a travel writer and teacher based in Shimla, India, where she is working on a book about her experiences as an expat. Her native land is Canada, and she has traveled to over 30 countries, and has lived in six, including Germany, China, Korea, Thailand, Taiwan, and now, India.

]]> http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2008/01/09/globalization-from-the-eyes-of-a-chinese-expat/feed/ 10 http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2008/01/02/how-travel-will-save-the-world/ http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2008/01/02/how-travel-will-save-the-world/#comments Wed, 02 Jan 2008 13:00:26 +0000 F. Daniel Harbecke http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2008/01/02/how-travel-will-save-the-world/

Spread throughout the world, spanning every region and boundary, is a vast, borderless nation.

Every year, millions migrate to this nation, with language and customs from the farthest reaches of the planet. Its population flows with the seasons, natural and political; though remarkably diverse, all cultures meet here within a single tradition.

And no matter how it may grow or shrink, it can never disappear entirely. And there is always room for one more.

This place contains the best and worst of humanity – it is perhaps no better or worse than anyplace else. But it carries with it a unique potential for sharing and dialogue that exists nowhere else.

It’s the very idea of this place that brings with it the hope of something better.

It’s the very idea of this place that brings with it the hope of something better.

At any given moment, millions of people belong to this Nation of Travelers. Despite their country of origin, they are between homes: the one departed, and the one to which they will return.

This liminal nation serves no one land but rather all of them, in an exchange of information and inspiration – the pride of one people becomes a wonder to another. Here the stranger is welcomed as honored guest, a bond between neighbors which helps us learn more clearly what it is to be human.

The belief that humanity is encompassed within a single community is called cosmopolitanism. A philosophy with ancient roots, its lineage begins with Diogenes: when asked where he came from, he answered, “I am a citizen of the world.”

A Citizen of the World

Cosmopolitan has come to mean “worldly” or “sophisticated” (a word itself derived from the love of wisdom), but in the original sense meant a universal love for all people that rejects borders.

Since his declaration, cosmopolitanism has become a banner for the globally conscious – a dedication to preserving dialogue and variety among all ways of life. It has found many adherents throughout the ages, notably in the work of Immanuel Kant, who long ago predicted a union of nations to end war (the forerunner of today’s United Nations).

Cosmopolitanism today inspires many thinkers who continue to explore its possibilities.

Yet cosmopolitanism has also had its opponents. Many philosophers believe such a coalition is illusory at best, while others contend that aggression and conflict are the natural order of things.

Unfortunately, there is ample evidence to support their claims. The gaps between language and beliefs are intimidating, and the recurring horror of war is a crushing argument against an idyllic world.

Hegel believed that war is mandatory for a country’s fitness, a fete of strength for clearing out the dead wood. If change is inevitable, then disparity is the default condition – war is not the reaction to peace, but vice versa.

A stronger and improved community is unachievable through the abiding stagnation of peace, for which there is no call without some defining conflict. Peace, thought Hegel, isn’t merely the absence of war, but its offspring. Peace is only the future tense of war.

If Hegel was correct, the protests of the 60s were a cause lost before they began. How can you dismantle a fundamental aspect of human nature? What does “global peace” entail anyway? How do you create a world without difference, and still maintain individuality?

The solution is not to eliminate conflict or diversity, but to apply them toward productive ends.

The Value of Conflict

Strange as it may sound, conflict is vital to our existence. The friction of our feet on the ground moves us forward; the friction of air against our vocal chords produces sound – without friction, we would be mute and paralyzed.

Strange as it may sound, conflict is vital to our existence.

It’s been said that “two smooth stones do not grind” – so it is with finding a positive result from alternate views. Though conflict has a bad reputation, it’s largely due to the failure to benefit from an inevitability of physics.

And, despite the seeming inconvenience, diversity demands that we consider a broader approach. Only by more conscious reflection can we see things in a new light.

If, as Hegel claimed, peace springs from war, it could be argued that we are stronger not for ability to wage war, but for the ability to find a healthier accord. The escape from dissonance to find harmony demonstrates the creative potential of the chorus – not in defeating variation, but in channeling it.

Modern philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah, in his book Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers, writes that

“because there are so many human possibilities worth exploring, we neither expect nor desire that every person or society should converge on a single mode of life. Whatever our obligations are to others (or theirs to us) they often have the right to go their own way.”

Much of the art of travel lies in the ability to negotiate these differences and find new ground to proceed from.

Indeed, as Appiah writes, “there will be times when these two ideals – universal concern and respect for legitimate difference – clash. There’s a sense in which cosmopolitanism is the name not of the solution but of the challenge.” (Emphasis added.)

The City of Humanity

Consider that the noise and bluster of the world is actually the sound of motion: the hum of vehicles on the road, the tenor of voices on the air, all striving to reach similar goals, not contrary ones.

There are endless opportunities for the discovery of new and mutual cultures on the roads that bind us together – for every stone in the walls of fear and apathy, there’s a traveler to break it down.

Cosmopolitanism is a fluid, tenuous idea, threatened often by patriotic fervor and the blindness of dogma.

But it is also a bold and optimistic statement – one that declares citizenship to a state which defies supremacy, transcending any one nation to close the spaces between us.

The traveler nation is the global echo of Diogenes, the actual moment of cosmopolitanism. It is the thrill of finding oneself among fellow seekers all, on the fringes that compose the City of Humanity.

F. Daniel Harbecke (just call him Daniel, the F’s a family thing) is currently working on “A Philosophy of Travel,” which envisions travel as a metaphor for the meaningful experience of life. Daniel has lived in Europe, South America and Asia and is trying to fund his tony lifestyle in Sweet Home Chicago.

]]> http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2008/01/02/how-travel-will-save-the-world/feed/ 8 http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2007/12/19/5-techniques-for-surviving-political-debates-on-the-road/ http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2007/12/19/5-techniques-for-surviving-political-debates-on-the-road/#comments Wed, 19 Dec 2007 17:20:51 +0000 Katie Krueger http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2007/12/19/5-techniques-for-surviving-political-debates-on-the-road/ You are sitting with a family that has invited you in for tea, one of countless offers of hospitality you have experienced since you arrived in the new land.

As you share stories of family, friends, travel and life you marvel at how easily people can bridge the differences between them. For that moment, everything is perfect. This is why you travel. World peace is possible, you think. All we need is tea.

Then with one question, your dream shatters.

“Tell me,” says your host. “Why does your country start so much war?”

It’s a traveler’s nightmare: you are trying to connect across cultures with someone who suddenly wants to discuss polarizing issues such as war, foreign affairs, abortion, gay rights, feminism, or drugs.

Don’t worry. Look at these conversations as a potential for meaningful cultural exchange. Use the following strategies to turn a potentially divisive argument into a rich dialogue.

1. Come Prepared

You do not have to be an expert in all world issues, but you should have a general understanding of how they affect people’s daily lives.

As someone interested in travel, you have an idea about what is going on in the world around you. Still, before you leave home, familiarize yourself with current issues both at home, and abroad.

Read the world section of the newspaper before the front page. Explore other viewpoints on issues by reading international media such as the BBC, Al Jazeera, or The Times of India. If you can, read a news source based in the region that you will be visiting.

You do not have to be an expert in all world issues, but you should have a general understanding of how they affect people’s daily lives. What wars are going on in the world and how are they affecting the region? What social issues are causing the most contempt in your destination? Are there currently any religious or ethnic conflicts?

Understanding the basics of these issues will help you talk intelligently about them.

2. Take Yourself Out of the Conversation

If you find yourself put on the spot, being asked to defend or explain the actions of your country, a good technique is to take yourself out of the answer.

Instead of speaking in the first person about your opinions (e.g. I think, In my opinion), talk about both sides of the issue in the third person.

For example, you could answer a question about gay marriage with: “Some people think homosexuality is unnatural and a sin. Others think people have the right to love whomever they choose.”

By presenting the sides of an issue without attaching yourself to either one of them, you allow the person you are talking with to respond honestly. He or she cannot attack you personally and you will avoid being put on the defensive.

3. Speak and Listen with Respect

You need only travel as far a family reunion to remind yourself that the world will never agree on politics, religion, and social issues. Diversity of opinion keeps life interesting. You cannot change this, so you might as well respect it.

You need only travel as far a family reunion to remind yourself that the world will never agree on politics, religion, and social issues.

As a traveler, you are perpetually a guest in someone’s country (or home) and they deserve your respect. Even if they are saying things you find utterly enraging, it is important to express the fact that you respect their right to that opinion.

If your goal is to have a meaningful conversation, you must be willing to listen without criticizing. Listen actively by asking questions that dig deep into the others’ opinions.

Get them talking about not only what they believe, but why they believe it. Put their viewpoints into context by considering their life, surroundings, religion, and other cultural forces you may not recognize at first.

When you do express your opinion, let it be known that you are doing it with respect. This can be as easy as starting off with, “I respect your opinion. However, I disagree.”

Try to explain why you hold the values and beliefs that you do. Help them put your viewpoint into context.

4. Claim World Citizenship

Shortly after the United States invaded Afghanistan in 2002, I was in a Muslim market in Orissa, India and angered a tea seller by telling him I was an American.

He worked himself up in a frenzy, accusing me (on behalf of all Americans) of conspiring with George Bush to declare an unjust war on Islam. He blathered on for minutes and when he paused to take a breath, I chose my response quickly.

“George Bush sits in the White House, claiming to make decisions on my behalf. Osama bin Laden is hiding in Afghanistan claiming to do what is best for you. Do you think we should call them and ask if it’s okay for you to sell me this cup of tea?”

By pointing out how far removed we both were from leaders who claim to represent our interests, I showed the absurdity of creating walls between us simply because we come from different places.

You certainly do not want to try and speak for an entire nation, so do not expect others to either. Reserve judgment and look into the eyes of the person across from you and see another citizens of the world. Nationality is simply an accident at birth.

5. Pick Your Battles

Chances are, you feel really strongly about some political, religious, or social issues. We all do. This is why they are such hot-button topics.

Your beliefs and values are not something you pack for a trip, yet you carry them with you every place you go.

Your beliefs and values are not something you pack for a trip, yet you carry them with you every place you go. However, you determine how often you want to unpack them.

Before you engage in a conversation about a controversial issue, ask yourself if something constructive could come out of it? Perhaps the guy asking you about foreign policy is a wannabe-pundit interested only in hearing his own voice. Or maybe he is baiting you simply to see your reaction?

If you think the other person if genuinely interested in an exchange of ideas, then consider engaging in the conversation. Otherwise, simply smile and say you prefer not to discuss it.

Examine your own motives, too. Maybe you have had three nights of lousy hotels and three days of touts constantly trying to cheat you and you are looking for someone to unload all your frustration on.

Ask yourself if you have the patience required to tackle a difficult conversation.

When you find yourself in a difficult conversation with people when you are traveling, do not shrink away in fear. The magic of travel is the exchange of culture in a peaceful way. Ideas are simply just another part of cultural we can share with one another.

Have you found yourself caught in hot-button political debates? Share your story in the comments!

Katie Krueger has lived, worked, and/or studied in four continents. She lives and writes in Madison, WI and online at www.katiekrueger.com

]]> http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2007/12/19/5-techniques-for-surviving-political-debates-on-the-road/feed/ 8 http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2007/12/12/the-case-against-micro-loans/ http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2007/12/12/the-case-against-micro-loans/#comments Wed, 12 Dec 2007 15:34:32 +0000 Josh Kearns http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2007/12/12/why-we-need-local-self-reliance-not-micro-loans/ Is the principal effect of micro-lending to further hook people into dependence upon the money economy? Josh Kearns explains.

I want to urge caution in what has become a widespread and unqualified enthusiasm for the whole micro-finance thing. Since Yunus won the Nobel Prize, people have been afraid to criticize the idea of micro-finance.

But I hold a great degree of skepticism about the effectiveness of micro-loans to promote authentic well-being and prosperity for folks in the so-called “developing world” over the long term. I hasten to add that I am not dismissing the concept 100%, out-of-hand. But I have serious doubts.

I fear that the principal effect of micro-lending is to further hook people into dependence upon the money economy. In the so-called “developed” world, we can scarcely imagine a thing such as independence – we are totally reliant on money to buy everything we need and want for our lives.

But the rural “poor” of the world – the subsistence farmers, for example – can and do maintain a significant degree of independence from the money economy.

They do this by producing much of what they use themselves or within their immediate communities. This kind of locally self-reliant economy is preferable – it is far more stable, more ecologically sound, and more preservative of community than the global economy.

Development For Good?

My fear is that micro-lending provides yet another mechanism (under the failed rubric of “development”) for inducing folks off the land and out of their local communities, estranging them from their traditional cultures and thrusting them into the cities, which is to say the slums.

The best strategy to “help the poor” is to reduce their requirements for money, not find ways to make them more dependent upon it

The best strategy to “help the poor” is to reduce their requirements for money, not find ways to make them more dependent upon it, even if those ways involve giving them a little money and even perhaps appear helpful in the short term.

Micro-lending involves giving the “poor” a little bit of money at the outset, which from our perspective (as rich Westerners) looks good because we can’t imagine a life without money.

We think the problem of the poor is that they don’t have enough money. On the contrary, their problem is lack of entitlement to the necessities of life. Money is only one way to obtain this entitlement, and it’s not a very good way in the long run, neither for the world’s “poor” nor ourselves.

The Trouble With Loans

A better way to secure entitlement to the necessities of life – in either the “developing” or “developed” worlds – is to increase local capacity for their direct creation; promoting local self-reliance.

A loan, micro- or otherwise, has to be repaid. That means an enterprise started on a micro-loan must not only be solvent, but must produce a surplus and earn sufficient profit above the interest rate of the loan.

The possibility of earning a profit is largely beyond the control of the micro-loan recipient. It is subject to the fluctuations and instabilities of the global economy and the decisions of far-flung bureaucrats in governments and international financial institutions such as the IMF and World Bank: all complex forces well beyond the ken, let alone the control, of a Kenyan peasant woman selling bread from an urban sidewalk stand.

If we want to “help the poor,” the surest strategy is to work with them to increase their independence from the money economy. This is unfamiliar territory to nearly everyone in the West. Since we (most of us, comparatively speaking) have money, it is our stand-by solution to everything. “Throw money at the problem” is our strategy in research, public welfare programs, environmental issues and politics.

What we must do in order to be able to “help the poor” is to first learn ourselves how to live without money, or at least with a lot less of it. We must learn, or rather re-learn, the techniques of self-reliant, agrarian living wherein local needs are met primarily by goods produced locally.

I am not suggesting – God forbid – that everyone ought to “go be a farmer.” We need “urban agrarians” just as desperately as rural ones.

We must familiarize ourselves with our local ecosystems and devise solutions for living that make sense within our particular ecological and social contexts. And we must re-establish the health of community that makes locally self-reliant living feasible, as it cannot be done by the individualist “loners” under the influence of “modern” society and market culture.

Breaking Control

When we consider that we must first help ourselves in these formidable tasks before helping the world’s poor, we reach the ineluctable conclusion that we are, at present, woefully unqualified for the task. Our standard answer to life’s problems – to spend more money – cannot produce the needed long-term solutions.

The last thing these communities need are more enticements into the money economy and the overly-consumptive modern urbanized lifestyles.

What seems ironic, though only from our own perspective, is that some of the “poorest” communities in the world are in a better position to help us than we them. Some subsistence farming communities of Asia, Africa and Latin America still practice a lifestyle that involves a high degree of local self-reliance, strong community bonds, ecological literacy, and a well-developed sense of place.

The last thing these communities need are more enticements into the money economy and the overly-consumptive and ultimately unsatisfying modern urbanized lifestyles. To the extent that micro-lending programs draw folks further into the money economy and market culture, they create financial dependence and advance the attendant breakdown of community and destruction of ecosystems.

So as far as micro-lending tourism is concerned, I would suggest instead that travelers seek first-hand experience and insight into self-sufficient community lifestyles.

Such agrarian projects are developing worldwide, and our participation as travelers helps both to advance the communities’ independence from the global economy and provides us with invaluable experiential learning possibilities that prepare us to help our own society break its addiction to globalization, growth and monetary dependence.

Are micro-loans good for people in the developing world? Join the discussion below!

Josh Kearns is a bona fide hill-billy who currently runs AqueousSolutions, an NGO devoted to developing and promoting self-reliant forms of water purification. He’s been a researcher in environmental chemistry and ecological economics and is into techniques for high quality self-reliant living like organic farming, natural building, permaculture and bluegrass music.

]]> http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2007/12/12/the-case-against-micro-loans/feed/ 17 http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2007/11/22/how-local-self-reliance-will-overthrow-the-system/ http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2007/11/22/how-local-self-reliance-will-overthrow-the-system/#comments Thu, 22 Nov 2007 14:00:14 +0000 Josh Kearns http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2007/11/22/how-to-overthrow-the-system/ As humans, we have basic needs for food, shelter, medicine, and a few durable goods like clothing, tools and cooking implements.

The quality of our food, our shelter and our medicines all go to promote our health. To be healthy means to be free of disease and sickness, to be strong and energetic, and to live a long life. Beyond this, we pretty much just want to have a good time.

We’re a social species; we need community – to form bonds of friendship, respect and love. Being part of a community helps with having a good time. It’s more fun to grow food or build a house with the help of others; the quality of the product is usually better, too.

We have large brains, and although the evolutionary jury is still out on whether these are adaptive or mal-adaptive organs, we have a need to use them for various types of stimulation and self-expression. Intellectual and creative development are essential ingredients of human happiness.

So – food, shelter, medicine, a few essential goods, community, and intellectual development and creative self-expression – what else is there? How about security. Having a degree of security in the attainment of well-being is also important.

That’s pretty much it, isn’t it? Good news! Life is simple!

Obtaining these needs in sufficient quantities seems like it ought to be pretty easy. So why does life seem so complicated and difficult most of the time?

Roots of the Problem

If I had to answer this question with only one word, I would say, “institutions.” To quote Edward Abbey:

“In our institutions the whole is always less than the sum of its parts. There will never be a state as good as its people, or a church worthy of its congregation, or a university equal to its faculty and students.”

Many of our institutions are deeply flawed, and it is evident that these flaws are at the root of our discontent, thwarting our efforts to achieve a happy life.

One flaw at the root of our modern economic system is the “grow-or-die” mentality-the mentality of a cancer cel