78uuu lumière des étoiles

Dusty:Starlight:Culture



I returned unscathed
2004-01-19   8:08 p.m.

On Lonely Planet's Thorn Tree, Worldlywize says s/he's just been to Jo'berg, and found that everything there was affordable, "amazing", and "beautiful". S/he also says that it's "much safer" than everyone makes it out to be. Shrubsmirk, in response:

I've been living here all my life, and I've only been shot twice.

deedley deedley dee! ba-dum dum.

It's that time of year, when most of my internet "research" involves typing the words Southern, Africa, and overland into various country's search engines. While last month's internet research projects involved determining which European/Eastern European countries have not gone EU yet (more bang for your buck, hoo-hah), this month's is more focused on el-cheapo multiple stop destination air fares and whether or not flying out of Budapest, booking in Prague, or hitching in Cape Town would save us the $300 needed to pay for our possible Victoria Falls "adventure camping" excursion. That last one is a joke, mom.

There are some very scary words often used to describe conditions in various African countries; fun and exciting terms like "vigilante", "banditry", and "infectious" - and fun phrases as well like the following:

"The behavior of police or military personnel is not always predictable or rational."

"Visitors are urged to use the same security precautions they would exercise in any urban area of the developing world."

The developing world? The developing world! Ack! It's trying to eat my legs!It's trying to kill me with poisonous snakes! Train bandits! Land mines! Irrationally irritable military personnel! Vigilante Nigerian drug lords running amok in the suburbs!

While visiting the third world certainly doesn't mean endless days of whimsical, imperialist, nature-loving fantasies a la Kuki Gallman, it also doesn't mean certain death.

If you're a writer, you hoard language. If you hoard language, you pay extensive attention to phraseology. If you happen to have the misfortune of making a career of this (cause you must be as broke as moi if you do), you probably look for agenda in phraseology, look for the politics and ideology embedded in language.

This is a philosophy which has helped me to decode the US Dept. of State-Bureau of Consular Affairs' travel warnings and information sheets listings. The demographics, statistics, and factual run-downs that are supposed to be tone-less often have quite a tone, and some are so bold as to use flowery adjectives in the descriptions of certain cities, countries, and political situations.

In their attempt to banish or inhibit my dreams of African travels, some people would repeatedly send me email, linking to some yahoo news story about rape statistics in Cameroon or Terrorism in Tanzania. "But I'm going to Ghana", I'd write back. Though I usually wouldn't get any response to my reply, the party would still maintain that I was "risking my life/safety/health/sanity/etc." if I dared set foot on the Dark Continent.

Now why is it so easy for us to understand that within OUR OWN STATE there are areas we go to, and areas we avoid, places where we could sleep on the street unharmed, not locking our doors ever, and places where even in a locked car we'd probably be at risk of attack - but when it comes to Africa, a vast and enormous CONTINENT yielding more and more widely varying diversity of peoples, economies, and political situations than most whole areas of Europe, we seem unable to differentiate?

Those people (ranging from my ex-boyfriend to friends and co-workers to my landlord) who would send me email or warn me about what they just saw on some PBS special didn't seem to see the harm in merging African nations or even entire regions of the continent "for the sake of argument". It seemed it was all the same to them. Whether I was in West Africa or thousands of miles away in Lesotho seemed irrelevant; Africa was bad. BAD! And I was foolish for going.

For this reason, I developed a vast respect for Robert Young Pelton's non-verbal, minute political statement in his infamous book, The World's Most Dangerous Places. In and among various descriptions of Cambodia, Chechnya, and Angola is an entire chapter dedicated to Los Angeles, in which, we read, on a daily basis, people "are hunted down and murdered". New to his more recent editions of WMDP are descriptions of the United States’ “growing trend toward youth violence”, which includes varied and detailed examples of school shootings, or "slaughters" and “politically-charged teen massacres” in suburbs.

You see, it is all in the language, in the perspective, in the tendency to ignore what is obvious, as that might be a bit easier than saying "I admit I'm completely ignorant about that country, but what I've heard frightens me. Can you tell me about it, and then I'll make a judgment?"

Pelton does not explain, either in the forward, introduction, afterward, or later interviews, his motivation for including that section on L.A. Perhaps this is because he doesn't really have to - his point is well taken by most who read his work. Anyone can make anything sound dangerous depending on the language one uses.

Please understand that this doesn't mean I ignore warnings about certain countries or believe that most media reportings on Africa are ignorant and biased (that's only our country's; England's is pretty good!). I understand that that trip to Syria will just have to wait, indeterminately. I understand that Zimbabwe right now would be a bad idea. But this, really, is no different than all of us understanding not to drive through the Prince Street projects on our way home from work to by-pass the traffic on rt. 21 in Newark. We wouldn't tell a foreigner that the entire North American continent is dangerous because of gang violence in concentrated Urban areas, so why do we assume that whatever goes on in Angola represents what happens thousands of miles away in Botswana?

"Oh it's still Africa, though!", some people would say, when I'd point this out. Oh gosh! That's right. Good thing I'm shipping my uzi to the nearest embassy post office before we head off for Windhoek. I do have to wonder what would happen if I warned people not to go to Florida at all - or Louisiana, Georgia, or Alabama, for that matter, 'cause they're all just too close - because I heard some areas of Miami have heavy drug-traffiking related violence which includes rape, murder, theft and car-jacking. "At an alarmingly growing rate!", I'd add, for emphasis, my eyes wide. They'd probably laugh at me.

So why do they get mad when I laugh at them?

I envy the Europeans' approach to travel - including their views toward the "third world". Something about their media seems so much more comprehensive than ours: they report the good with the bad, and, gasp, actually have an interest in reporting the happenings of various African countries. The more information, the less ignorance. That's just a general rule of thumb, no? So Europeans seem so much less afraid to travel to and through Africa - might explain why of all the white people we met in Ghana, most were German, Canadian, French, and English.

Turns out a slew of the Jordans have been to The Gambia - and that a few aussies I know have been to Kenya tracking Gorillas. When I asked one of them about safety and security, my friend Simon - before answering my question - remarked to himself that Americans really were afraid of everything, after all. There was some understanding that my questions weren't completely irrational, but there was also the sense that they were a bit unfounded, too precautious, or even melodramatic. "I didn't go into Rwanda", Simon said, almost by way of apology for being surprised that I even questioned him in the first place.

"It was before the Embassy bombing". I wanted to explain that I knew the difference between Rwanda and Kenya, that I knew Kenya was stable and relatively peaceful when he went, but I stopped. There was no point.

See Michael Moore's documentary, Bowling for Columbine. Its message about how fear is bred in our country by our very own media is astonishing, and I'm finding, unfortunately, it extends to more than just how we regard our own neighborhoods. Fear is the root of so many things that stop us, slow us down. From our fear of social rejection to our fear of being targets over seas, we're kept from taking even minimal risks, kept from living if we let our overblown paranoia make sure that we lead dull, safe little lives.

I'm all for advocating smart decisions and instincts. But I hate that people's fear keeps them from so much.

There was that one gorilla-tracker tourist group who got kidnapped by rebel forces in Kenya a few years ago. But then there was also that Walmart parking lot incident where a school teacher and her children were car-jacked, kidnapped, and eventually shot in the head in Long Island.

Let's think.

xoxox