by Rick Steves
Every time I’m stuck in a long security line at the airport, I reflect on one of the most disconcerting results of terrorism: The very people who would benefit most from international travel—those who needlessly fear people and places they don’t understand—decide to stay home. There’s an irony here: If people stay home out of fear of violence fueled by misunderstanding between cultures, they can actually bring on the danger they fear. When we travel, we build understanding, making it harder for the governments of other countries to demonize us through their propaganda…and harder for our government to demonize other cultures through our propaganda.
I believe the most powerful things an individual American can do to fight terrorism are to travel a lot, learn about the world, come home with a new perspective, and then work to help our country fit more comfortably and less fearfully into this planet.
Terrorism by the Numbers
Reducing the tragedy of terrorist casualties to statistics strikes many people as disrespectful and callous. But I believe that when we overreact to the threat of the terrorist, we empower the terrorist and actually become part of the problem. By setting emotion aside and being as logical as possible, we can weigh the relative risks and rewards or costs and benefits of various American behaviors.
Every four and a half days, a 747’s worth of people die on our highways. And it’s not worth headlines. We’re a mighty nation of well over 300 million people. People die. More than 30,000 people die on our roads every year. Anybody in that business knows if we all drove 20 miles an hour slower, we’d save thousands of precious lives. But in the privacy of the voting booth, is the average American going to vote to drive 50 mph on our freeways to save thousands of lives? Hell, no. We’ve got places to go.
Consider guns. Every year in our country, more than 30,000 people are killed by guns. You could make the case that it’s a reasonable price to pay for the precious right to bear arms. We are a free and well-educated democracy. We know the score. And year after year, we seem to agree that spending these lives is a reasonable trade-off for enjoying our Second Amendment right.
Germans decided not to have that right to bear arms, and consequently they lose only about 1,000 people a year to guns. Europeans (who suffer less than a quarter the per capita gun killings we do) laugh out loud when they hear that Americans are staying home for safety reasons. If you care about your loved ones (and understand the statistics), you’ll take them to Europe tomorrow.
If we dispassionately surveyed the situation, we might similarly accept the human cost of our aggressive stance on this planet. We spend untold thousands of lives a year for the rights to drive fast and bear arms. Perhaps more than 300 million Americans being seen by the rest of the world as an empire is another stance that comes with an unavoidable cost in human lives.
I know this is wild, but imagine we changed our priorities and de-emphasized our military might. Fantasize for a moment about the money and energy we could save, and all the good we could do with those resources if they were compassionately and wisely diverted to challenges like global warming or the plight of desperate people—in lands that have no oil or strategic importance—whose suffering barely registers in the media. Imagine then the resulting American image abroad. We’d be tougher for our terrorist enemies to demonize. And imagine the challenge that would present to terrorist recruiters.
The American Dream, Bulgarian Dream, Sri Lankan Dream: Celebrate Them All
I fondly remember the confusion I felt when I first met someone who wouldn’t trade passports with me. I thought, “I’ve got more wealth, more freedom, more opportunity than you’ll ever have—why wouldn’t you want what I’ve got?” I assumed anyone with half a brain would aspire to the American Dream. But the vast majority of non-Americans don’t. They have the Bulgarian Dream, or the Sri Lankan Dream, or the Moroccan Dream. Thanks to travel, this no longer surprises me. In fact, I celebrate it.
This family has the Sri Lankan Dream.
I was raised thinking the world is a pyramid with the United States on top and everybody else trying to get there. Well into my adulthood, I actually believed that if another country didn’t understand that they should want to be like us, we had every right to go in and elect a government for them that did.
While I once unknowingly cheered on cultural imperialism, travel has taught me that one of the ugliest things one nation can do is write another nation’s textbooks. Back in the Cold War, I had a Bulgarian friend who attended an English-language high school in Sofia. I read his Soviet-produced textbooks, which were more concerned about ideology than teaching. He learned about “economics” with no mention of Adam Smith. And I’ve seen what happens when the US funds the publishing of textbooks in places such as El Salvador and Nicaragua, with ideological strings attached. The economics of a banana republic are taught in a way that glorifies multinational corporation tactics and vilifies heroes of popular indigenous movements. I think most Americans would be appalled if we knew how many textbooks we’re writing in the developing world.
On the road, you learn that ethnic underdogs everywhere are waging valiant but seemingly hopeless struggles. When assessing their tactics, I remind myself that every year on this planet a dozen or so languages go extinct. That means that many heroic, irreplaceable little nations finally lose their struggle and die. There are no headlines—they just get weaker and weaker until that last person who speaks that language dies…and so does one little bit of ethnic diversity on our planet.
I was raised so proud of Nathan Hale and Patrick Henry and Ethan Allen—patriotic heroes of America’s Revolutionary War who wished they had more than one life to give for their country. Having traveled, I’ve learned that Hales, Henrys, and Allens are a dime a dozen on this planet—each country has their own version.
I believe the US tends to underestimate the spine of other nations. It’s comforting to think we can simply bomb our enemies into compliance. This is not only untrue…it’s dangerous. Sure, we have the mightiest military in the world. But we don’t have a monopoly on bravery or grit. In fact, in some ways, we might be less feisty than hardscrabble, emerging nations that feel they have to scratch and claw for their very survival.
We’re comfortable, secure, beyond our revolutionary stage…and well into our Redcoat stage. Regardless of our strength and our righteousness, as long as we have a foreign policy stance that requires a military presence in 150 countries, we will be confronting determined adversaries. We must choose our battles carefully. Travel can help us understand that our potential enemies are not cut-and-run mercenaries, but people with spine motivated by passions and beliefs we didn’t even know existed, much less understand.
Growing up in the US, I was told over and over how smart, generous, and free we were. Travel has taught me that the vast majority of humanity is raised with a different view of America. Travelers have a priceless opportunity to see our country through the eyes of other people. I still have the American Dream. But I also respect and celebrate other dreams.
Gimme that Old-Time Religion…with an International Spin
The United States may be a Christian nation, but we’re certainly not the Christian nation. Nor do our Christian values set the worldwide standard for Christian values. As a Lutheran, I was surprised to learn that there are more Lutherans in Namibia than in the US. Even though they wouldn’t know what to do with the standard American “green hymnal” and don’t bring Jell-O molds to their church picnics, they are as Lutheran as I am. They practice the same faith through a different cultural lens.
While European Christians have similar beliefs to ours, travel in the developing world opens your eyes to new ways of interpreting the Bible. An American or European Christian might define Christ’s “preferential option for the poor” or the notion of “sanctity of life” differently from someone who has to put their children to bed hungry every night. While a US Christian may be more concerned about abortion than economic injustice, a Namibian Christian would likely flip-flop th
ose priorities. As for the Biblical Jubilee Year concept (where God—in the Book of Leviticus—calls for the forgiveness of debts and the redistribution of land every fifty years), rich Christians assume God must have been kidding.
Travel where few Americans venture… and locals find you exotic, too.
Travel beyond the Christian world offers us invaluable opportunities to be exposed to other, sometimes uncomfortable, perspectives. As an American who understands that we have a solemn commitment to protect Israel’s security, I am unlikely to be able to sympathize with the Palestinian perspective…unless I see the issue from outside my home culture. And the best way to do that, clearly, is to actually visit Palestine and talk to locals there. That’s why I traveled as much in Palestine as in Israel during my recent visit to the Holy Land. Now I understand things better—such as how Israeli settlements in the West Bank stir sentiment there as much as terrorism stirs sentiment in Israel. And by traveling there, I can understand an unintended consequence of the wall Israel built in the name of security: keeping the younger generations on both sides unable to connect and, therefore, saddled only with their parents’ outlook and baggage.
I come away from experiences like this one not suddenly convinced of an opposing viewpoint…but with a creeping discomfort about my confidence in the way I’ve always viewed the world. Whether reading the Bible through the eyes of Christians from other cultures, or having your hometown blinders wedged open by looking at another religion a new way, travel can be a powerfully spiritual experience.
Get Beyond Your Comfort Zone—Choose to Be Challenged
I’ve long been enthusiastic about how travel can broaden your perspective. But I didn’t always preach this gospel very smartly. Back in the 1970s, in my early days as a tour organizer and guide, I drove fifty or so people each year around Europe in little minibus tours. I had a passion for getting my travelers beyond their comfort zones. Looking back, I cringe at the crudeness, or even cruelty, of my techniques.
As a 25-year-old hippie-backpacker-turned-tour-organizer, I had a notion that soft and spoiled American travelers would benefit from a little hardship. I’d run tours with no hotel reservations and observe the irony of my tour members (who I cynically suspected were unconcerned about homelessness issues in their own communities) being nervous at the prospect of a night without a bed. If, by mid-afternoon, I hadn’t arranged for a hotel, they couldn’t focus on my guided town walks. In a wrong-headed attempt to force empathy on my flock, I made a point to let them feel the anxiety of the real possibility of no roof over their heads.
Back when I was almost always younger than anyone on my tour, I made my groups sleep in Munich’s huge hippie circus tent. With simple mattresses on a wooden floor and 400 roommates, it was like a cross between Woodstock and a slumber party. One night I was stirred out of my sleep by a woman sitting up and sobbing. With the sound of backpackers rutting in the distance, she whispered, apologetically, “Rick, I’m not taking this so very well.”
Of course, I eventually learned that you can’t just force people into a rough situation and expect it to be constructive. Today, I am still driven to get people out of their comfort zones and into the real world. But I’ve learned to do it more gently and in a way that keeps our travelers coming back for more.
For me, seeing towering stacks of wood in Belfast destined to be anti-Catholic bonfires and talking with locals about sectarian hatred helps make a trip to Ireland more than just Guinness and traditional music sessions in pubs. Taking groups to Turkey during the Iraq wars has helped me share a Muslim perspective on that conflict. And I consider visiting a concentration camp memorial a required element of any trip we lead through Germany.
As a tour guide, I make a point to follow up these harsh and perplexing experiences with a “reflections time” where I only facilitate the discussion and let tour members share and sort out their feelings and observations. I’ve learned that, even with the comfortable refuge of a good hotel, you can choose to travel to complicated places and have a valuable learning experience.
Not long ago, I had an opportunity to hang out on the beach for a vacation in the ritzy Mexican resort of Mazatlán. The enticing beach break coincided with an invitation to go to San Salvador (the capital of El Salvador) to remember Archbishop Oscar Romero on the 25th anniversary of his assassination.
For my vacation, I opted for El Salvador—to share a muggy dorm room, eat rice and beans, be covered in bug bites, and march with people in honor of their martyred hero who stood up to what they consider American imperialism. The march passed a long, shiny, black monument that looks just like our Vietnam memorial. It was busy with mourners and etched with countless names—each a casualty of a civil war their loved ones believed was fought against American interests and American-funded troops. It’s not a matter of whether America is good or bad in a certain instance. The fact is, the popular patriotic sentiment “my country, right or wrong”—while embraced by many Americans—is by no means unique to our country. There are good people waging heroic struggles all over the world…some of them against our country.
This memorial in El Salvador remembers loved ones lost fighting the United States.
If you’ve got a week to spend in Latin America, you can lie on a beach in Mazatlán, you can commune with nature in Costa Rica, or you can grapple with our nation’s complex role in a country like El Salvador. I’ve done all three, and enjoyed each type of trip. But El Salvador was far more memorable than the others. The tourism industry has its own priorities. But as a traveler, you always have the option to choose challenging and educational destinations.
See the Rich/Poor Gap for Yourself
After traveling the world, you come home recognizing that Americans are good people with big hearts. We are compassionate and kind, and operate with the best of intentions. But as citizens of a giant, powerful nation—isolated from the rest of the world by geography, as much as by our wealth—it can be challenging for many Americans to understand that poverty across the sea is as real as poverty across the street. We struggle to grasp the huge gap between the wealthy and the poor. While it may be human nature to choose ignorance when it comes to this reality, it’s better character to reckon with it honestly.
Anyone can learn that half of the people on this planet are trying to live on $2 a day, and a billion people are trying to live on $1 a day. You can read that the average lot in life for women on this planet is to spend a good part of their waking hours every day walking for water and firewood. But when you travel to the developing world, you meet those “statistics” face-to-face…and the problem becomes more real.
In San Salvador, I met Beatriz, a mother who lives in a cinderblock house with a corrugated tin roof. From the scavenged two-by-four that holds up her roof, a single wire arcs up to a power line that she tapped into to steal electricity for the bare bulb that lights her world each night. She lives in a ravine the city considers “unfit for habitation.” She’s there not by choice, but because it’s near her work and she can’t afford bus fare to live beyond walking distance to the place that pays $6 a day for her labor. Apart from her time at work, she spends half the remaining hours of her day walking for water. Her husband is gone, and she’s raising two daughters. Beatriz is not unusual on this planet. In fact, among women, she’s closer to the global norm than most women in the United States.
I went home from that trip and spent $5,000 to pay for my daughter Jackie’s braces. I had money left over for whitener. I noticed every kid in Jackie’s class has a family that can afford $5,000 for braces. This is not a guilt trip. I work hard and am part of a winning economic system in a stable land that makes this possible. I love my daughter and am proud to give her straight and white teeth.
But I have an appetite to understand Beatriz’s world and the reality of structural poverty. I know that for the price of two sets of braces ($10,000), a well could be dug so that a thirsty village of women like Beatriz would not have to walk for water. They would have
far more time to spend with their children. I advocate within my world on Beatriz’s behalf, and enthusiastically support relief work in the developing world. This is not because I am a particularly good person…but because I have met Beatriz.
Imagine the power of a well which, with each pump and gush of water, makes an otherwise thirsty villager think, “Thank you, America.”
If the economic might of the USA helped ease the burden of thirsty families like Beatriz’s, it could be justified as an exercise in “soft power”—done in the interest of security for our country. Imagine the value to international relations when each morning, rather than walking across the county to get water for their family, moms like Beatriz walked across the village square.
Traveling in places like El Salvador enables you to appreciate the gap between rich and poor. And having met those people makes it all the more gratifying to help out as you can.
Okay, Let’s Travel…
You can travel with your window rolled up…or your window rolled down.
Now it’s time for us to pack up these concepts and hit the road. Through the rest of this book, I’ll share specific examples of “Travel as a Political Act”:
In the former Yugoslavia—Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Montenegro—we’ll wander through the psychological and physical wreckage left in the aftermath of a tragic war…and ponder the sobering lessons.
Considering the European Union, we’ll see how a great society (living in a parallel world to ours) is evolving. The EU is melding together a vast free-trade zone while trying to keep alive the cultural equivalent of the family farm: its ethnic diversity.