Thoughts - The Importance of Travel

I wrote this piece in the midst of the Corona Virus Pandemic. Given recent events though, it's been brought back to me and I thought the time may be right to post it properly.

Disclaimer - my aim in writing this section was to keep things light. This isn't light (that's the disclaimer!)

The Importance of Travel and Experiencing Other Cultures

When reading about the different atrocities human beings have committed to one another, I had, up to about a decade ago, always thought of today's society as superior. The atrocities I'm talking about are some of the worst in human history, including the abhorrent Holocaust at the hands of the Nazis during the Second World War, or the Rwandan Genocide in 1994. This isn’t an article about the importance of learning from your mistakes though, so why the focus on such dire events? Some context then:

What, in essence, is a genocide? A quick Google search on the definition tells us it is ‘the deliberate killing of a large group of people, especially those of a particular nation or ethnic group.’

What do genocides have in common? If you take the two genocides mentioned in the first paragraph you find that the victims were primarily of a single ethnic or religious group. The Holocaust in Germany was a push to purge what the Nazis called the “untermenschen”, or the sub-humans from their lands. The primary focus of this project were the Jews that resided in Germany, and increasingly, of the lands they conquered as a result of their exploits during the Second World War. The Rwandan Genocide meanwhile was the mass killing of members of the Tutsi tribe by the Hutus, with a view to wipe out the Tutsis off the face of this earth.

What causes a person to willingly take someone’s life? Do all of us have it within us to take the life of another being? Some studies into the minds of serial killers have shown that serial killers has a chemical imbalance that allows them to do the deed without a sub-conscious block in their mind forcing them to abandon the act. And yet many ordinary civilians that took part in the Rwandan Genocide claim not to have felt regret during or in the immediate aftermath of the killing. What makes them different from your average serial killer? The answer – after the massacre in both cases, the culprits apprehended have gone on record to describe the manipulation that led them to believe it was acceptable and even expected of them to brutally or savagely murder a fellow human being in cold blood.

Inherently, it becomes okay to believe that an act of evil is permissible if the permissibility of the act is fed to you daily, over a sustained period of time. You can either call it the process of normalization or desensitization, the effect is the same. Shockingly, history documents that in the years prior to both genocides taking place, a central theme of desensitization and in some cases the dehumanization was in general use by the powers in charge.
In the years leading up to the Second World War, the German population was gradually indoctrinated into believing that the Jews in Germany were corrupting their land, and were responsible for their loss in the First World War. With the Rwandan Genocide, racist propaganda through the likes of the radio was paramount in making the majority Hutus believed that the minority Tutsis were their enemy and could not be trusted, to then gradually being brainwashed into thinking that a mass cleansing, a massacre of the Tutsis was what they were supposed to do in order to further their cause. The main method of the perpetrators, the powers that be, was that the public, as a nation and as a people, are gradually fed their version of events, slowly enough to start believing it, and that all independent thoughts on the matter are put aside.

And sadly, we’re seeing much of this today. Humans as a race are suggestible, subservient. We cry out for ideal leadership because we feel that we alone will be unable to deal with the problems we are likely to face if we don’t have someone to lead us through them. And when we are unfortunate enough to be led by xenophobes, with an able team of power-hungry war-merchants and resources aplenty, you’ll find that their warped view of a race, a gender, an ethnic or religious group generally seeps through to the general public.

Unless they’re challenged. And the challenge needs to come from us. When we are told that a certain nation, a certain ethnic or religious group is of danger to our well-being, we need to challenge that person.

And therein comes a basic need of travel.

As humans, we tend to group ourselves with people of a similar nature to us. It’s easier to live with someone of the same beliefs, same language and same lifestyles as ourselves rather than someone who has a completely different way of living life. And in this way you’ll ordinarily find communities that cohabitate in a surrounding and a share of the same names, languages, religious views and cultural traits, resulting in different nations, religions and cultures. And that’s completely okay. The majority of us aren’t built to speak five different languages every day, or have the central nervous system to digest 3 different cuisines or taste palates every meal time. So it’s perfectly natural to want to live and cohabit a space with people of a similar ilk within your bubble.

But can you find out how they live if you stay within your own bubble? And thus, when the people controlling what you watch, what you hear and what you read tell you that a certain group of people act a certain way, are you likely to challenge it? Isn't it easier to believe what they say than the alternative which is imagining that the people who have obviously done their research, are feeding you this information for a different purpose?

Which ultimately brings us back to our principal point; the importance of experiencing different cultures. If you go to different places, see and experience the way people live, you’ll find that for eons, the paramount priority for humans of all races and ethnicities has been survival. That is their first objective. The vast majority of people around the world don’t want to hurt another racial or ethnic group. You’ll see for yourself that although people live in a different way, speak a different language, eat food that is different to yours - they're still people. If you travel to different places, you’ll be able to challenge the notion set out – that a certain ethnic, religious or racial group is out to hurt you, because you’ll get to learn that people don’t think in those terms.

The core of it perhaps is that travel opens your mind and enables you to make your own conclusions. If you’re fed conclusions by someone without first hand evidence, their agenda should always come into question.

Don’t take my word for it though. Ensure your conclusions are your own. Travel and experience it for yourself!

Photo Credit - Faith Eselé