Still Safe to Travel

Recently, we have heard cries for an “America united,” a patriotic call to come together as a nation. While we value national unity, we must be extremely wary of ignoring the diverse interests that make up our society, including those of adventure travelers.

Whenever catastrophe strikes in the United States or elsewhere, our government has the unpleasant habit of restricting Americans’ freedom to travel. Currently, our government has made travel to Cuba, Libya and Iraq illegal, on the argument that visiting these nations is ostensibly dangerous. The real reason for these restrictions has nothing to do with safety concerns, but rather the government’s unwillingness to allow our tourist dollars to support unfriendly economies.

The events of 1959 are a glaring example of the American propensity to limit free travel for political purposes. When Fidel Castro took over Cuba promising social reform, the U.S. denounced him as a Communist (long before Castro declared it himself). After an ugly exchange of words, much resembling the “Yes, you are,” “No, I’m not” format of toddlers bickering over toys, the U.S. promptly banned travel to the island.

The similarities between the sudden transfer of power in Cuba and the demolition of several blocks in New York are quite striking. In 1959, never before had the threat of collapse to the Evil Empire come so close to our shores; now, in 2001, never before has the threat of collapse to terrorism struck so close to home.

As the U.S. prepares an appropriate response, it should remember that restricting the freedom of citizens to travel is typically a method employed by tyrannical dictatorships and not by prosperous democracies. Imperiously declaring which countries our citizens may not visit demotes us to the likes of Mussolini, Stalin or Kim Il-Sung, who, on a more extreme note, would not let citizens escape the borders of famine-ridden North Korea.

Not only should these restrictions on travel be eliminated, but America needs to address the cause of a growing global hostility towards the U.S.: poor and unresponsive diplomacy.

In June, I had the honor of visiting the U.S. Embassy in Guatemala City to discuss humanitarian aid programs. While there, I was shocked by the comments made by an assistant to the ambassador. He made several disparaging remarks about the Guatemalan people, and he was not helpful in furthering the interests of culturally sensitive aid organizations in the country. The shortcomings of our diplomats perpetuate a highly negative image of America in the developing world.

It’s little wonder, then, that Hugo Chavez, president of Venezuela, has been getting cozy with the U.S. State Department’s usual suspects, Cuba and Iraq, and has been persuading other Latin American leaders to follow suit. At a recent conference in China, he denounced Americans as cold-blooded “imperialists,” making the developing world even less receptive to American tourism.

Besides America’s poor image, its political meddling presents endless peril for the adventure traveler who builds an itinerary based on the rugged impulse to explore.

For example, the adventurer planning a trip to Angola this year may be interested to read the State Department’s website that states: “Angola remains unsafe due to high intensity military actions, bandit and insurgent attacks...and land mines in rural areas.” While the State Department portrays the danger as inherent in Angola’s political landscape, the U.S. has been supporting an internal rebellion for the better part of 25 years.

So why would our government want to make the world unsafe for American tourists? Maybe the U.S. government does not truly desire to make the world a perilous place, but rather that it likes the world as its playground, and tourists just get in its way. The terrorist attack of Sept. 11, and America’s “coming together” in its aftermath, may well sound the death knell of open and free travel in the Middle East. Unfortunately, the traveling public will readily put up with affronts on personal liberty in the interest of national security.

Even at Harvard, we have berated any attempt to discover what motivates terrorists’ hatred of America. Matthew S. Kupersmith ’02 wrote in a letter to The Crimson on Sept. 20, “Harvard’s students do not feel pain and do not fear terrorists. Though they may be intrigued by the terrorist mind, they seem unwilling to admit to its full, terrifying potential.”

But rather than try to grasp the devastating effects of terrorism, which are obvious, we should strive to understand the cause. Maybe then we can address a global climate that is becoming increasingly hostile to America and its tourists every year. Because as the world becomes more dangerous, travel restrictions will inevitably multiply.

We must recognize that restrictions that are put in place now will last for decades, long after the hysteria toward Afghanistan is over. Since the restrictions of 1959, the ostracized island of Cuba has become a popular beach destination, yet travel there remains illegal. Though our coming together in the wake of Sept. 11 is admirably patriotic, don’t throw away our freedom to go the ends of the earth in the name of patriotism, just because we may not want to venture into the wilderness of Afghanistan or Iran for the time being.

Don’t let our freedom to explore become another unfortunate casualty of the terrorist attack.

Luke Smith is a first-year in Wigglesworth Hall.