Traveling: Is It Controversial?

MSNBC posted a handy little application in its travel section recently. You click on your desired travel destination and the website lists a number of reasons not to go there. Here’s what they had to say about Venezuela:

The CIA believes that Venezuela has become an export center for cocaine, heroin, and human trafficking, while Venezuelan companies are reported to have served as covers for Iranian-government arms sales to Uruguay and other Latin American clients.

Apparently they want us to believe that this somehow has to do with international tourism. Wrong. It’s just another example of the politics of fear operating in this country. We’ve come to the point where our popular media tell us that it isn’t safe to wander outside the friendly confines of the USA. I find this disappointing–just another case of the Power Elite of Military, Politics, and Economics dominating our daily lives. Well sucks to you, culture of fear! I’ll go where I want when I damn well choose. It’s getting to the point where it’s socially unacceptable to associate with a nation or a culture that our administration labels as unfriendly. Take China for example. It’s time we stopped bashing China for every US insecurity. How can MSNBC classify a country with almost a fifth of the world’s population as a “controversial” destination?

While the Olympic protest is focused on the Chinese government’s long-standing campaign to weaken Tibetan autonomy and cultural integrity, China’s human-rights record is poor throughout the country. The government has relocated millions of rural citizens without consultation or adequate compensation, for national projects including the Three Gorges Dam. Ahead of the Olympics, vast camps that provide temporary housing to rural petitioners seeking redress in Beijing have been moved to avoid another source of protest. While restrictions on foreign journalists have been relaxed to allow interviews during the Games, arrests and harassment of Chinese journalists continue. Abroad, China has supported the regimes in Sudan and Myanmar. Meanwhile, China’s poor domestic industrial standards have led to the worldwide export of tainted medicines and lead-painted toys.

See how the hypocrisy and generalizations have trickled down? What does my tourism have to do with some stranger’s politics? Lead-painted toys? That’s why I should stay home? Give me a break. I think it’s time we started looking at what’s right with China. Every country has its problems, and China is no different, from the environment to foreign relations. Does that mean it’s not worth exploring? China gets three percent of its oil from Sudan. This does not mean it “supports the regimes.” China actually has an interest in stopping any human rights abuse. And lest we forget, Chevron, Total, and Shell all had operations in Sudan before China did (buy the magazine for the full story). And look at the Chinese earthquakes. The response to the devastation has been as swift and efficient as possible. The internal structure and order within the military and aid teams is remarkable. Compare that with the utter failure of US aid in New Orleans–and then compare the scale.

China’s literacy rates have jumped from 65 to 90 percent in just 25 years. The country is far from perfect, but it’s not the “China threat” our government and media would have us believe. We need to stop antagonizing every global player and instead see what they have to offer, and if indeed we have anything to offer in return. Boycotting the Olympics is, I’m convinced, another horrible idea. The world is greater than the Bush administration believes; our roles as global citizens should not be suppressed because of the ineptitude of our international politics.

If you can find it, I highly recommend picking up National Geographic’s May China issue, which came out before the earthquakes. You’ll see what I’m talking about. Here’s a quote from that issue:

The fact that China and the world can no longer ignore each other may be the one source of optimism. If these problems [oil, pollution, weak central government] are to be managed, collaboration will be crucial. And no one in the developed world should criticize China without taking a hard look in the mirror. The nation has risen by making products for overseas consumption, and there’s nothing foreign about the materialistic dreams of average Chinese. An American criticizing China’s environmental record is like an addict blaming his dealer.

Makes me think of Bush and the Kyoto Protocol. All politics may be local, but I like to think we can move beyond that.