Tourism’s effect on global politics in the 2020’s

Dec 6, 2020Dec 6, 2020 homeintheair4 Comments

(Notice: These predictions were written in the end of 2019, before the attack on General Suleymani or the occurrence of the 2020 pandemic)

In 1945 the United States of America had decided to use their first nuclear bomb on Japan, and thus compiled a list of potential targets. On top of that list was the historical city of Kyoto, Japan’s previous capital. Kyoto was the ideal target strategic wise, size wise and symbolically. Much of Japan’s identity lies in Kyoto, and back then that was a driving factor for it’s choice. Considerations towards world cultural heritage was non-existent at that time, specially for Japan, as the anti-Japanese sentiment and propaganda was on it’s highest in USA. Official slogans like: “Kill japs, kill japs, kill more japs!” made 13 % of the American population in favor of a complete genocide on the Japanese people in that year.

One person did not share this idea though. Henry L. Stimson was appointed Secretary of War, and he was in charge of choosing two cities to throw the nuclear bombs at. Luckily for the people of Kyoto, Stimson had traveled there as young and even brought his wife on a honeymoon to this city. He enjoyed it so much and made such a strong connection with the locals, that he could not bear the idea of wiping it all out. Even though he supported nuking Japan, he ordered Kyoto removed from the list of potential targets with a series of official arguments, that only makes sense to a traveler.

This story shows, how much travelling and tourism can change the course of history and even save entire nations. This will be the focus point of this article, where I try to predict coming events of the decade of 2020 based on my experience travelling around the world, specifically to places in conflict zones or places that, by the western world, is seen as “off the beaten path”. It is also based on tonnes of travel blogs and travel magazines that I read continuously while having a watchful eye on political news stories.

So why read a prediction by a travel nerd? Well, last decade I predicted the war in Syria and the french invasion of Mali. And I was just a kid back then.

Everything will depend on the enemy

Every beginning of a decade we are presented with one enemy, and every end of a decade we are presented with a victory on that same enemy – lately in the form of a dead body. In the 00’s it was Al-Qaeda and the death of Osama Bin Laden in 2011. In the 10’s it was ISIS and the death of their leader, Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, in 2019.

The 90’s was kind of exception, as the decade started with the fall of the Berlin wall and communism, and the 10 years was used to see if capitalism could stand it’s own without an opponent. Maybe the only thing we had to enemize in the 90’s was Saddam Hussein after the Second Gulf War to prepare for an invasion of Iraq in the following decade.

The 80’s had several East European communist dictators as enemy as well as Ayatollah Khomeini. The 70’s had many far-left militant organizations and individuals like Red Armee Fraktion and Carlos the Jackal. The 1960’s had the Soviet Union and the Cuba Crisis and so on and so on.

So who is going to run away with the title of Enemy of the Decade in the 2020’s? Everything will depend on it. One possibility could be an entity of the Iranian military called the Basij. In case of war in Iran, get ready to learn this new group, that will be labelled as the terror organization of the decade, that we all must learn to hate.

(UPDATE: As the 2020 has progressed, we saw two confirmed assassination attacks on top Iranian leaders carried out by USA. One killed several top military generals, including General Qasim Suleymani , the other killed top nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh. Meanwhile the world has been busy with the actual new enemy: Corona-virus, which I did not see coming. Is it a coincidence that the decade started like that? The occurrence of the virus has put a stopper for tourism, a vital problem towards world safety in my opinion. Meanwhile, what we in 2019 saw as far fetched is surprising no one in 2020. This means that world leaders can allow themselves to take drastic actions to change the world situation. Nothing is far fetched anymore. And with Trumpism: Nothing needs sane arguments to be carried out. This suddenly makes my predictions a little more plausible than I thought in the end of 2019.)

1. A nuclear attack on Iran

Okay, I admit it, the likelihood of this bold prediction might be very small as I write this. And let us hope it never happens, but there is a serious risk of this being the event, that will divide the 20’s from the 30’s. So here is why I think this is a risk:

What most people do not know about Iran is, that it is one of the safest countries in the region although it is portrayed as a closed country, it is actually very accessible and easy to travel in. While the vast majority of people would be scared to visit it, the travelling influencers have visited it for many years, recognizing how safe and welcoming it is, while it can boost any travel blog’s reputation for daring to go “off the beaten path”.

The truth is, the streets of Isfahan, Tehran and Shiraz have been beaten down by western male and female traveler’s boots during the late 00’s and 10’s. Not to mention the streets of the holy city Mashhad, that draws religious tourists from all over the rest of the world and European and American Muslims.

Back in time, all these influencers had one thing in common: They portrayed a strongly positive view on Iran. Iran has now made it even easier for western tourists to visit, by giving visa on arrival to most European tourists and in addition ensuring a removable visa, so they won’t be affected by Trump’s Muslim ban.

I have noticed in the last year, that the positivism has changed a lot. Many so called influencers have increasingly been using their travels to Iran as an opportunity to criticize the government. Some of this criticism is even sponsored by foreign powers like Saudi Arabia or Israel.

State sponsoring propaganda from travel influencers has become a real trend in the late 10’s. This has been seen in countless of example by many countries in the Middle East.

Many influencers, who have collected a large number of Iranian followers specially, have turned against the Iranian government and played a role in several attempts on creating an uprising against the government.

So all this propaganda, might finally lead to an opening for USA to finally invade. You can speculate, that the hope was to create a massive uprising, that would be met with massive violence, and thus giving an excuse for an American intervention, as it happened in Syria. This has not materialized, however a decision to invade the country might still be on the agenda, as it has been on the agenda of several prominent leader’s in the Republican party since before Trump came to power.

1.1 From an invasion to a nuclear attack

Russia and USA are currently working hard on developing a new type of weapon, that will make the Fat Man launched on Nagazaki in 1945 look like New Year’s fireworks. This new nuclear weapon will be able to travel 27 times the speed of sound by utilizing the nuclear energy for thrust as well as detonation. This means, a country like Russia can hit any target in the world with a nuclear missile after less than one second after the push of a button. This is simply unstoppable.

Now, the technicality of this technology is much more detailed, but once either country succeed in producing a maneuverable missile of this caliber, it most likely got to be showed off and tested in action. If USA decide to show off, as they did in 1945, meanwhile being at war with Iran, they might want to use it on a city named Qom.

Qom was were the Islamic Revolution of 1979 started. It houses one of the largest islamic universities that has produced many prominent Ayatollahs (a title given to highest rank of Shia muslim scholars), many of whom work for the government of Iran. The city is not a major tourist hub for western tourists, but attracts millions of muslim pilgrims to the tomb of a holy saint there.

If this becomes the last stronghold of the Basij, it might be portrayed in the media as the cradle of terrorism, and thus justifying wiping it out with assurance on trying to keep the holy site intact. Strategic wise, the bomb will have epicenter around 10-20 km away from the city center of Qom. In this way, arguments will be made that it intended to spare civilians and holy sites, well knowing that even the smallest A-bomb from this distance will wipe out most of the city. In the same time, it will be along the Qom River to ensure contamination and dysfunction. In a war, it is important that the civilian locals are dependent on the invading troops.

Qom map

I predict, that this will happen in the end of the 2020’s or beginning of the 2030’s.

2. Russian-Chinese conflict

First let us start in the neighboring region: Central Asia. The Uzbek and Kazakh authorities have made it exceptionally easy for travelers to enter their countries, now with visa free access for most Western countries and some Asian countries as well. This has created a huge boom in tourism in a region, that no one dared to visit in the 00’s. I myself visited Uzbekistan in 2019, and I have to say, that the country will be a tourist magnet very soon.

But why is it coming now? While tourism strengthens the economy, it is also a dangerous game for a dictatorship. Both countries have carefully prepared for tourism in the past 10 years, and both have now changed their president and revived their industries. For example, Uzbekistan went from exporting half of the world’s cotton production to only produce 3% of the world demand today. The production was no longer lucrative, as travellers discovered the inhumane slave-like conditions for the Uzbek people.

Tourism turned out to be more lucrative. Kazakhstan however, might be facing a problem due to this. The country has a large Russian minority from the Soviet time, and they have been marginalized (relatively), while the country is (and continuously will be) flooded with refugees with Kazakh background, fleeing the genocide of Muslims in China.

Kazakhstan has got along with Russia by being a strong ally politically and economically. With the rise of tourism 2 things will happen: More Russian’s will visit and hear the word of discriminated Russians in Kazakhstan, and their story of how Kazakhstan got a much larger piece of land after the fall of the Soviet Union, than they were entitled to.

The second thing that will happen is the westernization of the general public. Already now, the country is changing it’s alphabet from the Russian Cyrillic to the Latin alphabet we use in English.

Futhermore, economically, Kazakhstan is getting more and more independent from Russia and allowing neighboring China to invest, make projects and buy land in Kazakhstan.

Seen in the light of USA’s rivalry with both Russia and China, a conflict between the two countries over Kazakhstan might be very welcomed.

3. Russian victory in Syria

You can claim, that this has already happened. Russia has by far been more successful than USA in Syria, supporting Bashar Al Assad. Ten years back, Assad was supposed to be the “villain of the decade”, but Russia was not on board with this plan. Thus ISIS was conveniently introduced, but let us not dwell in the past.

In latest years, parts of Syria has been stabile enough to see a rise in tourism. Specially Damascus receives plenty of Arabic tourists from the Gulf, but also western tourists have been fascinated by this broken country. Many have realized, that Assad is not the large dictator, that he was portrayed as in the beginning of the decade. Sure, many travelers in Syria have been posting pictures of huge Syrian flags indicating regime propaganda, but very few of them have spoken directly against Assad. Furthermore, all interviews with locals have been more towards rebuilding the country.

An international demand for rebuilding Syria will lead to USA retreating from it. They will hand it over to Russia and Assad, while focusing on their more important wars in Iran and Iraq. Syria will also lose it’s strategic importance, as long as the alliance between Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Iran can be broken somewhere else.

4. The Kurds will fall into a trap (again)

There is one problem with leaving Syria: The Kurdish people, who have allied themselves with USA were betrayed in 2019, where American troops retreated to allow a Turkish invasion of their area.

Leaving the country to Russia and Assad, will make an end to the dream they had of creating their own country in the area. This is a necessity, because there is no way Turkey will allow a Kurdish state at it’s borders.

Turkey has been a tourist magnet the past 25 years, and they know very well how to deal with Europeans and even Americans. President Erdogan is probably the smartest politician in this century. Never has anyone played his cards better. He owns the immigration politics of Europe, he owns the nationalistic Turks, he owns the religious Turks, and he even owns the westernized Turks, whom he has granted freedom in the European side of Istanbul to pursue whatever lifestyle they want. In addition, he owns social media. He is the only leader of a Muslim majority country, who is seen addressing popular topics like the genocide in Burma and China and even criticizing Israel. Of course followed by absolutely no action, but he already won the hearts of the Muslims worldwide. If not by social media, then by the various pro-Turkey TV-shows like Ertuğrul that has become popular in the muslim world.

Another area which surprisingly has become a tourist magnet in recent years is Northern Iraq, also known as Iraqi Kurdistan. This region has more or less been acting like it’s own country, and issuing visa-on-arrival for western tourists, despite the rest of Iraq being almost impossible to enter. This has made the city of Irbil a huge magnet for travel bloggers on their quest to visit every official country in the world.

In many cases, these bloggers have been directly invited and sponsored by the Kurdish authorities. In addition, anyone who goes there will be meeting a Kurd, who will present the country to them as Kurdistan, and insist on using this name instead of Iraq when blogging on Instagram or making a YouTube video.

If you search for videos on YouTube, you will easily see how the videos from the early part of the previous decade had “Iraq” as the main title, then became “Iraqi Kurdistan”, and finally now any title will say “Kurdistan (Iraq)”, with emphasis on the parenthesis.

USA might persuade the Kurdish forces in Iraq to enter Iran and “liberate” the Kurdish part of Iran. For helping USA, they will be promised an independent country once the war is over.

5. Qatar will rise from the ashes and the fall of the Saudi regime

2022 will be the year of Qatar. The world cut it’s tie to Qatar after Saudi Arabia banished them from the Arabic family. Since then Qatar has been holding a low profile, but this is to be changed after the World Cup Tournament will be held in Qatar in 2022. After this very prestigious event, Qatar will start to seek power once again.

Like the UAE, Qatar’s royal family is immensely popular in the country, also among westerners. They also hold the famous TV News channel Aljazeera, where most people get their news from. Saudi Arabia has forced all neighboring countries to stop dealing with Qatar because of political disagreements.

Saudi Arabia, however, has been reported to run out of money in the end of the 20’s due to the low demand on oil. They of course have known this for a while, and they have been trying to diversify their industries away from oil production. One of which is tourism.

Saudi Arabia came way too late into the tourism game. First they had to come up with a bunch of positive stories to frame their country for western tourists. One was making it legal for women to drive, which most likely only had tourists in mind. Now Bahraini women can drive over the bridge themselves on a visit, and western female travelers will be able to rent a car, and post a picture in it with a caption like: “Progression for women in Saudi Arabia!” or “I am surprised, women can walk without a scarf here unlike in Iran!”.

Because of the late entry into the game, the Saudis have been trying to boost tourism by allowing online visa applications and making professional video production on social media to promote their historical places and desert. Often with an oriental styled white woman posing without a scarf in front of a monument like the one in Madain Saleh.

If they got involved in a war with Iran however, it will be even sooner that they will lose this investment. They have spent 10 years buying military equipment from USA, who will be using these exact weapons on the same target: Iran. It is a huge waste of money for them, as they basically have financed the whole war.

Saudi Arabia’s power comes from Mecca. Being the protector of the holy city has given them power over the Muslim world, but few events in the past years have created distrust between them and the Muslim world: Their destruction of Islamic heritage to build huge buildings, their ill handling of the pilgrimage, their war on Yemen, the killing of Khashoggi, and their continues support of Israel.

Not to mention all the conservative Muslims, who do not want Saudi Arabia to modernize and allow it to become a tourist hub. In addition, the poor countries of the Arabic world (specifically in North Africa), have seen an undeniable increase in Saudi sex-tourism. A habit so obvious on the streets of for example Marrakesh, that it has made many North Africans despise Saudi Arabians in general.

All in all, Saudi Arabia’s dominance will not survive. This will open up for Qatari dominance. A country that has transported Westerners all over the world with Qatari Airlines for decades.

6. Pakistan: A new superpower

Anyone who have been slightly interested in travel blogging will know, that the biggest hot topic of the past 3 years has been Pakistan. Every professional travel blogger have already been here. Either on his own or on state sponsored trips. And the positive reviews can never end.

The hospitality of the people. The warmth of their welcoming. The taste of their food. The views of their mountains. The vibe of their cities. It is a new undiscovered ground for westerners, who have been going to India for ages and ages, but never dared to visit the Muslim counterpart.

While India is becoming a more and more problematic country with lots of bad stories about rape, racism, killing, discrimination of Kashmiris and worst of all: Litter everywhere. Pakistan has got a new “true” democratic president, who is very popular not just at home, but all over the world.

The two countries might get into confrontation, but Pakistan needs time to prepare. India has already been provoking with the deployment of 1 million soldiers in Kashmir and a discriminating citizenship law against muslims. Air strikes have been conducted between the two nuclear powers already.

It is indeed a larger threat to world peace, even though no one is talking about it. Pakistan will try to delay any confrontation to get time to prepare its infrastructure and open more up for the world. Invite more tourists who will spread the good word of the country.

For them, a much better strategy is to support the “muslim” side of an uprising, if things get out of hand for India.

7. Many new members of the EU

While many might believe, that EU needs to hold low profile until the dust has set from Brexit, they also need to show the world, that the idea of EU is still strong and attractive.

Whether you like it or not, Europeans have become one family. More than three out of five EU residents made tourism trips in 2017. With low budget airlines like Ryanair, EasyJet, Wizz Air and many many others, it has never been more attractive to visit the classics like Paris, London or Prague. Tourism is flourishing like never before, and for every trip one make, the European feeling strengthens.

7.1 Scotland

Scotland might very well get their independence soon. Specially if a nuclear war is pressing, as Scotland unwillingly has stored large number of the UK’s nuclear arsenal. Most political analysts agree, that Scotland will be going independent sooner or later. It might be tactical to allow them to vote sooner, specially if a Brexit turns out to be successful. I believe they will want independence, and afterwards join the EU easily

7.2 North Macedonia

The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) recently changed it’s name to North Macedonia after a long dispute about the name with Greece. Finally both countries are happy. Macedonia is an interesting experiment for the EU. It’s population is small and very mixed religiously and ethnically. It will be the perfect country to include in the European family to learn a little about how to integrate the rest of the Orthodox and Muslim-majority Balkan countries in the future.

7.3 Another Norwegian referendum

Norway is changing. From Europe’s most oil-producing country to one of the worlds pioneers in sustainability. It is said, that Statoil has more or less pumped up all the oil there is in the North Sea and stored it during the 10’s. In the 20’s they will sell it and spend the money to transform their business to sustainable energy by building offshore wind farms. The oil-production (although many Norwegians might disagree) were a large reason why they have not joined the EU yet. Meanwhile EU has specific climate targets it needs to live up to. Persuading Norway to join the family will both help it reach it’s goal, be beneficial for Norwegians (now that their oil-production is over) and send a strong signal to the world, that the EU is very much alive. Whether Norwegians will vote yes, I am not sure about.

8. Colonial confrontations causing economical crisis in France and the USA

In 2019 I visited the beautiful country of Cape Verde after being on a small vacation in the Canary Islands. Here the ultimate prove of the cruelty of the early Spanish and Portuguese colonizers were right in your face. In the same time, when you walk down the streets of Praia, you can’t help but noticing the various art decos around the city calling for African unity. The symbols can be found all over Africa.

Africa unite

Previously, Africa has been held in poverty and every time a governmental change happens, that might threaten the interests of the colonial countries like France, USA the UK and so on, a military coup is sponsored or in worst case, direct war is initiated to uphold status quo. While most western colonial countries try to do this under the table, France in particular have been very visible in controlling its former colonies.

Luckily, this is very apparent to travellers in the African continent. While during the 00’s tourism in Africa was mostly restricted to large tour groups arranging safari expeditions, now more and more travellers and descendents of African immigrants in the Western World has been visible in their promotion of the continent and in exposing the truth about those neo-colonial policies that keep Africa in poverty, and how this poverty is funding the wealth and welfare of the Western World.

The more travellers, historians and progressive immigrants and politicians expose, the more likely things will change. The Africans are more educated now and in particularly they are more aware of how the world is exploiting them. The fact that at least 14 African nations still pay colonial tax to France in one way or the other is going to be well known in the 20’s, and a fact that will cause a shit-storm on particular France, but also USA’s direct and indirect involvement in the continent. A political demand for decolonization of Africa will be negotiated between the African Union and colonial powers. The question is, how much Africa will sell out for an official apology for slavery.

In the same time, we have China that is investing in (and also exploting) Africa in large quantities. There is a big chance, that the western colonial powers will lose their grip on Africa, and that will cause big problems in the industry of natural resources in Europe and USA. The dollar might lose value, specially considered that it is mostly backed up by oil, which has seen decreasing demands and decreasing prices due to a worldwide green transition.

Conclusion

These were 8 predictions of the 2020’s. I have more predictions that I did not get to write down before the decade began. I might follow up on this article when new events occur. These predictions are based on an analysis of the travel- and tourism industry’s effect on global politics and public opinion. Although tourism have played a larger and larger role in global politics, it is of course not the only factor that world leaders base their decisions upon. It is still undeniably true, that tourism has a strong political effect on bilateral relations. It is also undeniable, that tourism and travel-blogging has a strong effect on normal people’s opinion on each other. This view should have an effect on the countries politics in a democracy.

Finally, it is undeniably important for a traveller to have an eye out for peoples political views and feelings and opinions when travelling. If you feel safe, you can ask locals directly about certain hot topics concerning their country. But have in mind, this is only one side of the story. If you inquire about domestic policy issues from one group, make sure that you meet locals from the opposing group as well to really understand the topic. Eventually, our travels are meant to teach us, not confirm us in what we already believe.

The Black Live Matter Debate From a Traveler’s Point of View

Jun 24, 2020Jun 24, 2020 homeintheair1 Comment

For the past weeks I have been engaged in several discussions about racism and black lives in the USA. I did discuss primarily with republicans. Here are some of the arguments I encountered and my answers to them.

Image of Rua de Banana Street. The first street built by European owned enslaved people from Africa. It made it possible for Europeans to "train" their slaves before sending them to the Americas. — This is the Rua de Banana Street. It was this street in Cape Verde that kick-started the worst chapter in human history: The colonialism. This was the first street ever built and settled by European colonizers (with help of slaves) in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Racism is not the only problem

“Racism is not the number one problem we have in the world anymore. What about human trafficking? What about Palestine? What about Yemen? What about black on black violence? What about abortions? Did you know the number one threat to black peoples lives are abortions?”

Yes, there are many problems in this world besides racism. However, I would like you to research a term called “whataboutism”. Basically, when you throw a “what about” argument, the underlying motive is to run away from this particular problem by pointing out something else wrong, that you think I would not support. So yes, there are many “what abouts”, but if we for a second only focus on racism in the American system and society, you might learn something very valuable that you can use to fight other problems that are nearer to your heart.

“Fine, so let’s focus on that. Did you know the biggest threat to black lives are other black criminals way more than police?”

Before I answer you, I want you to reflect about whether this question really has anything to do with the subject of racism in the USA? Because by asking this, you are diverting the problem we are addressing from “racism being a threat to black lives” to “black lives are a threat to black lives”. So this is also under the category “whataboutism”.

However, now you brought it up: The short answer is, that black on black criminality is just as common as white on white criminality proportionally. When you get angry about the high crime rate in the black community, you should relate that to their social circumstances rather than their skin color. Their social circumstances are dictated by the systemic racism in the USA. More on this later. If you take one thing out of this subject is, do not argue with “what about”.

I believe a decent human being can empathize with more than just one cause. Sure, you might have spent years fighting human trafficking or apartheid in Palestine or famine in Yemen, but I hope you wont be so much into only one injustice, that you cannot see another.

When is it time for other causes to get attention?

“I understand whataboutism, but I still wonder when is it time to talk about Yemen or Palestine? When can we create just as much awareness as the BLM-movement has had? Shouldn’t we tackle the more urgent problems first?”

There are some subjects that get more traction than others. They become more mainstream than others. And it is not always the most urgent ones. We have all been travelling and seen extreme poverty in other parts of the world than in the USA. But let me tell you this:

Now, we are lucky to have started a huge movement, which rarely happens for any of the “righteous” issues we like to fight for. So instead of refusing to be part of it, because Yemen or Palestine is more urgent, we should partake. Why?

The BLM is mostly focused on racism in the USA. The USA is also the most powerful nation on earth, and it’s policies (even the internal ones) have direct influence on the rest of the world, even on a personal level. The USA is involved in all larger problems in the world including Palestine and Yemen.

I believe, when the bottom line is lifted in the USA, when racism is just a little bit less, it will also have a positive effect on other more urgent topics.

The statistics are not so bad

“Here is a statistic saying 370 white people were shot by the police last year versus 235 black people”

Without even checking your source, I can already see that the killing of black people is way higher than the population percentage suggest it should be (13%). In fact, it should be only around 66 black people killed, if it had to correspond to the population percentage of black people.

“Oh, well if you compare to the crime rate in the black community, it should make sense then.”

So even here, you are not right. It is hard to make an estimate of how much crime every race makes, because not all crimes are reported or investigated, and most white crimes are financial fraud by mostly white Americans that never get caught. The very thing we are opposing; is that police are harsher on black people than white people. And the police are the ones making those statistics.

But let us play your game:

According to the OJJDP black people count for 26,5% of the arrests in the USA, while white people count for 69,7%. Let us for a second ignore the fact that cops are prone to arrest black people more than white people, and apply those numbers to your above killing statistics:

(370/69.7*100)*0.265 = 140,7 people

So even if you compare the crime rate in the black community, only 140 people should statistically get killed by police, not 235 people. That is 95 human lives statistically unjustifiably killed by the police every year.

So yes, there are a lot of statistics supporting the claim of police brutality against black lives. In all this, we have not taken into considerations the following:

Police under-counts the number of police killings in official reports (sources: The New York Times).
White crimes are often of another type, namely financial, which is rarely investigated, rarely exposed, and rarely put to justice
One thing is police brutality, another is sentences black people get for a crime are much higher than for white people.
The numbers do not reflect whether the victims of police killing were armed or not, or under what circumstances they got shot. There are many reports of unnecessary killings, when it comes to black lives.
- Unarmed black people are more than 4 times more likely to be shot by police than unarmed white people (sources: The Washington Post).

You should fight from within the system

“We have built an amazing country, although not perfect. This country will allow you to fight injustice from within the system. Going the legal way. That is the only way I will support a movement to deal with racism. I am against any kind of rioting.”
– could be talking about the USA or another majority white country.

While I sympathize a lot with this argument, I do not believe it is always true. And definitely not the only way. While some might work for the cause in silence, let others speak up.

If you are not white:
Basically, you are trying to infiltrate a system that in the same time is trying to hold you back as it favors white people. If you are very skilled and capable, you might succeed of course. However, the impact you can do for the cause personally will not be significant, in best case incremental, in most cases very local.

Obama became the president of the United States, and even he could not change the system. There are two things, that will hold you back:

You will have to compromise your integrity and belief system to reach that high, when you are not white. This is because you will have to appeal to the average white person who is unaware of their racial biases.
You will start to care more about being a role model for the non-white kids than doing an actual change.

So yes, accumulated talent working for the cause will work in the end, but it is a very very slow approach that will take ages to achieve. On the other hand, the BLM movement can accelerate all of this. 40 years worth of work could be achieved in a few months. Do not put your own career before your values, even if it feels hampering to your career to speak up.

If you are white:
You can certainly use your position and white privilege to fight racism, do work from within. No one is keeping an eye on you as much as they are on non-white people. However, do not stay silent. We have a momentum now to enforce systemic changes, and that we should take advantage of.

“But if I speak up now, it might hurt my chances to get to a better position, where I can make an even larger impact”

Again, there is no certainty you will. If this is about your own career, then do not use your career as an excuse for your silence. However, if you work to achieve a better world, you should know that it is more valuable to speak up now, loud and clear. We need as many white voices to normalize anti-racism.

Indeed, all this is of course my own opinion. I really think we need people to speak up and not be afraid.

I don’t agree with removing my Africa pictures

“I do not agree that my pictures of smiling children I took in Africa is portraying racism. These were pictures from real life, and I did not just take random pictures of poverty, I actually had a special connection with those kids I met and asked for permission to take their pictures. It is a valuable memory of my visit and a personal experience, and I know very well I am no savior to them, even if I volunteered.”

First of all, you are not a bad person for taking those pictures. If you absolutely want them on your Instagram or Facebook profile, then most people would not even notice. And those who do, would not judge you based on only that.

The problem with the pictures is, that they portray a continent in desperate need of your help to save them. In desperate need of tourists and volunteers and your old clothes. If you have been to Africa, you would know there is much more progress in the continent, and we should rather promote this narrative to flourish it even more.

So if those pictures mean so much to you, you can keep them in your private photo album. It is not enough, that you do know you are a savior. We do not need others to think that you are.

To someone who has never heard about this debate:

There are many morally questionable aspects of taking pictures of and with poor smiling African kids. You can read about it on those links:

Expat Panda: Stop Using Black And Brown Children as Photo Props

Sacred Footsteps: Orientalist Travel Photography: ‘Creating’ the Native

No more white guilt!

“Why do I have to feel bad for something I did not even do? No one agrees with slavery anymore, we would never want that back. But I do not want to live my life in guilt for something that happened hundreds of years ago.”

I agree, you should not live in guilt for what happened back then. If you feel guilty for that, I am truly sorry, I really do not see why you should feel guilty. I hope it goes away.

I understand it, because I feel the same thing about terrorism and wars fought in the Middle East, being from there myself. It is not my fault, but I found myself in constant blame by spectators.

So I also understand, that this feeling of guilt is magnified when you hear about how slavery has had a direct impact on black people’s lives today. History is not told and documented for anyone to feel guilty, it is told and documented for two reasons:

Learning from it and not repeating mistakes.
To understand why the world is how it is today. We are a result of what has happened in the past.

It is not your fault, that things are like this. You were born into a world of injustice. Try to turn this guilty feeling into a driving force to fight racism. You can even use this feeling to easier sense and distinguish racism. I have certainly used this, whenever I encounter an extremist.

As a rule of thumb, anytime you feel guilted as a white person, you can turn it into an understanding of white privilege.

I really really hope that you will not use your guilty feeling as an excuse to stop fighting racism and speaking up against inequality.

Equal opportunities, not equal outcome

“We live in a country with equal opportunities, and I feel black people are complaining because the outcome did not turn out to be as equal, which is none of our fault.”

I do believe that if there truly was equal opportunities for everyone, the outcome would also be equal within statistical uncertainty. However, it is a theory that is hard to prove. The question is rather: Why do you think the outcome would not be equal? Is there something inherently different about black people’s capabilities?

What you perceive as the right to equal opportunities is actually the right to claim equal opportunities. There is no guarantee you will get it. And especially not in the private sector. Especially in the USA, where education and healthcare has to be paid out of own pocket, it is hard to claim that there are equal opportunities. I can advise you to research systemic racism, red lining and even statutory racism in your own country.

There is a strong white bias all over the world. Everyone (non-whites included) prefer to do business with white people solely because of the prestige and reputation. White people favor each other at job interviews and as business partners.

Even in the schools, there is a huge bias. I have felt this on my own skin in elementary school, high-school and universities. The stories are so emotional, I cannot write about them.

I am sure any non-white person, will tell you that they had to work extra hard to achieve half as much as a white person. And when I say “all,” I actually do mean it. Even the ones supporting Trump, I believe would agree although they would add “but stop whining.”

Whining or not, there is no equal opportunity, there is no equal treatment.

“But you can see that Asian immigrants for example are doing very well in society compared to black people, so I believe if they wanted they could have achieved better, but they would rather complain.”

You cannot draw parallel between Asian immigrants and black people. Black people are not recent immigrants. They were brought to the Americas as enslaved people by the white immigrants from Europe who today rule the USA. All those years have developed an inherent bias that hurts black people more than Asians.

Asians came mostly to the USA because they were needed as a work force in recent years. They came to the country with skills and promised job opportunities. Black people have been refused to enter “white schools” until 1964, and they have since been kept in an economical gap by Redlining that prevented them from succeeding. When one black person despite all odds succeeds, he is discriminated against on the job market.

In fact, Asian people do not have it easy either. They are in constant struggle to overcome the stereotypes that white people hold against them.

As with everything, you need to study the history to understand why the world is as it is today. If you just look at a snapshot, you will fool yourself.

The looting must stop

“How does it even help their cause, when they start looting and destroying local businesses. Those businesses are struggling too and not even white. They are just repelling people who would have supported them.”

I do not agree with the looting either. But we must not use it as an excuse to be against the movement. Historically, all revolutions and protests have been exploited by some individuals or even large groups of people for their own benefit. There is no 100% pure and violent free revolution.

So instead of saying_

“It is sad that a black man got killed, but the looting must stop.”

Try to say:

“It is horrible that property is being looted, but killing black people must stop.”

There is also another argument, that has been roaming around since Trevor Noah made a video talking about it, arguing that the social contract that make up society is broken in the USA, making the looting irrelevant. I would really encourage you to watch it.

Unfortunately, peaceful protests have never led to any major change in this world. Modern history books will always pull out Gandhi and Martin Luther King as the two examples for peaceful protests, but the truth is much more complex and much different. As always, history is written by the victorious. In this case, the victorious are using those examples as to uphold the status quo.

The fact is that the media will show more attention when there is some kind of vandalism, which is find very sad.

Black people are naturally more violent

“Look at what is happening in Africa, in countries like the Congo and compare to what is happening in other former colonies who live in peace, in particularly Asia.”

It is not true that Africa is more violent than other former colonies. You can easily look to India and Burma, where you find plenty of violence. You can also look to the Middle East and find the same. Even in countries like Indonesia, there have been genocides, although it is peaceful today.

You have to understand colonial history very well to understand why some regions today are suffering with violence. When the Europeans left Africa, the Middle East and India, they divided the territories without any deeper understanding of the people who actually lived there. Then then went on to support one tribe over the other in different ways to create hate and envy between locals. It was a divide and conquer game that is still played to this day.

There is absolutely no historical and no contemporary evidence that says black people are more violent. In fact, if you look at it historically, Europe have been savages while the Middle East, Asia and Africa flourished with richness, art, science and great architecture.

It is hard to trust what Muslims say

“Their own books are filled with hate and violence, so I will not believe them when they say their religion is about peace. Just look at what is happening in the Middle East”

It is so sad that you deny a person the right to tell his own truth. The truth is, an average Muslim person did not grow up with books that promote hate and violence. In fact, these books you are talking about are probably a niche. You can find Christian books that promote hate and violence as well, that does not mean that all Christians are hateful.

Please, allow someone to explain his own beliefs himself, and do not impose your prejudice on them, even if you have read all the “bad” books yourself. If he tells you, he does not believe in something written in those books, he most certainly does not believe it.

The violence happening in The Middle East has nothing to do with Islam and everything to do with the colonial past. What is happening in the Middle East is also happening in Christian parts of Africa and Buddhist parts of Asia.

In addition, you cannot justify racism against Muslims in particular. Why are we even discussing this topic? Did you give up on justifying racism as a whole so you are focusing on justifying your Islamophobia?

Do not judge too quickly

“The cop who killed George Floyd might not have been racist. He might have been just a very bad man. Do not assume anything, and leave the judging to God”

Millions of people worldwide have seen the video and have not been in doubt that the killing is racial related. Normally, I hate to use pathos in my argumentation, but when you refuse to see racism in a situation that is so obviously racist to millions of people, it says something about your lack of empathy and understanding of the majority of black peoples lives.

So let me explain this without any pathos: If you asked Derek Chauvin (the cop who killed George Floyd) if he is racist, he will say no. Almost no one would claim to be racist, and yet we have racism everywhere. It is the subconscious racism that is the problem. The subconscious racism that makes it more natural for Chauvin to be without mercy when he handles a black man versus a white man.

The question is, what do you want to achieve by arguing that Chauvin is not racist?

Is it that there is no racism in the police or justice system in the USA? All statistics are against you.

Is it that police brutality is not linked to race? Again, all statistics are against you, but even if you are right, it is still a problem. Police brutality is a problem no matter what.

I do not believe the protests will matter

“I do not think any of this will be fruitful. There will always be racism even a 100 year from now.”

It has already mattered. If it was not for the protests, Derek Chauvin would still be harassing people as a police officer. There has already been some reforms to some police departments and more is on the way. More people than ever now have a basic understanding of white privilege, white supremacy and systemic racism.

People have learned history, they were never taught in school. How many of the following topics did you learn about just since George Floyd’s death:

Smaller European nations part in colonization
Juneteenth
Tulsa Massacre
Redlining
Malcolm X
Whataboutism
Seneca Village and Central Park
Compensation to slave owners
The Red Summer of 1919
The crimes and racism of Winston Churchill

Imagine how many years until we get those topics in the curriculum. So maybe there will still be racism 100 years from now, but just in a few weeks the end of racism has come nearer than ever.

Seven modern wonders of the world

Aug 5, 2018 homeintheair11 Comments

In my last post I called the CERN facilities in Switzerland “our times Wonder of the world”. It made me think what else out there could be categorized as such and I made a list of 7 wonders of the modern world.

The originals

Do you remember the original Seven Wonders of the World? The ancient ones are all destroyed except the Pyramids of Giza. Later few architects agreed upon naming a new list with structures that still are standing today. This is maybe the more famous one featuring well known landmarks like: Taj Mahal, The Great Wall of China, Petra and Colosseum amongst others.

Here are the very original 7, and the New 7:

Ancient and new

My modern 7 wonders

In my list I have tried to choose wonders that have the most significant impact on the world we know in 2018. I imagine that nothing will ever beat the Ancient 7 Wonders, because they have simply outperformed anything in their time. In our modern world new technology makes it easier to break records. Therefore, the candidates for this list has been chosen through following criteria:

The level of impact it has had on our self awareness as humans
Shown an outstanding achievement in our ability to create.
Is memorable and iconic.
Is going to be well preserved for centuries.
Has an actual function rather than just made to show off.

I was trying to think what they will remember us for 3000 years away from now. Which landmarks will be visited by tourists 3000 years from now? What has transformed into museums?

Here is the list: The Seven Wonders of the Modern World

Modern

A little bit about every one and the reason

Large Hadron Collider, CERN, Switzerland
I have mentioned the importance of this facility many times before. Basically it has been the reason for many important discoveries and helped us understand the universe better. If you wanna read a little bit more about it, check my blog post here.
Panama Channel, Panama
Besides being one of the longest and hardest engineering projects in the history and killing more than 25000 people in the making, the Panama Channel has even today a huge impact on the history. It is basically the number one reason behind USA’s success and super power status today. The importance of maritime force and trade is way more than you imagine. Destroy the Panama Channel, and you will see the decline of the US power pretty quickly. This is also the main reason why I chose the Panama Channel above the Suez Channel which is longer and just as impressive engineering wise.
ISS, Outer Space
Need I say more? The International Space Station of course is a wonder. Not only the whole world is collaborating, but it is collaborating to reach out into space. In 3000 years when the Earth is only visited for tourism they will visit this station and say.. here it all started!
The Palm, United Arab Emirates
The Palm is so iconic that it doesn’t need introduction. The reason why it made it to the list is, that it shows a whole new era of narcissism. We have build islands before, but never in a shape to impress people from the air. In addition, this could be the start of a new era of creating land instead of conquering it.
NEEMO, Aquarius, USA
This facility is maybe the least known on the list. NEEMO is an underwater laboratory ran by NASA. They basically send their astronauts here to live underwater in 3 weeks to prepare them for the harsh space environment. Again, this place had a huge impact on making us understand our own capabilities as human beings and therefore it made it to the list. As a teen I dreamt about being sent there and finally to space.
Burj Khalifa, United Arab Emirates
Now this one I was a bit in doubt about. It is the tallest building in the world, the skyscraber of skyscrabers. But the record will soon be overthrown by another tower in Saudi Arabia. However, I decided to include it because this really kickstarted the race to the skies. In addition, being located in the desert, this building has a very important function of keeping the whole city of Dubai together. Everything in Dubai is done indoors and the need for huge a building is therefore legit.
Dìxià Chéng, China
This is another less known facility. Can you imagine that beneath the capital city of Beijing is a nuclear shelter large enough to house the whole population of 6 million people of Beijing? Well this is the name of this shelter. Just the thought of it makes you get goosebumps. Hopefully, no one would ever nuke China and it will stand as a memory of the time when humans were so afraid of killing themselves, that they spent billions on structures like this.

Other structures in scope that did not make it to the list:

Transit siberiean railway, Russia
Atacama large milimetee array, Chile
Hubble telescope, Outer space
Three Gorges Dam, China
Cheyenne mountain bunker, USA
Tokyo train and metro, Japan
Shanghai metro, China
Hashima Island, Japan
Boeing Everett Factory, USA
Ski Dubai, UAE
Rungrado May Day stadium, North Korea
Suez Channel, Egypt
Zhangjiajie Glass Bridge, China

Take a look at the candidates. Did I miss any important? Do you think something else deserve to be on the list? Let me know in the comments!

Top one place to visit in Switzerland

Jul 22, 2018 homeintheair4 Comments

What if you had the chance to visit Switzerland for 1 day only – what is the one experience you should visit? There are many amazing places in Switzerland but the one I would recommend is the only one I consider an actual Wonder of the World: The CERN campus!

20180329_082817 - 2 — Me arriving at the reception in CERN. If I look tired it is because I woke up at 3 am to drive from Bern to Geneve to make it to the early morning guided tour.

What is CERN?

I think most people know CERN by now, but if not then here is a little background:

CERN is the most advances scientific research center in the world. The density of knowledge and great minds in this campus is not seen anywhere else in the world. Also they have the most advanced and the biggest machinery to perform their experiments. The engineering work of this is what I consider the Wonder of the World!

Here they try to answer the most fundamental questions of the universe by experimenting with nuclear particles. This helps us to understand how the world actually were created and unveiling some of the most complex questions about our reality. How does the world work? Why are we here? Can God possibly exist?

Oh yeah.. and they also invented the World Wide Web!

20180329_090510 — The worlds very first Large Particle Accelerator. This one is now retired, but they have build even better ones. The Large Hadron Collider is the most famous and biggest – 27 km in diameter.

But it doesn’t seem like something for me?

Maybe you aren’t interested in science but when I say people should come here it is because you will learn a life lesson here. I think every well rounded adult should have at least some basic understanding of what this place does. How are we gonna answer our children’s silly questions if we haven’t even looked into science?

What will you answer if a 5 year old asks you how come we exist? Why we believe in God? Why we don’t believe in God? What is the universe made of? Why can’t I fly? What other universes can you imagine and who is right and who is wrong?

No matter who you are or what you believe in, you should look into this! Bring your brain and come here. Don’t think you know anything about science before you visit this place.

Even if you believe in whatever conclusion you hear the scientist say. You need to come here to understand that this is our times philosophy hub. Answers are never clear even if some people would try to convince you they are.

Everything is free there. Go there and take the guided tour (book in advance). Even if you only grasp 2% of what they are telling you, it will be worth it!

20180329_104219~2 — Me philosophizing at CERN xD

What did they find out so far?

I consider myself somewhat a man of science but even I only grasped like half of what the Pakistani scientist told us on the tour. However, the basics is this:

They have built the Large Hadron Collider which is the essence of the Wonder. This is basically a big circular tube under high pressure and low temperature buried 100 meter beneath the Swiss/French border. They use this machine to accelerate beams of particles and make them hit each other right where they have built enormous sensors to detect all data from the explosion, process the data and send the most interesting and newest discoveries to scientists all over the world to analyze.

Discoveries could be new unseen particles, antimatter or bosons. Antimatter is basically the exact opposite of matter.. of everything we know. In theory everything has an opposing counterpart: Night and day, hot and cold, love and hate, matter and antimatter. But for some reason antimatter just disappeared when the world was created. With this machine scientists have been able to recreate it.

Another important discovery was the Higgs Boson that you might have heard about. In simple form the boson is a particle that gives gravity to everything. Gravity is not just something that exist out of nothing, it is an actual particle that gives it. Meaning everything in the world has been in touch with this particle. This was also discovered using this wonder of a machine.

20180329_102502 — You can actually see the scientists working on this tour! Isn’t it amazing?

I am not an expert

Okay guys, I am not an expert and I have not discovered the answered to everything. I like to learn always and of course I don’t understand the physics behind this fully. I find it interesting so the above is simplified to make it as easy to read as possible. If I am mistaken please enlighten me!

For me this was a true wonder to see and experience. Just as impressive to be there as it was to visit the Pyramids of Egypt or the Great Wall of China.

Is it unique?

Someone asked the Pakistani scientist if there was any other thing similar. He answered that there are particle accelerators in the USA but they are linear which makes it hard to do the collisions. Also he said that China is doing it as well. I think they are building one just as impressive. But will it be the same wonder? I doubt it.

Not because I don’t trust Chinese science. Not at all! But because CERN is actually international. While Chinese and American like to do everything themselves CERN is open to the world. First of all CERN is totally independent from the industry and military. This is ONLY about science – not war or economy. In my honest opinion peace and science works better together. Only when all the world’s brightest minds work together we can create amazing things – have anyone read the Babylon story of the Bible? Once we get divided by nations and languages we loose everything.

Well in CERN more than 100 nationalities have united their greatest scientists only to enlighten the world in a peaceful manner. You cant feel anything but humbled walking around it’s streets and laboratories. This is a strength not seen anywhere in the world not anywhere in history since the Babel Tower was built!

After walking the tour an old Dutch gentleman asked the scientist: “Amazing.. where do you start?” And the scientist responded: “9 o’clock in the morning”.