travel as a political act

Swiss Alps, 2011

Rick Steves’ discussion of American Empire would have run me off …from Rick Steves and Gonzaga a decade ago. For many years I held fast to a socio-political-spiritual philosophy that quickly tucked those trigger words into a tightly sealed box labeled blind liberals—accompanied by a “feisty response” (Steves, 2009. p. 96) summarily  dismissing the ideas and the people offering them. Steves proposes that a large part of the world holds this perception and will treat us accordingly; this is valuable information for overseas travelers.  I remember after 911 I was jolted to think anyone had a reason to hate America.

Steves describes sources of this perception including the US dismissal of the UN, gregarious “hard power”(Steves, 2009, p. 97) militarism, and the war on terrorism that has multiplied our enemies.  All of these were sanctioned as quasi Holy Writ in my world and were akin to heresy if questioned; whole groups of people were summarily dismissed who held other views.  Many changes have occurred in me over the past few years as I find it more comfortable to let go of a hard line seeking instead to hold conflicting ideas in tension; Steves’ ideas are palatable to me and applicable to my overseas trekking. One element that was missing in my perceptual framework of many years was a simple compassion for others. My rigid doctrine blinded me to this absence.

Steves’ experiences in Iran persuade me that I can effectively diffuse misunderstanding in small ways as I engage the people in my travels in Italy and beyond. He talks about the shock of Iranians when they discover he is American stating, “They seem to be thinking, ‘I thought Americans hate us’"(p. 168). It is particularly easy to make assumptions and hold hatred of people we cannot see and especially those in a part of the world we know nothing about; the distance facilitates this. By traversing the physical gap through travel, we come face to face and find there are no foreigners. "Compassion is the quivering of the pure heart...when we have allowed ourselves to be touched by the pain of life...under this rubric, even the idea of enemy vanishes" (Brussat, 1996, p. 91).

Brussat, F. (1996). Spiritual literacy: Reading the sacred in everyday life. New York, NY: Scribner.

Steves, R. (2009). Travel as a political act. New York, NY: Nation Books.