The Rocky Mountain News' Mark Brown returned from a two-week vacation overseas, where he appreciated being far removed from incessant, excessive, simplistic media coverage of politics starring "screaming talk-show hosts" and, more important from a traveler's standpoint, observed the absence of the post-9/11 fear-mongering and paranoia that has engulfed domestic travel. Despite higher air fares, reduced flight schedules and the pathetic dollar, international travel provides a welcome blast of sanity. In his column titled "Believe it or not, there's a land where cool heads prevail," he wrote:
"No one seemed to be living in fear. We were allowed to take bottles of
liquids on trains on the continent that saw bloody train bombings in 2004,
killing 191 people. We rode London's underground with unsearched backpacks and
suitcases less than three years after the July 2005 subway bombings that killed
52 people, the deadliest terrorist attack in London's history.
"No one made me take off my shoes at the airport on the continent where shoe bomber Richard Reid boarded a plane in 2001 with the intent to blow it up. Had to
take them off over here, though.
"Daily life in London means sitting next to Arabic-looking people on the
subway a couple of times a day, carrying backpacks and other items. Nobody
blinks an eye. The biggest threat to the London Underground that particular week
was a World War II mortar that was found to still be live under a main track.
Commuters were simply rerouted for a few days as it was disarmed and
removed."Meanwhile, back here a doughnut advertisement was pulled because the
woman in the commercial was wearing a scarf with tassels. And a fist-bump by a
presidential candidate was characterized as a 'terrorist fist jab.'
"As we seem to become more paralyzed with fear over here, life goes on over
there. It may be too late (and, let's face it, naive) to go back to a notion
that our fellow man isn't a threat but someone we need to cooperate and
communicate with for the good of all of us."
Thank you, Mark Brown, for your words of sanity. I hope that people will continue to travel beyond our tightened borders and that at least, your column is taken to heart by some of those who continue to be wrapped in fear -- but, I am "afraid" that they won't be.
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Hurray for Mark Brown! I was just talking with a friend who has traveled, as I did, very extensively in early years, often to remote areas and countries where airports were manned by machine guns, and on a couple of occasions I've been in areas when tanks rolled into town or arrived right after I left. And nowhere in all those years did I encounter the government-fed hysteria that we are seeing here now. That constant stream of "the worst that people can be" is mentally debilitating. Any moron knows that really ugly stuff can happen to really nice, decent people--but to fear it every moment? It drains the positive energy and joy out of life and it is that energy and joy that has fed the innovation this country used to be known for--we used to be known for reaching beyond the box's edges, not for hunkering down behind the box hoping not to be seen. I hate that maisntream media often plays into this mindset and feeds us terror instead of inspiration on a regular basis. Rosemary Carstens - http://carstensFEAST.blogspot.com
ReplyDeleteHear! Hear!
ReplyDeleteI live in Hong Kong and second these comments. I have never been in the security line at Hong Kong's airport for more than five minutes except when the U.S. government required a second bag search for U.S. bound passengers, which has thankfully been lifted.
ReplyDeleteTraveling Internationally has become less stressful than traveling domestically in the U.S. The terrorists have won.
We are turning the U.S. air transportation system into a Third World level experience.
As Ben Franklin purportedly said, "People who trade security for freedom end up with neither."
We found your blog because we wanted to read about Nonna's and clicked over to this other blog. We have never flown internationally and never knew what other countries do. I assumed everybody has to take off his shoes at all airports and put liquids into zip bags. It makes us look really stupid and I feel really stupid for not knowing much about other countries.
ReplyDeleteLynda and Frank from Tulsa
Once you get out of the usa, you actually get real silverware to eat with.
ReplyDeleteIt is much easier travel in outside countries, and no never have to take your shoes off!!
But then again, most other countries dont have so many hating them.
IMHO, the pointless "security" screenings that do little but annoy travelers are part of the periodic paranoia that engulfs the US, usually driven by politicians or preachers with their own agendas. For much of the 20th century, the fear was directed at Communism.
ReplyDeleteFrom Father Charles Couglin in the 1930s through Sen. Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s to the Cold War that impacted geopolitics until the Soviet Union crumbled in the '90s, too many Americans have bought into anything that would keep "the Reds" at bay. The US supported horrific rightwing dictators and became mired in Vietnam in our obsession over the Communist menace. Heck. We've still got thousands of troops stationed in Korea to contain the Communist North, where armed hostilities ended about 55 years ago!
The US doesn't have Communists to kick around anymore, so we have "terr'ists." With that perceived menace comes all the airport security bureaucracy and the color-coded alert sytem (want to be it'll be raised to red again just before the election?). Oo democratic country inflicts this sort of nonsense on travelers.
The Denver travel writer is wrong. Travelers are asked to take their shoes off at Heathrow, a practice also true at most continental European airports.
ReplyDeleteIndeed, one must remove shoes after changing planes at most European airports, even if one does not leave the secure terminal area! We don't even go that far in the U.S.
In Frankfurt, one-half of all flights, domestic and international, are now processed TWICE, by different teams of screeners!
There is virtually no security difference between most European airports and most American airports, and what differences there are involve higher, not lower, security levels in Europe.
Indeed, in Europe, all major airports have roving squads of checkers to question travelers at random. These roving checkers are still in place as of last month in Munich's Josef Strauss and Paris's Charles De Gaulle. We have nothing so intrusive in the U.S.
And there is no real silverware on most intra-European flights.
I am amazed at the vast amount of nonsense I am reading here.
At most European airports, even small ones like Venice, there are military personnel walking around with machine guns! We have nothing like this in the U.S.
You know I've never thought much of people who criticize but have to post anonymously rather than reveal who they are--having a differing opinion is fine, being snarky but remaining invisible is juvenile. Rosemary Carstens
ReplyDeleteMy name is Mark Adler, Rosemary, if that means anything to you, which I doubt that it does.
ReplyDeleteI do not have a google/blogger account--but I do travel throughout Europe on business one-half of the time, and Mark Brown's article was total bosh, as any frequent traveler would know.
The last time I flew within Europe (including Britain) was in October 2007. I flew London/Heathrow-Manchester, Manchester-Isle of Man, Isle of Man-Liverpool, London/Gatwick-Lisbon, Lisbon-Madrid and finally Madrid-London/Heathrow. I have been trying to remember whether I had to remove my shoes or take my laptop out of its case at some, none, any or all of the airports where I boarded. I am quite sure that I didn't have to put toiletries in those plastic bags in case I had any idea of blowing up an airplane with a shampoo bottle, eye drops or toothpaste.
ReplyDeleteSince then, I have flown to Switzerland and back and to Britain and back, which of course meant that the shoes came off, the laptop came out of its case and the small containers of liquids went into clear plastic bags because US-bound flights must comply with TSA regulations.
I traveled around Switzerland and Britain on public transportation, and as Mark Brown reported, there weren't any train station hassles. Police officers hung around busy big-city stations and were presumbly alert, but there were no metal detectors or irritating announcements about the terror threat (in fact, those color-coded threat level announcements don't exist at airports there either). If you go to Denver's Union Station for the two Amtrak trains a day, some airport-style security measures are in place.