Riding Tours Blog

Bayard Fox- founder and owner of Equitours would like to say a few words.

I have noticed something missing before on my trips the last few years, but it struck me with particular force on my last trip to India in January.  It was the almost total absence of American travelers except for our own group while we were doing the usual tourist stuff after the ride.  One really shouldn’t go to India without seeing things like the Taj Mahal.  In places like that there were masses of Brits, French and Italians, many groups of Japanese clinging together in tight knots, and even South Koreans.   Virtually no Americans were there to visit what are unquestionably some of the richest and most fascinating tourist attractions in the world.  The Brits are delighted not to have those loud, over tipping Americans spoiling things, but I am disturbed.  The same absence is evident  in much of the world these days although Americans do seem to feel more at home still in places like Canada and Ireland; even Mexico.

What is it that is keeping us at home?  Has 9/11 had such a great impact on the American psyche?  Is it because our illusion of invulnerability was shattered?  After all, that was a disaster which happened here and it should have told us that we are not living in a safe haven at home.  Is it because the media have started pandering more lavishly to our xenophobia and ratcheted up their efforts to paint the rest of the world as a dangerous, evil place?   Do Americans not know that firearms deaths in the United States are running around 50,000 a year, ahead of traffic deaths, and that we have one of the highest rates of violent crime in the world?  Could it be because we are ashamed of the egregious errors we have made in our foreign policy and the mess we have created in so many parts of the world? Is it because we know much of the world hates our national image?  After all it doesn’t seem most foreigners have any resentment toward ordinary Americans and realize they shouldn’t be held totally responsible for the mistakes and arrogance of Bush and Rumsfeld.

Whatever the reason is, I think the situation is lamentable.  The less we know about the rest of the world and the less they know about us, the more likely it is that we will continue to make stupid mistakes and that the world will continue to misunderstand us.
How do we get out of this vicious circle?

Bayard

This entry was posted on Monday, April 2nd, 2007 at 1:53 pm and is filed under India, Riding Tours, Trips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.