The freedom to travel

It began at home. “ബാക്പാക്കിങ്ങിനു പോകാന് നീയാരാ, സായിപ്പോ ?”, asked my mom, when I told her I was travelling in South Africa, along the garden route.

The literal translation to english would be: “backpacking for going you are who, sayippu ?”. The connotation was clear. You’re not a “sayippu”. “Sayippu” is a non-offensive borrow-word in malayalam, used to describe colonial British people, and today, generally, people of European ethnicity a.k.a “white”. It is a corruption of the word “Sahib” in Hindi, which is a term of respect attributed to someone of power.

So my mum opined that since I’m not of European descent, I shouldn’t travel and see places and people. Let’s get this in context. This was a trip I had organised, with money I had earned through hard work on a job I had gotten with my own effort based on qualifications I had earned paid for by a government scholarship. This was as opposed to the Indian norm, where children would have been educated on borrowed money, and gotten a job from a nepotistic employer and expected to support the family as a return on investment. Clearly, from a malayalee cultural context, money had little to do with this opinion. It was a purely cultural limitation. Indian “boys” don’t travel. Its something they do not do.

It occurred to me that the corollary to my mum’s opinion has been true through most of her lifetime. I was born in free India. My mum was born in colonial India, the soon to be lost jewel in the crown (almost literally: see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koh-i-Noor ) of the vast British empire. The minions of the empire needed to travel far and wide to bribe or bully its colonies into submission. I suspect that the stereotype of the “tourist” was sown in this context, at least in India.

Let us look at some facts today:

Number of *AFRICAN* countries British citizens can visit without a visa: 30

Number of *AFRICAN* countries US citizens can visit without a visa: 31

Number of *AFRICAN* countries Nigerian citizens can visit without a visa: 4

Number of *AFRICAN* countries Namibian citizens can visit without a visa: 15

Number of *AFRICAN* countries South African citizens can visit without a visa: 22

(Source wikipedia.org)

In other words, the average African can travel to fewer destinations WITHIN AFRICA than a Briton or US citizen.
More interestingly, an ethnically more “african” country in africa, has less access to other countries WITHIN AFRICA, than a less ethnically african country within africa. Very interesting. Let me re-quote this, replacing Africa with Europe. An ethnically more “european” country in europe, has less access to other countries WITHIN EUROPE, than a less enthnically european country within europe. If this were the situation in Europe, Turks would be able to travel to more European countries than Danes! Sounds ridiculous ? Then it probably is.

This is the world order we live in. It is just a symptom of a world order where people are deliberately divided and kept separate for the profit of a few. Many months ago, I had a conversation with an elderly British friend of mine. He mused over the fact that he met someone of Indian descent, who actually was from Kenya and had never been to India, and how that amazed him. I had to gently point out that if he replaced “indian” with “european” and Kenya with “Australia” it would probably turn his amazement into better perspective. (lets try that in , say, Tokyo: “I’m amazed to have met someone of European descent, who actually was from Australia, and had never been to Europe!” I just had dinner with a chap like that last night. You need to get out more, dude! ).

I dream of a day when people are free to roam to the corners of the world and yet not be branded “immigrant”. I have a dream that one day, ethnicity would be a thing of the past, that one day, (misquoting Martin Luther King Jr. ) “little black boys and black girls will” not “be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as brothers and sisters”, because black or white boys and girls did not exist in that day ( “I say chappie, what on earth does the word ‘pretorian’ mean ?” ).

And properly quoting Dr. King:

“Let freedom ring. And when this happens, and when we allow
freedom ring – when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet,
from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when
all of God’s children – black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles,
Protestants and Catholics – will be able to join hands and sing in the words
of the old Negro spiritual: “Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty,
we are free at last!” “