| "Make a point of staying away"
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In many countries around the
world, travel is is the No. 1 or No. 2 industry
fueling the economy. So not going somewhere can
have an important impact on that country.
Fear is one reason people don't travel - a
big reason, as we've seen since 9/11. We've seen
what happened, close-up, to New York City:
Broadway was dark, hotels empty, and many small
businesses shut their doors permanently. Whenever
violence or attacks targeted at American tourists
is perceived in a country, visitation drops.
Tourism to Egypt has never been the same since the
massacre of 58 tourists at the Temple of
Hatshepsut in Luxor in 1997. The bombings of the
U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 sent
those countries into economic tailspins when
tourists were scared away.
In Europe this
spring, violent acts of antisemitism have been
occurring with alarming frequency, causing concern
among American Jews traveling abroad. A synagogue
in Marseille was burned, a gang of youth beat up a
Jewish soccer player in Paris, a Jewish bookshop
in Brussels was torched, and a swastika was
painted on a synogogue in Russia. The antisemitic
attacks have been so serious and frequent that the
Simon Wiesenthal Center issued a travel advisory
in late April urging Jews to use "extreme caution
in traveling to France and Belgium." At its
meeting in April, the World Jewish Congress called
antisemitism in Europe "the worst since World War
II."
But some aren't staying away out of
fear, but as a form of protest.
On June
17, the American Jewish Congress announced that it
had suspended all of its educational tour programs
to France, because it was dissatisfied with the
government's response to the antisemitic
incidents. The AJC was pulling out to make a
political statement to France, to pressure them
into "taking responsibility for what's going on
inside their borders."
There are many
reasons France is a wonderful travel destination,
in other words, but antisemitism eclipses all of
them for the AJC and others in the Jewish
community.
A country's politics can, and
often does, play a major part in our travel
decision-making. For me, Korea and Japan have
always been places with political situations I am
violently opposed to, and will never visit. It's
ironic that the two are paired now and in the
unwavering spotlight of the World Cup.
I
don't care how many stories and documentaries try
to convince me that Seoul is a beautiful and
modern city. For me, Korea is a place where the
people still raise and kill dogs for meat. Where
you might happen upon a street market and find the
poor creatures stuffed into cages, or hanging from
ropes and being beaten with bats to soften their
meat. While many of the cruel practices have been
outlawed, the beatings and the eating of dog -and
cat -meat is still very much alive in Korea.
The meat is readily available in markets
and restaurants and about 20 percent of the Korean
population are said to eat it regularly. It is
especially popular among older men because of its
reputation for improving strength and virility.
Although there seems to be a tacit
knowledge of the cruelty, it obviously wasn't
important enough to be a deterrent for the World
Cup committee. The president of the committee did
write to the head of the Korean Football
Association last year asking for "immediate and
decisive measures" against cruelty. In a
statement, Sepp Blatter said: "The World Cup would
serve as an appropriate moment for Korea to show
the world that it is sensitive to vociferous
worldwide public opinion and that it rejects
cruelty."
That didn't happen. In fact,
members of Korea's National Dog Meat Restaurants
Association were preparing to use the games as a
venue for popularizing their practice of eating
dog meat, by distributing free cups of the
traditional spicy dog stew, as well as sandwiches,
burgers, and a dog meat drink, outside tournament
stadiums.
Only when it was pointed out to
them they might just be asking for trouble, the
restaurateurs backed off.
The dog meat
issue has at least gathered some attention during
the World Cup games. Japan's openly illegal
whaling business received nary a line of print or
air time.
For years, Japan has been
killing whales illegally; a moratorium on
commercial whaling was enforced by the
International Whaling Commission in 1986, and
Japan continued to kill hundreds of whales a year
under the pretext of scientific research: Among
the 700 whales it plans to kill this year are 50
sei whales, classified as an endangered species.
The International Whaling Commission held its
annual session this May in Japan, and the
country's Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries
Ministry was hoping to conduct a media blitz
during the meeting to convince the Japanese people
and anyone else who would listen that whaling
practices were in the best interest of Japan. The
argument was that there were plenty of whales - so
many, in fact, that they are disturbing fish
populations. But the campaign never got off the
ground; it was eclipsed by the excitement building
up to the soccer games.
Of course, other
countries have practices that may be strange, or
even abhorrent, to Americans; often they come
under the banner of "cultural differences."
Nobody's claiming antisemitism is merely a
cultural difference, I don'tforward. But I've
traveled to many parts of the world where the
arguments are not simple at all. On a trip to
Thailand, for instance, our guide told us that her
brothers got rights that the girls never did. I
tried to get her to admit that such a thing was
unfair, but she wouldn't. She believed she was
born with fewer rights, and was happy with it. She
would be rewarded in the next life, after all. And
as long as she wasn't being hurt, we could agree
to disagree.
But I've come to realize
that's where I draw the line. When people, or
other living things, get hurt.
Korea's
argument for eating dogs is that they have been
doing it for centuries, and anyway, the dogs they
eat are ones raised specifically for slaughter.
But others, including Koreans, note that the
eating of dog meat came during the Korean War,
when people were starving. Now dog meat is more
expensive than chicken or pork. One Asian animal
rights group noted that dog meat is a specialty
for the affluent society, who view it as an
aphrodisiac.
In fact, a lot of cruelty
seems to be done in the quest for ... love.
The Japanese have been whaling for
centuries. It is part of their tradition.
Subsistence fishing and whaling might have been,
but the process today has become something else,
something that may eventually lead to the
extinction of the great cetaceans.
To me,
these activities are unconscionable.
As
the current antisemitic violence in France is to
the AJC. Sometimes politics overrides everything
else; our desire to enjoy foreign cultures, art,
food, weather -even soccer.
Perhaps, if
there are enough people who feel strongly enough
about the injustices of the world, we can affect
change -by staying away in droves.
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| ITD's Web Site |
Recent visitors to our web site may
have been surprised to see an error message from
Freeola (the hosting service) stating that the
site was no longer available.
This was due
to an arbitrary decision by Freeola (without
consultation or opportunity for reply) that the
content of ITD's site was not "suitable". It was
consequently removed without any
warning.
We are now back on-line, thanks to
our friends at 2Kat Web Services. Since the exact
address is yet to be determined, please visit our
site through the redirection at www.itstheirdestiny.uk6.net.
Thanks
to all of you who emailed to find out what had
happened to us. It's good to know we were missed!
- ITD
| |
| The Bergen Record |
Sunday, June 23, 2002
Leisure
Editor Jill Schensul's e-mail address is
schensul@northjersey.com
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| ITD's Web Site |
New site address
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