Saturday, May 1, 2010

We Are Not Dye To Be Dipped Into And Completely Absorbed

I will not say: no foreigners allowed. That is a rather horrible thing to say considering an overwhelming tendency here to welcome foreigners with open arms and bend over backwards for them, at the cost of discriminating against our fellow...

Instead I will say: this is no country for strangers. This is not a people that can be known by observation alone, without the risk of actual engagement. This is no land where you can set yourself apart and then delude yourself with claims that comprehension naturally comes with high-minded goals and noble intentions to enlighten a system whose only fundamental flaw is ignorance of your ways. This is not a place that needs more foreigners coming in to visit, then taking away with them their misconceptions and their privileged judgments -- because we have been misrepresented enough, not just in the international community but also amongst ourselves, and false categorizations and claims about who we are and where we came from and where we should go are unneeded and shouldn't be welcomed.


This is an entry you should read. It's about, among other things, colonialism and imperialism. Colonial and imperialistic thought broken down and exposed and showing brilliant explanatory lead ins to my point that it is already known the real question being asked is "You want us to give up our monopoly over your people/culture/history/stories???!!!??"

I'm late to the band-wagon of promoting this essay, due to various health distractions. But it is worth reading, re-reading, bookmarking, saving and printing it and probably carrying around with you in your wallet.

Eco-tourism, fiscal-tourism, polisci-experimental tourism, writer-tourism, sex-tourism & more; all of it 'you need to cater to our ways of doing things, our needs, our desires and then everything will be fine - you will live up to and become US, the ultimate world champions; the more powerful nation/people etc...'.