Outcry over US, UK travel advisories wide off the mark Updated Sunday,
September 29th 2013 at 23:55 GMT +3
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*By NANCY L KHISA*
A headline in Sunday’s Standard caught my eye. *“Fury as
US<http://www.standardmedia.co.ke/?searchtext=US&searchbutton=SEARCH>issues
travel advisory”
*it read. Now far be it from me to question whether or not this was a
collective fury of all
Kenya<http://www.standardmedia.co.ke/?searchtext=Kenya&searchbutton=SEARCH>ns,
or just one enraged individual, since the reporter did not enlighten me
much on that score.
However, something that has always baffled me has been the propensity of
Kenya <http://www.standardmedia.co.ke/?searchtext=Kenya&searchbutton=SEARCH>ns
to express all manner of indignation at travel advisories issued by various
countries to their citizens who plan to travel to or are already on their
way to
Kenya<http://www.standardmedia.co.ke/?searchtext=Kenya&searchbutton=SEARCH>
.
More often than not, such expressions of anger and outright shock are
delivered in pithy sound bites for radio and television, and strongly
worded statements for print so as to have maximum effect.
And inevitably those expressing the same turn out to be mainly politicians
clamouring to be top dog on the ladder of sycophancy.
It becomes even more interesting when you venture into the so-called social
media where opinion tends to reflect which side of the political divide one
is.
Kenya <http://www.standardmedia.co.ke/?searchtext=Kenya&searchbutton=SEARCH>ns
may be united against terrorists and their horrible actions. But truth be
said, when it comes to travel advisories, such unity quickly dissolves into
petty and sometimes out rightly ridiculous arguments.
The funny thing is that neither America nor Britain give a hoot, and that
is where those shouting the loudest against the travel advisories need to
turn down the volume and listen. The first duty of any government worldwide
is to protect its citizens. Such protection is taken as a given in most
entrenched democracies.
When it comes to safety of their citizens, there is no compromise. The
political cost of inaction is often weighed against the lighter burden of
informing citizens that there is a valid threat, and advising them on how
best they can take care of themselves in the event that the latent threat
becomes real, as unfortunately happened in the case of the Westgate
Shopping Mall incident.
Don’t get me wrong. I have nothing against being patriotic and defending
the one’s country against the besmirching effect of being labelled unsafe.
However, is it not true that those countries that are warning their
citizens also lost people in the terror attack? Granted, they may not have
died in as large a number as
Kenya<http://www.standardmedia.co.ke/?searchtext=Kenya&searchbutton=SEARCH>ns,
but that does not make their lives any less significant.
Given the chaotic manner in which
Kenya<http://www.standardmedia.co.ke/?searchtext=Kenya&searchbutton=SEARCH>has
handled its internal security, with intelligence briefings from the
National Intelligence Service being routinely ignored, and the fact that
the many of the heroes were actually civilians who are licensed gun
holders, isn’t it comical to expect our so-called allies to take seriously
our claims that “
Kenya<http://www.standardmedia.co.ke/?searchtext=Kenya&searchbutton=SEARCH>is
safe”?
In fact, let’s turn this thing on its head and imagine the
US<http://www.standardmedia.co.ke/?searchtext=US&searchbutton=SEARCH>suffering
a series of traumatic terrorist attacks. Our government would be
abdicating its duty if it did not warn its citizens against travelling to
the US <http://www.standardmedia.co.ke/?searchtext=US&searchbutton=SEARCH>.
The fact that even after the Boston Marathon bombing, our government did
not advise its athletes and other citizens to be cautious when travelling
to that
US<http://www.standardmedia.co.ke/?searchtext=US&searchbutton=SEARCH>city
can only mean one of two things.
First, that our government does not believe the
US<http://www.standardmedia.co.ke/?searchtext=US&searchbutton=SEARCH>is
unsafe because it has confidence in America’s Homeland Security. It
believes that such incidents are rare and do not demand such action.
Second, it could also mean that our government’s foreign policy has no
linkages with the security and safety of its citizens, which would be quite
tragic: the two are co-dependent.
It is interesting that not one journalist or so-called “analyst” took time
to read through the careful wording of the
US<http://www.standardmedia.co.ke/?searchtext=US&searchbutton=SEARCH>and
UK travel advisories.
A closer look would have shown that both governments wanted to caution
their citizens that they travel at their own risk, and so must be alert to
the reality that terror cells are operating in
Kenya<http://www.standardmedia.co.ke/?searchtext=Kenya&searchbutton=SEARCH>(the
many bombings in Northern
Kenya
<http://www.standardmedia.co.ke/?searchtext=Kenya&searchbutton=SEARCH>attest
to this).
They also contained detailed explanations on how to contact the various
embassies in the event that something like that occurs.
Now that is what I would like to see our government doing, but any
Kenya<http://www.standardmedia.co.ke/?searchtext=Kenya&searchbutton=SEARCH>n
who travels or has lived abroad will testify that engaging our embassies on
issues of safety is often a road that leads to nowhere.
*The writer is a communications and marketing practitioner and a member of
the Chartered Institute of Marketing of the UK.*
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