std (k) : Outcry over US, UK travel advisories wide off the mark
Elisabeth Janaina
Outcry over US, UK travel advisories wide off the mark
Updated Sunday, September 29th 2013 at 23:55 GMT +3By NANCY L KHISA
A headline in Sunday’s Standard caught my eye. “Fury as US issues travel advisory” it read. Now far be it from me to question whether or not this was a collective fury of all Kenyans, 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 Kenyans 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.
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.
Kenyans 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 Kenyans, but that does not make their lives any less significant.
Given the chaotic manner in which Kenya 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 is safe”?
In fact, let’s turn this thing on its head and imagine the US 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.
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 city can only mean one of two things.
First, that our government does not believe the US 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 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 (the many bombings in Northern Kenya 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 Kenyan 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.