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Leave the Smilin' Native Alone by Sarah Wilkes |
Calling Tourism evil is like calling Ohio evil. Or coleslaw, or a public drinking fountain. It's there, it will remain there until our civilization crumbles, and no value judgment can be placed on it until then. Meanwhile, why not look at some of the more positive aspects of Tourism? (I use a capital T to denote the industry in general, as opposed to a single, specific act of tourism, like your last trip to Sea World, or what your uncle Jake did in Bangkok last summer.)
Tourism creates jobs. Is this a bad thing? Is the transfer of cash from the hands of rich New York yuppies to the pockets of self-employed lei-makers in Hawaii wrong? NO!! Tourism is the Great Hope for America's (and beyond's) working class today, a new stomping ground for Horatio Alger's ghost. How else can the little guy hope to exploit the big guy but by letting the big guy think he's getting the better end of the deal in paying 40 dollars to the little guy for a 'genuine' scrap of Elvis' BVDs? If you think these kinds of jobs are less stable or sustainable than those in fishing or agriculture, think again: Land may go barren, entire populations of fish may become extinct, but polyester T-shirts and Ray-Bans are forever. No job is more stable than that of a tchotchke stand at a Tourism hotspot, and by extension, a country whose economy is dependent on Tourism is far more stable than one whose existence rests on one or two crops, which could be completely wiped out by a natural disaster. You may just pause now, and notice that no natural disaster has ever thwarted Coca-Cola. God must be a tourist (what do you think He did on the Seventh Day? He parasailed in Acapulco, of course).
Economic and environmental factors aside, the worst argument against the beauty and supremacy of Tourism is that it propagates cultural pollution. Hmmm, "cultural pollution"…now where have we heard that before…? The fact is, even if you could find people wearing Budweiser T-shirts in the remotest regions of the unindustrialized world, Western materialism alone is not going to "corrupt" anyone to the furthest depths of their social psyche-missionary work took care of that a couple centuries ago. It is elitist, disgusting, and unfortunately, almost instinctive, for the Noble Tourist to think the "primitives" swarming about him in the marketplace in Marraktch or Laos are jealous of his Tevas and unblemished skin tone. Anyone who's visited a foreign country in the past half century, or for that matter, half millenium, can tell you that the "natives" are anything but jealous of the fat, rich dorks who can't even drink their water. The ubiquity of Euro-American cultural artifacts can be traced to early colonization and conversion, far more powerful tools of cultural corruption than any white guy with a can of Pepsi in one hand and a suitcase of silk neckties in the other.
On the other hand, don't expect Tourism to solve all the world's problems. It may be the solution to economic crises in the face of other industry losses, but it certainly won't heal government corruption. An overly-altruistic white American tourist can't go into parts of a country where violent protests are going on, expecting to stop the hail of bullets with the appearance of his blonde hair and Eddie Bauer backpack. The dude's gonna get shot down along with the ultimately racist notion that "Soldiers are much less likely to fire into a crowd of protesting peasants if there's a few Caucasians standing in front of it."
Listen: I have seen Tourism at work from the inside, and believe me, once you get over your initial feelings of disgust, you can't help but admire the beauty and ingenuity of the machine. For the past two summers I have worked as a cashier at a zoo's gift shop in a medium-sized American metropolis. Nowhere else have I seen social psychology texbook lessons so beautifully illustrated in real life than there, from behind the cash register. People will pay out the ass for a shoddy $16 wooden zebra chime, but when their bratty tot asks for a $4 plush penguin (manufactured in China, of course), forget it. You know why? Because subconsciously (and here I am brushing aside the Soc-Psych book in favor of supporting my argument), they WANT to make a greater contribution to Tourism, the great benefactor of America, all across its social strata! Tourism's job is to make the customer happy, for which in return the customer sheds as much liquid cash as possible, free for an afternoon from the mental chains of American Protestant-ethic tightwadhood. If that means charging a $100 purchase of completely useless plush animals on an American Express company card, so be it.
So I say: Long live Tourism!! With low-skill labor industries long extinct, and the modern A&E industries slowly dying, where does this leave the lumpen proletariat? Why, behind the taco stand in a Mexican bullfighting arena, that's where! In pool mantainance staff breakroom in an expensive Bermuda resort! Selling Coke (and, in the back room, coke) to fat, ugly Westerners who can't drink the water! Under the trees, in the air, in the basements of government buildings, on the seashore, in the briny deep throughout every livable space, the world sings: "Tourism! O beauuutiful for spaaaaacious skies for amber coins of gold! For industry, for family, for rich, poor, young, and old! Go Wes!! Go, West!!" And God bless (sniff!).
Sarah Wilkes will be spending Spring Break playing golf in Cancun and purchasing "authentic" Mayan art with the dollars she earned selling PVC toy orangutans, which were made in Indonesian and Chinese sweatshops. She hopes to meet some smilin' natives, and convert them to Christianity. Failing that, she'll probably just stay here and ice skate on Andrus field, while Brian does the missionary work for her.