I dont mean places that are like ragingly anticommunist (which is most places I think), but they have like appalling social issues. Say like UAE or any of the Gulf states that use slave labor and indentured servitude on a mass scale. Like would you say visiting dubai or doha is morally questionable? A friend is offering to visit Muscat cuz there are cheap flights but I dont know if I should. Or are there ways I can ameliorate my staying there, like maybe giving money to some orgs or something. Idk what do you think
No, especially because everybody always uses the Gulf nations as examples
We just cool with France’s neo-colonialism of Africa now? America’s world domination filled with mass murders and destabilizations? Canada’s brutal resource draining in South America and Africa? etc. Why is visiting Paris, Toronto, or NYC never morally questionable when this question comes up?
This worry is absolutely white Western brainworms
I do judge people who travel to countries and gloat about how cheap everything was, how they haggle down the locals, or how they (subconsciously) talk down on their ways of doing things as inferior though
People who visit Bali are sus
REAL
gulf monarchies wouldn’t even be there without the yakubian snow apes putting them there
I would say because unlike other countries, gulf states tend to promote and build artificial cultures. Like seriously, name one thing that Dubai is known for other than immense decadence and large buildings? And it’s not even me be being discriminatory. Other Arab nations promote important cultural or historical relics (or if they don’t, there are important movements/events there that a communist may be interested in doing a pilgrimage to), meanwhile everything promoted in the gulf states is just related to wealth and vanity and practically everything related to the left has been eradicated and the remnants driven underground.
African states are heavily exploited, yes, but they also don’t devalue their culture and history - there is something valuable to experience even if you’re not related to the culture and history. You REALLY have to know your history to even know where to visit in the gulf states because they certainly aren’t interested in telling you. And I highly doubt 99% of visitors to Dubai or the UAE are doing it because they care so much about history lol. Maybe you’ll be the 1%, but I doubt it.
Note to self: visiting Paris, Toronto or NYC is morally questionable
Israel. If somebody admits to having engaged in tourism in apartheid era South Africa that would be a similar L.
Not particularly “as a communist” just towards Americans in general:
Israel.
For white people, the UAE and Saudi Arabia. Every white person I’ve ever met that’s been to the UAE or SA has been the worst fucking person you can ever meet.
I had a High School teacher who went to Saudi Arabia as part of some sort of scheme to increase Saudi/American relations.
He was a pretty cool guy and gave an honest opinion on the country and ran some pretty good classes on the middle east. I was in his philosophy club. Also his name was Mr. Cash and he had a magnificent beard.
He’s introduced me to Howard Zinn, and was one of the first people to get me to read theory.
So not everyone who visited SA is a jerk, just the vast majority of them.
The war nerd guy also taught in SA
No I really don’t care about that. Decisions about vacations or travel are very low on my priority list of things to care about when other people do them.
At most I’ll think, “damn that seems like a waste of money but you do you”.
Edit: I take it back I will probably be judgy about a trip to Israel that isn’t itself explicitly about doing commie things.
the United States of America
israel. otherwise not really
Death to America
I feel weird about people who visit resorts in the Caribbean, Mexico, or Hawaii.
The resorts are all owned by big non-local bourgeois, and seem intentionally removed from local interests.
Beaches in Jamaica too?
The big all-inclusive resorts, yeah
Depends why.
I guess this might be a hot take but I find travel to be less enriching and edifying than many make it out to be. Burning enough fossil fuel to heat 5 homes for a year, so your personal fat ass can see things and observe other cultures seems silly and wasteful to me. I know people also travel to see friends and family, but it still strikes me as a bit vain. I get the sense many people are traveling to notch off that they got there and that bothers me a lot. If the technology or climate situation were better I’d feel a bit differently, I suppose. And I judge people the about same for a pleasure trip to Dubai as a pleasure trip to London.
“You know what, profiting off of a continental-wide genocide from 150 years ago and still doing the same shit today is bad, but random Muslim country doing that same stuff today is where I draw the line, they oughta know that only the heckin’ hollywood country is allowed to do that stuff today”
seriously is this some kind of lib troll take
I’m suspicious of dudes who visit Thailand regularly without any obvious reason (like family) to do so.
I know a comrade who is in Saudi Arabia right now, but only 'cause he was expected to be there (he’s not Muslim anymore anyway).
He basically wanted to get a feel for Mecca and Medina and wanted to see what it was like in there; also, he wanted to take pictures and see whether it truly was “normal” or as bad as we know it to be.
It’s funny because I’m thinking that going to Saudi Arabia makes a bit more sense when one thinks about it; the UAE would raise me an eyebrow, though, no question, because it doesn’t really have any such excuse as having the literal Holy Land for Muslims that every Muslim has to go at least once in a life-time.
Frankly, I don’t know what to think of my friend going to Saudi Arabia but he’s young and I believe had no choice in the matter and, either way, I can’t just interfere in a Muslim comrade making that choice, otherwise I feel like an asshole and a bigot.
Visiting Mecca as an apostate is an actual crime, which makes it cool.
lmao He says that he’s not afraid at all and feels that it would be an insult to the Saudis, if anything.
yeah I would say his situation is understandable, and if he has to go he might as well make the most of it. Its such a cliche but I’ve always enjoyed travelling; my dads job took us all around the world and I’ve had the bug ever since. I want to visit as many countries as I can but this desire has been tempered by my political awakening and increasing awareness of just how fucked up some places are. Figured I would ask for some advice
I love traveling and used to travel a lot when I was younger, despite being poorer.
Luxembourg. Don’t do a pilgrimage to pay homage to their grand duke.
the duke’s tax collectors ripped off the village for decades before we got the right to deliver it ourselves
you’re damn right im making the trek (and changing the route every year to avoid that dastardly count)
tbh I’d love to go to Muscat
anyone feel free to criticize me on this, but I sort of feel like it’s not really possible to be tourist and not engage in some type of implicit colonialism. Most of my international travel is for educational purposes and visiting friends, which I think is the best way to do it. I think if you are just being a tourist, it’s important to engage with the city and its history and really immerse yourself in it. If someone was going abroad to stay in one of those walled off resorts and barely leave their tourist bubble, that would make me raise my eyebrows. But obviously there are levels below that - I don’t think there are really that many places I would judge someone for visiting as long as they interact with the place they’re visiting. Most of my judgement is reserved for how someone is visiting a place.
Something about this strikes me as weird cope (my traveling is ok because it’s educational, when others travel it probably isn’t educational)
Feel free to elaborate, sincerely, not trying to be an ass I’d genuinely like to be convinced otherwise as a travel cynic
I’d agree with the OP except it still has a colonial character when I do it, even if I’m doing it “more correctly” than others.
The only exception to that I think is if you are a party or org member traveling on official business.
I was referring to traveling for formal education. Study abroad would be one example of this. Any travel can of course be educational, but I was referring to traveling for academic reasons primarily.
Muscat looks so cool
And I totally get what you mean, I am not one of those tourists. I seek a cultural experience, I like to take in the sights, the smells, the food, the architecture and interact with locals whenever I overcome my shyness. And Muscat seems like it has a lot of that to offer.
Muscat looks so cool
It’s actually the hottest inhabited place on the planet
well 2nd hottest, after all the other cities in Oman
Oman is way more attractive to me as a place I’d like to see than the other Gulf states for the fact that (at least at first glance) its known areas actually retained the appearance of a place where people live in instead of being a bourgeois playground with golden skyscrapers and Lamborghini taxis.
I lived in Italy, and places like Venice, while pretty, have like a 300:1 tourist to local ratio. It’s just a large theme-park at this point.
the USA
nope. all that matters is being a good guest. i would consider personally utilizing sus labor/sectors as rude as it’d be for anyone in that country though. even Dubai presumably has a normal bit not for billionaires, but anyone in the spaces built for billionaires (and aren’t interlopers/laborers) just is an asshole, regardless of the country. and travelers should try to stay at purpose-built accommodation, but that’s mostly on the cities keeping airbnb in check.
