Is Australia more cautious in its travel warnings? Part III: Sub-Saharan Africa

In two previous posts, I have looked at the comparative travel warnings of Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) and Britain’s Foreign Office (BFO), because whilst on holiday in Japan and Vietnam I was reading (and sometimes laughing in a very silly fashion at) travel warnings and finding that DFAT was more cautious in its warnings than the BFO.

The study so far has demonstrated that, on the whole, DFAT is more cautious (stricter or more rigorous) than the BFO in its travel warnings for all but the most inherently deadly destinations. This principle holds very clearly for:

1. nine of thirteen destinations in Asia, including Turkey and the Caucasus
2. eight of eleven destinations in Saharan Africa and the Horn

To finish this survey before drawing conclusions, I will look at sub-Saharan Africa. Apart from the mineral-rich southern regions, sub-Saharan Africa is politically unstable due to

• extremely poorly-skilled, largely illiterate populations
• extreme comparative disadvantage in skill-intensive and capital-intensive industries
• Enriched World farm subsidies that disadvantage their advantageous farming sectors and
• political corruption

I will do sub-Saharan African destinations in the same way I did those of Asia and Saharan Africa – from east to west:

Kenya:

BFO (left) and DFAT (right) travel advisory map for Kenya

With Kenya, if we magnify the Nairobi insert, it is clear that DFAT’s travel warning is yet again more cautious, with more severe warnings than given by the British Foreign Office. If one looks carefully (which will require the reader to expand the map) it is clear that:

1. the northeastern al-Shabāb hotbed gets the highest “Do Not Travel” warning from DFAT, but only “advice against all but essential travel” from the BFO)
2. the area with a travel warning in Mandera, Wajir and Garissa Counties not only has a higher level warning from DFAT, but extends further from Somalia than in the BFO map.
3. the main highway into Ethiopia from Isiolo has a DFAT “Reconsider Your Need to Travel” warning but nothing from the BFO

Uganda:

BFO (left) and DFAT (right) travel advisory map for Uganda

Uganda is less inherently dangerous than Kenya, but does suffer severe spillover effects from problems in Ethiopia, South Sudan, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Again we see that DFAT provides a stricter warning than the BFO. The areas on the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo – which include many of Uganda’s major tourist attractions like the “Mountains of the Moon” (Rwenzori Mountains) – are listed as “Reconsider Your Need to Travel” by DFAT but are not specially listed by the BFO. Even areas bordering South Sudan, which are given a maximal “Do Not Travel” by DFAT as far as fifty kilometres from the border.

South Sudan:

BFO (left) and DFAT (right) travel advisory map for South Sudan

In South Sudan, African’s forty-sixth and newest nation, the BFO and DFAT advisories (as for Syria, Yemen and Libya) are the same stern “Advise Against All Travel” and its equivalent “Do Not Travel” for the whole nation, including capital Jubba. Thus, there is no difference and a score of “0” for South Sudan.

Burundi:

BFO (left) and DFAT (right) travel advisory map for Burundi

Detouring southwards quite a bit to position us on a consistent east-to-west trajectory across sub-Saharan Africa, we come to Burundi, a nation long extremely unsafe for tourism owing to political conflicts that are seldom discussed even by African experts and are independent of jihadist violence because Islam never spread this far south and inland. An old Lonely Planet East Africa said:

“travel outside Bujumbura is not recommended”

Again, we see clearly that DFAT’s travel warning for Burundi is stricter than the BFO’s. In neither is Bujumbura separated from the rest of Burundi, but whereas DFAT says “Do Not Travel” even to Bujumbura, the BFO generally says only the second-highest “Advise Against All but Essential Travel” to most of Burundi except for Bubanza and Cibitoke.

Democratic Republic of the Congo (formerly Zaïre):

BFO (top) and DFAT (bottom) travel advisory map for the DRC

The Democratic Republic of the Congo, also known as Congo-Kinshasa after the name of its capital – and from 1965 to 1997 under the notorious kleptocrat Mobutu Sese Seko Koko Ngbende wa za Banga known as Zaïre – has since Mobutu’s regime collapsed been consistently very dangerous for travellers. Although there were sections on Zaïre in early Lonely Planet guidebooks, the country has been omitted from every Africa-related guidebook published after Mobutu’s fall.

Poor correlations between ethnic groups and colonially enforced boundaries have made it difficult for subsequent governments to accept people living in remote areas distant from Kinshasa and which, as the old Lonely Planet East Africa pointed out vigorously, “had much more in common with Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda with western Zaïre” (probably not Lonely Planet’s exact words but one still gains an idea).

The Democratic Republic of the Congo constitutes a difficult case for comparing BFO and DFAT travel advisories because unlike any other nation so far, the gradients of warning (lowest to highest; reddest colours) are different. There is, it is true, a very clear pattern of higher levels of warning in the east of the country within the Rift Valley than in the west on the Congo Craton. However, to an extent unseen anywhere else, here, were see major and seemingly incoherent differences between the BFO and DFAT travel warnings for the Democratic Republic of the Congo that are almost completely absent in other nations we have studied:

1. as it typical, DFAT gives a “Reconsider Your Need to Travel” for most of the DRC, whereas BFO gives “See Our Travel Advice Before Travelling” (no warning) for over half the DRC
2. however, in southeastern DRC, BFO gives a stern “Advise Against All Travel” for the provinces of Maniema, Tanganyika and Haut-Lomami, whereas DFAT is still at “Reconsider Your Need to Travel”
3. in the border regions with the crisis-torn Central African Republic, DFAT remains at “Reconsider Your Need to Travel” whereas BFO again gives the stern “Advise Against All Travel”

On the whole, the Democratic Republic of the Congo would have to score a “0”: the sterner general DFAT rating is compensated by higher specific BFO ratings in Maniema, Tanganyika and Haut-Lomami provinces.

Central African Republic:

BFO (left) and DFAT (right) travel advisory map for the Central African Republic

The Central African Republic is the fourth (and final) instance of a nation scoring “0” because both the BFO and DFAT give the highest rating of “Advise Against All Travel” or “Do Not Travel”. The country has been politically problematic for a long time, and if my recollections are correct warnings against travelling to the CAR for any purpose have been in force for a decade or more from Global Affairs Canada – indeed the hazards of travelling here have been severe without interruptions as far back as 1996.

Chad:

BFO (left) and DFAT (right) travel advisory map for Chad

Chad, long regarded as the poorest nation on Earth, and affected by drought and loss of reparations from expatriate Chadians, has long been a dangerous place for foreigners as well as among the toughest nations in the world to obtain a visa for. Historically, Chad has not been as unsafe as its southern neighbour, but the spread of radical Islam into the Sahel and Sahara has meant that the whole region is now exceedingly dangerous for non-Muslims.

Again, we see a major difference between the BFO and DFAT travel warnings, with DFAT much more severe. Southern Chad, except for dangerous border regions, is listed as “Advise Against All but Essential Travel” by BFO, as is the oasis city of Faya, but all of Chad is “Do Not Travel” in DFAT except for the capital N‘Djamena.

Angola:

BFO (left) and DFAT (right) travel advisory map for Angola

Detouring again southward to be in as strict an east-to-west line as possible, we come to Angola, a country which was exceedingly dangerous for travellers for several decades after the fall of the Estado Novo and a long civil war between MPLA and UNITA.

Today, Angola has quietened, and is relatively safe for travellers.

As we can see, the DFAT travel warning is again stricter than the BFO, if less so than for many other nations. The only difference in angola is that Lunda Sul Province, near the border with the DRC, gets a “Reconsider Your Need to Travel” from DFAT but “See Our Travel Advice before Travelling” from the BFO.

Cameroon:

BFO (left) and DFAT (right) travel advisory map for Cameroon

Cameroon, regarded as relatively safe and prosperous compared to the rest of West and Central Africa, has nonetheless been badly affected by the troubles in most adjacent lands. Central Africa has been the least-visited region of the globe ever since mass tourism began, and not for a quarter of a century has any comprehensive guidebook been written as the troubles there have been general and continuous.

What’s notable about Cameroon is that, although there are three different ratings within the country, the BFO and DFAT ratings are almost exactly the same (which we have seen previously only with blanket “Avoid All Travel”/“Do Not Travel” nations). The sole exception is a small sliver of the North Region which is very hard to see on the BFO map as merely “Advise Against All but Essential Travel”.

The smallness of the differences means Cameroon would need to be scored a “0” because they are just so unimportant – I overlooked them on looking for days!

Nigeria:

BFO (left) and DFAT (right) travel advisory map for Nigeria

Nigeria, the most populous country in Africa and poised to be the third most populous in the world within half a century, is often cited as a bad case of economic corruption and stagnation after oil prices fell into the basement during the 1980s and 1990s. Today, Nigeria is threatened severely by Muslim terrorist group Boko Haram, which has raised the nation to a higher profile than for some decades.

Nigeria constitutes another familiar case of stricter DFAT travel warnings vis-à-vis those given by BFO. Indeed in most of Plateau State, BFO says “see out travel advice before travelling” yet DFAT says the stern “Do Not Travel”, the only case I have noted so far of so large a difference.

Burkina Faso (formerly Upper Volta):

BFO (left) and DFAT (right) travel advisory map for Burkina Faso

Although Burkina Faso – which in my childhood was called “Upper Volta” – was safe for travel during the days when I avidly read Lonely Planet guidebooks, the spread of Wahhabism and numerous Muslim terror groups around the Sahara and Sahel has made the country dangerous over the last few years. Al-Qa^cida has carried out a number of major terrorist attacks in Burkina Faso since 2012, including in the capital Ouagadougou.

Burkina Faso is distinctly rare: the DFAT travel warning is less severe than the BFO. The BFO has the highest “Avoid All Travel” for all of the border with Mali and easternmost border with Niger in Tapoa District, whereas DFAT has “Do Not Travel” only for

“All areas north of a line Tougan-Ouhigouya-Djibo-Dori”

Burkina Faso constitutes the first truly clear “-1” case in our study of comparative BFO and DFAT travel warnings, and it‘s interesting to see the explanation given that one potential cause – delayed DFAT uprating to to slower transmission of reports to Canberra vis-à-vis London – can be rejected.

Cote d‘Ivoire (formerly Ivory Coast):

BFO (left) and DFAT (right) travel advisory map for Cote d‘Ivoire

In the 1970s and 1980s the most prosperous country in West Africa, Cote d‘Ivoire (Ivory Coast) had a major decline during the 1990s and 2000s, but the demand of china for raw materials has created a recovery since the CFA devaluation in 1994.

Being far from centres of Muslim terrorism, Cote d‘Ivoire is relatively safe, but still there is a problem of armed militias in the forested areas near the Liberian border.

As you should see, there is no difference between BFO and DFAT warnings here: the southwestern regions of Dix-Huit Montagnes, Haut-Sassandra, Moyen-Cavally and Bas-Sassandra have the second highest warning of “Reconsider Your Need to Travel” or “Advise Against All but Essential Travel”, the rest is the next lowest “Exercise a High Degree of Caution” or “See Our Travel Advice Before Travelling”.

Mali:

BFO (left) and DFAT (right) travel advisory map for Mali

Once an interesting, if extremely poor, destination for travellers in West Africa, Mali is now the centre of the turmoil affecting the Sahara and Sahel. The country has been the centre of several terrorist attacks upon Western interests, notably by al-Qa^cida upon the Radisson Blu Hotel last November where 170 hostages were sized.

As can be seen, Mali is similar to Burkina Faso in that the BFO warnings are in part at a higher level than those of DFAT. The highest warning of “Advise Against All Travel” extends further south in Kayes and Koulikiro Regions than does the DFAT warning “Do Not Travel”. On the other hand, DFAT has the highest rating for Bamako city, whereas BFO does not.

Mali would, however, unlike Burkina Faso have to score a “0” because of the difference in rating for the capital Bamako.

Liberia:

BFO (left) and DFAT (right) travel advisory map for Liberia

During the period I avidly read Lonely Planet books, Liberia (plus neighbouring Sierra Leone which is now free of “orange” or “red” areas) was an extremely dangerous destination – though unlike Angola I lack recollections of what the problems were.

Today Liberia has quietened somewhat, but problems still exist in the remote, hilly border areas.

As we can see, Liberia follows the normal pattern of DFAT issuing more restrictive travel advice than the BFO. The BFO has the minimal “see our travel advice before travelling” for all of Liberia, whereas DFAT says “Reconsider Your Need To Travel” for Grand Gedah and River Gee counties in the conflict zone near the border with Cote d‘Ivoire.

Guinea:

BFO (left) and DFAT (right) travel advisory map for Guinea

Our last country in sub-Saharan Africa, Guinea, shows a familiar pattern – although some of the problem relates to the deadly Ebola virus – of more cautious DFAT warnings vis-à-vis the BFO. In the case of Guinea, this is taken towards an exceptional level: DFAT says “Reconsider Your Need to Travel” to all of Guinea and even “Do Not Travel” for border areas with Sierra Leone, Liberia and Cote d‘Ivoire where military conflicts continue. The BFO says that the military presence can be dealt with easily as military checkpoints are prevalent everywhere in Guinea.

Conclusions for Sub-Saharan Africa:

With the exception of Burkina Faso, where British Foreign Office travel warnings are stricter than those provided by the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, sub-Saharan Africa continues the pattern of Asia and Saharan Africa in that DFAT warnings are consistently stricter than those of the BFO.

Out of fifteen destinations examined in sub-Saharan Africa, DFAT’s travel advice is more cautious (severe or restrictive, higher levels of warning) in eight, viz:

1. Kenya
2. Uganda
3. Burundi
4. Angola
5. Chad
6. Nigeria
7. Liberia
8. Guinea
9. parts of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Mali

but less cautious with Burkina Faso and parts of Mali and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Thus, the DFAT versus BFO score for sub-Saharan Africa is +7 of a possible +15, which is less than the +9 out of +13 for Asia and +7 out of +11 for Saharan Africa and the Horn. This lower value might reflect poorer quality information due to the extreme poverty of tropical Africa, or simply fewer informants to rely upon for data.

Nonetheless, sub-Saharan Africa together with Saharan Africa and Asia adds up to a possible +21 out of +39 – over fifty percent – for higher levels of travel warning by DFAT compared to the BFO (although it is false that most localities have different DFAT and BFO advisory levels).

Is Australia more cautious in its travel warnings? Part II: Saharan Africa and the Horn

In my previous post, I looked at how I had come to study travel warnings for inherently risky destinations during my recent holiday in Japan and Vietnam, and how I discovered that for most potentially risky destinations, Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT, pronounced “dee-fat” in a manner I find a little funny given my excessive body fat) is severer in its advice to not travel than is the British Foreign Office (BFO) for inherently risky destinations in Asia.

Having done Asian destinations, I will now turn to Africa. Africa’s poor development has produced a large number of nations that are inherently risky. Consequently, I will split Africa into

1. “Desert” Africa, including the Saharan nations and the countries of the Horn of Africa – which have much in common with Eurasia in history
2. “Tropical” Africa, which never acquired Eurasian domesticated animals and which I will do in the next installment

“Desert” African nations will be done in the same order as Asia – from east to west, starting in the Horn of Africa.

Somalia:

BFO (left) and DFAT (right) travel advisories for Somalia

In Somalia, which has never been safe for travel since Lonely Planet began publishing (so I have no guidebooks) there is very little difference between BFO and DFAT because the country (which now is effectively at least three nations in Somaliland, Puntland and southern Somalia) is still in a constant state of war with terrorist groups like al-Shabāb (“The Boys” or “The Youth”) extending their work into neighbouring nations. The only difference is that the British Foreign Office allows for essential travel to Somaliland’s largest cities of Hargeisa and Berbera, whereas the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade says even those cities are too dangerous to even remain in if present as an Australian.

Ethiopia:

BFO (left) and DFAT (right) travel advisories for Ethiopia

Ethiopia – before 2010 relatively safe for tourism and possesses much scenery (the Simien Mountains reach over for and a half thousand metres and had extensive ice age glaciers totalling as much as 1,000 km³ of ice) and culture (unique churches and monasteries) to attract visitors – has been severely affected by the conflicts in Somalia and Sudan.

The BFO and DFAT maps of travel advisory are basically similar, with the highest warning of “avoid all travel” or “do not travel” for extensive areas near the borders with Somalia, Eritrea, South Sudan and Sudan. However, with the less dangerous remainder of Ethiopia, we see significant differences:

1. DFAT says Australians must reconsider their need to visit all of Ethiopia, whereas the BFO gives the equivalent advisory against all bar “essential” travel only to a few fairly small areas west of Addis Ababa and near Sudan
2. DFAT has a “do not travel” warning for all areas bordering Somaliland, whereas BFO gives no warning at all for these border areas

Thus, Ethiopia is another “+1” country where DFAT gives stricter warnings than does the BFO – the eleventh such nation of fourteen we have seen so far.

Djibouti:

BFO (left) and DFAT (right) travel advisories for Djibouti

Djibouti, a small city state on the floor of the Rift Valley,has been affected by the trouble in Somalia and Eritrea, though not to the same extent as Ethiopia.

Again, we see that Australia’s DFAT warns more severely about travel to Djibouti than does the United Kingdom’s BFO – this being the twelfth of fifteen examined nations where this has been observed. Moreover, the difference is largely the same as with Ethiopia – that border regions with Somaliland are given the highest warning by DFAT but no special warning by the British Foreign Office.

Eritrea:

BFO (left) and DFAT (right) travel advisories for Eritrea

Eritrea, although in the politically very volatile Saharan and Sahelian zone, has been affected more by internal political conflict than by Islamic radicalism. Eritrea has become a case study of authoritarianism and political corruption since its independence from Addis Ababa in 1993. After an election that year elected Isaias Afewerki as President, there has been no subsequent general election in twenty-three years since. Afewerki has imposed severe restrictions upon travel in Eritrea – foreigners must have permits to travel outside Asmara and consular access is often refused to detained foreigners – and unmarked minefields are a major problem in border areas.

Eritrea is unusual in that in one area the DFAT warning is less strict than the British Foreign Office: in ^Cansera and Gash-Barka Regions there are areas listed as “Advise against All Travel” by the BFO where DFAT says only “Reconsider Your Need to Travel”.

However, Eritrea will have to be scored as a “0” overall because for the majority of the country DFAT lists Eritrea as “Reconsider Your Need to Travel” whereas BFO just says “see our travel advice before travelling”.

Sudan:

BFO (left) and DFAT (right) travel advisories for Sudan

Sudan has long been unsafe for travel due to civil war (actually a Muslim jihad against the Christian and animist south which has now seceded as South Sudan, which I will not discuss in this part) and the presence of terrorists. Present ratings are actually a lowering of long-time advice to “Avoid All Travel” or “not to travel and if in Sudan depart” (from Global Affairs Canada). Again, DFAT warnings are more restrictive than those of the BFO: in Sinnar, Northern Kordofan and White Nile States DFAT gives a stern “Do Not Travel” but BFO has recently lowered its rating to “See Our Travel Advice before Travelling”. There is an exception for areas of Red Sea State near the Eritrea border where BFO has a specific “Advise Against All Travel” warning seen above, but still Sudan would have to get a “1” given that two counters to this occur.

Egypt:

BFO (left) and DFAT (right) travel advisories for Egypt

Egypt, the driest country in the world and frequently the centre of news regarding ramsacking of churches and tourist sites, was once a major tourist destination. (In my old Teach Yourself Arabic there is even an article titled ‘The-Tourism in Egypt’ as a text for the seventeenth lesson). However, as can be seen, Egypt today is a dangerous place, especially in those regions near Israel.

Yet again, DFAT provides a more cautious or stricter travel warning than does the BFO. The BFO says it is safe for tourists to visit regions in and east of the Nile Valley, whereas DFAT says that none of Egypt is safe for tourist travel.

Libya:

BFO (left) and DFAT (right) travel advisories for Libya

Libya, though long the richest country in Africa by per capita income due to its oil, has been torn apart in recent years due to the death of longtime dictator Colonel Gaddafi, who had long been an enemy of the US due to his support for anti-American militants, supposed orchestration of Pan Am Flight 103’s bombing in December 1988 and the bombing of La Bell discothèque in West Berlin two years previously. However, in the 2000s Libya did allow limited foreign tourism and was safe to visit before the 2011 revolution and death of Colonel Gaddafi.

Since 2011, Libya has become a Muslim terrorist stronghold and completely unsafe to visit. Like Syria and Yemen, every part of Libya has the highest warning from both BFO and DFAT, so there is no difference between the two organisations and a score of “0”.

Tunisia:

BFO (left) and DFAT (right) travel advisories for Tunisia

Once a popular tourist destination for northern Europeans seeking beach weather – and even the site of the 1967 Chess Interzonal –Tunisia has fallen off the tourist radar as the “Democratic and Popular Republic of Algeria” (actually of course a virtual dictatorship under Boumédiènne and Chadli Bendjedid) succumbed to civil war in the 1990s. Tunisia remains unstable and threatened by terrorism even today.

Yet again we see the highest level of alert extending more widely from DFAT than from BFO. In the DFAT map, the highest warning of “Do Not Travel” covers all of the southernmost Tataouine Governorate and extends well into Kébili and Médenine Governorates to the north. In contrast, the BFO only advises against all travel to the southern half of Tataouine Governorate.

Algeria:

BFO (left) and DFAT (right) travel advisories for Algeria

Algeria, whose 1990s civil war was a beginning for the modern wave of Muslim terrorism that has severely affected the whole Saharan region, has long been a very dangerous area for the traveller. This is especially true of the remote southern regions where Muslim terrorist groups are dominant.

As can be seen, once more DFAT is more cautious (severe in warning) than is the BFO. DFAT says “reconsider your need to travel” to all of Algeria, whereas BFO says to see advice before travelling outside of the remote Saharan regions.

Niger:

BFO (left) and DFAT (right) travel advisories for Niger

Niger – included here because it is almost entirely within the Sahara – faces essentially the same political threats from Muslim terrorism found throughout the Sahara today. In addition, we see a very familiar pattern in the BFO and DFAT travel warnings for Niger: the highest level in the DFAT map extends to all of Niger except for the western “panhandle” south of the capital Niamey, but the BFO allows for “essential” travel to many areas of southeastern Niger.

Mauritania:

BFO (left) and DFAT (right) travel advisories for Mauritania

Mauritania, infamous as one of the few modern nations where slavery is still legally practiced, and more entirely within the Sahara than any other nation, is notable in that for the first time we see a nation where DFAT is less restrictive than the BFO. This is seen in the governorates of Assaba and Hodh el Gharbi where the BFO advises against all travel but DFAT mainly gives a lower “reconsider your need to travel” warning. Although the town of Zouérat does get a higher warning from DFAT, on the whole Mauritania is the first nation we have observed where DFAT provides a less severe warning against travel than the BFO and this has a score of “-1”.

Conclusions for Saharan Africa and the Horn:

With the exception of Mauritania, where in some areas DFAT’s advice is less severe than that of the BFO, all nations in Saharan Africa follow the same pattern we saw for inherently dangerous Asian destinations in the previous blog post. The overall score for Asia was +9 out of a possible +13; for Saharan Africa and the Horn the overall score is +7 out of a possible +11.

This result suggests we have the same result for the Sahara and the Horn of Africa as observed for Asian nations. In both regions, Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade is more severe (restrictive or cautious) in its travel warnings than is the British Foreign Office.

In the third installment, I will look at sub-Saharan Africa to give a final assessment of inherently dangerous destinations and see if my perception Australia gave higher levels of warning than other “developed” nations is consistently correct – which it seems to be based on evidence so far.

Is Australia more cautious in its travel warnings? Part I: Introduction and Asia

Whilst on tour with my mother and brother in Japan and Hồ Chí Minh City during the latter half of January, I had an attraction to something I had looked at a few years ago in a less serious manner: travel warnings.

Although my mother and brother have no interest in remotely risky destinations, I often do – indeed many I can find very interesting due to the cultural differences and the fact that many have ecological traits either very different (e.g. Afghanistan) or quite similar to Australia itself.

It was very frequent during the holidays that I would – although always quietly – tell my mother and brother about these “Do Not Travel” warnings that I noticed from the Department of Foreign Affairs and trade (abbreviated to DFAT). My mother and brother would say there was little of interest in most “Do Not Travel” destinations, although my knowledge of linguistics and ecology make it tough to agree.

Australia’s DFAT is not the only group who published travel warnings (and advice for less inherently risky destinations). The British Foreign Office, Global Affairs Canada, the U.S. Department of State, and sites in Ireland, Taiwan, Japan and other European nations also produce travel warnings for dangerous regions of the world. Of these, I have studied most extensively Global Affairs Canada and the British Foreign Office – indeed it was those and not DFAT that I based my early studies of the topic upon. Whilst I was travelling in Japan, it occurred to me that DFAT often had “reconsider your need to travel” in areas where the British Foreign Office seemed to be simply giving the normal “See our travel advice before travelling” (the lowest warning). My mother and brother have disputed this, and also disputed my attribution of the difference to Australians’ inherently greater risk aversion from living with an exceptionally variable hydrology compared to the Enriched World.

For this reason, I have decided to compare DFAT’s travel warnings with those of the British Foreign Office on a country-by-country basis. I have chosen the British Foreign Office because, unlike Global Affairs Canada, it has really accurate maps of what regions – not merely what countries – should be avoided.

Since most inherently dangerous destinations are in the hotter parts of the globe, it is possible to do this reasonably systematic country-by-country basis, starting in Australian longitudes and going westward through Asia, Africa and the Americas. I will do Asia in this chapter, and Africana dn teh Americas in subsequent chapters who exact detail I have not yet planned out. We will compare DFAT’s rating with that of the BFO with a score of:

• +1 if DFAT is more restrictive
• 0 if DFAT and the BFO are the same
• -1 if DFAT be less restrictive

Indonesia:

BFO (top) and DFAT (bottom) travel advisory for Indonesia

Here, we can see that DFAT is stricter than the BFO in its travel warning. The advice of “reconsider your need to travel” for Papua, West Papua and Central Sulawesi provinces is absent from the BFO warning.

The Philippines:

BFO (left) and DFAT (right) travel advisory for the Philippines

Here, though it’s a little harder to see, we again see that DFAT is more cautious (rigorous) than the BFO. The region of highest warning – “advise against all travel” for BFO and “do not travel” for DFAT – extends further north in the DFAT map on the right than it does in the BFO map on the left. The provinces of Zamboanga del Norte and Misams Occidental are given an advisory against all but essential travel by the BFO, but a highest-level “Do Not Travel” by Canberra’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

India – the next country I would have done – does not unfortunately have a proper BFO map to compare. It’s interesting, though, that some other nations list higher-level “Avoid All Travel” warnings for the state of Manipur in the northeast, which has only the second-highest “Reconsider Your Need to Travel” from DFAT.

Pakistan has similar problems, but here DFAT is much stricter than the BFO. DFAT advises to at least “Reconsider Your Need to Travel” for all of Pakistan, but BFO does not except for the most inherently dangerous regions.

Nepal:

BFO (left) and DFAT (right) travel advisories for Nepal

In Nepal, a country where a longstanding monarchy (dating back to the eighteenth century, as Nepal was never colonised due to its extreme terrain and absence of natural resources) has been overthrown, travel safety has improved in recent years as political tensions ease. The maps however do show that, as in the Philippines and Indonesia, Australia’s DFAT offers higher (stricter) levels of travel warning than the British Foreign Office for many localities. In the case of Nepal this is the Terai region in the south of the country, which the British give no special warning to but which DFAT lists as “Reconsider Your Need to Travel” due to political protests beginning in summer 2015.

Afghanistan:

BFO (left) and DFAT (right) travel advisory map for Afghanistan

Afghanistan, for a long time unsafe to visit (without noting strongly that Taliban hostility to non-Muslims would have excluded tourism even had conflict ceased) is shown above. Again, for the third time out of three maps, we see that DFAT has the severest “Do Not Travel” warning for all of Afghanistan, but the BFO has only the second-highest “Avoid Non-Essential Travel” for most regions north of the Hindukush and the ranges to the west.

Iraq:

BFO (left) and DFAT (right) travel advisories for Iraq

Iraq is another nation that has long been unsafe to visit – were it safe with its long history and perfect winter climate of 15˚C days it would actually be a quite interesting place to visit, though of course not during the dreadful summers that average over 40˚C even in the north.

Looking at the map above, one sees exactly the same pattern as for Afgahnistan. Australia’s DFAT advises to avoid all travel to the whole of Iraq, whereas Britain’s Foreign Office allows for essential travel to the south and the northeast. The northeast of Iraq is controlled by the Kurdistan Regional Government, and the south is far from the danger of ISIS, so authorities in London do not consider it as dangerous.

Turkey:

BFO (left) and DFAT (right) travel advisories for Turkey

In Turkey, which is considerably affected by the trouble in Syria and Iraq, we see than DFAT is again more restrictive than the BFO – although the difference is less than with Iraq or Afghanistan probably because western and northern Turkey remains safe or relatively so. The provinces of Bingöl, Muş, Van, Bitlis and Batman are listed as “reconsider your need to travel” by DFTA but as “see our travel advice before travelling” by the British Foreign Office.

Georgia:

BFO (left) and DFAT (right) travel advisories for Georgia

In Georgia, we see only a very slight difference between BFO and DFAT – so slight in fact that one could count the country as a “zero” rather than as a “positive one”. DFAT does suggest a high-risk zone around the Pankisi Gorge due to landmines, but BFO does not.

Syria:

BFO (left) and DFAT (right) travel advisories for Syria

In Syria, which Lonely Planet’s old Middle East on a Shoestring said back circa 2000 was “an extremely safe country to visit”, conflicts in Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein and struggles with the Ba^cathist Asad regime have made the country quite off-limits to visitors. As can be seen, there is an absolute warning to avoid all travel to the whole of Syria by not only the Australian and British foreign affairs departments, but also by others.

Lebanon:

BFO (left) and DFAT (right) travel advisories for Lebanon

In Lebanon, a country long affected by all the conflicts found in the Middle East, there has for a long time been a major threat from Muslim terrorism, especially from Hezbollah, sponsored by the Shi^cite fundamentalist regime in Iran. Yet again, we see DFAT offering severer travel warnings than the BFO: according to DFAT travel to all regions of Lebanon must be reconsidered due to high risk, whereas the BFO lists only the border areas and certain parts of Beirut as high risk.

Saudi Arabia:

BFO (left) and DFAT (right) travel advisories for Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia, as most will know, has always largely restricted entry of non-Muslims to workers or business travellers (“essential” travel). This should in theory reduce distinctions required within a government travel warning.

However, as we can see, this does not apply. DFAT still places a “reconsider your need to travel” warning upon all of Saudi Arabia, and the BFO also distinguishes between “essential” and “non-essential” (on organised tour or transit visa) travel.

Moreover, with Saudi Arabia the difference between BFO and DFAT is very clear. DFAT says the need for travel to all of Saudi Arabia must be carefully considered, whereas the BFO applies this only to areas close to the Yemeni border. In addition, the area near that border with the strongest warming (“avoid all travel” or “do not travel”) is much wider in the DFAT map, where it extend for thirty kilometres versus only ten in the BFO map.

Yemen:

BFO (left) and DFAT (right) travel advisories for Yemen

The spread of the al-Qa^cida terrorist group into Yemen – where it now conducts most of its operations – means that the travel warnings for Yemen in most OECD nations are the same: “Avoid All Travel”, “Do Not Travel”, or its equivalent. There is no difference between BFO, DFAT or any other one.

Overall:

Of the nations we have studied and compared BFO and DFAT travel advisories for, we can see that:

• Indonesia, the Philippines, Nepal, Afghanistan, Iraq, Turkey, Lebanon and Saudi Arabia
• plus Pakistan which was unable to be mapped
• all receive tougher travel warnings taken as a whole from DFAT than from the BFO
• Georgia, Syria and Yemen
• plus unmapped India (though with local differences)
• all receive the same level of travel warnings taken as a whole from DFAT as from the BFO
• this gives an overall score for Asia of +9
• it certainly suggests Australia is far more severe (stricter or more cautious) in its travel warnings than Britain re Asia

In our next posts we will compare Africa and the Americas to see whether this trend is also apparent there, and then think about how one might account for the observed results.

Marta Zaraska’s naïvette

In today’s Time, Marta Zaraska argues that vegetarianism and veganism did not catch on until recently because of two factors:

1. the failure of the first vegan community, ‘Fruitlands’, to survive a New England winter
2. the status symbolism of meat, especially during periods of scarcity like the World Wars

In my view, Time is being completely naïve.

Even if exceedingly rare in the Enriched World, vegetarianism and veganism, whether

1. de jure, whereby there were rigid taboos against consumption of meat or all animal foods, or
2. de facto , whereby animal foods or meat were available in insignificant quantities
1. the two forms of vegetarianism or veganism are totally distinct
2. de jure vegetarianism or veganism does not imply its de facto equivalent; nor does de facto vegetarianism or veganism imply its de jure equivalent
3. the hot and wet climates of the Tropical World allow for longer periods of plant food availbility, as do the very poor soils of the Unenriched World, which select for longer-lived plants
4. paradoxically, the high soil fertility in Mesoamerica and Andean South America may have encouraged de facto veganism by making plant proteins more abundant and selecting against the hierarchical social structures essential for animal domestication

has been normal in the Tropical and Unenriched Worlds throughout most of human history. The low productivity of the oceans and low nitrogen, phosphorus and chalcophile element concentrations in the majority of Tropical World and all Unenriched World soils has severely limited the availability of animal protein compared to rich Enriched World oceans:

Soil fertility (measured as total exchangeable bases, which owing to their lithophile geochemistry overstates real fertility of all Australian and most African soils) and marine chlorophyll concentration (which likewise overstates genuine secondary productivity in low-productivity zones)

It is for this reason that taboos against animal foods – found to varying degrees in all “moralising” religions – are concentrated in the arid outer tropics and subtropics, as I noted earlier (reproduced from ‘A “negative-negative” relationship between religion and animal cooperation?’:

Societies with moralising high Gods in blue (top; from ‘The Ecology of Religious Beliefs’) versus percentage of avian cooperative breeders (middle; broadly defined from Dustin Rubinstein’s ‘Environmental Uncertainty and the Global Biogeography of Cooperative Breeding in Birds’) versus coefficient of variation of annual runoff (bottom; from Thomas Aquinas McMahon’s ‘Global Hydrology Part 3: Country and Climate Studies’)

In Enriched environments, vegetarianism, let alone veganism, is deeply counterintuitive. In preagricultural and coastal societies animal protein is always too abundant for ordinary people to even consider its potential sacrifice when vegetable protein takes much more labour to utilise. In most Enriched agricultural societies, considerable wild game remains on terrain too steep to farm, whilst in cooler-climate farming societies (except for Andean South America) there is invariably major reliance upon milk and milk derivatives. Where meat was scarce it was scarce only for the lower classes – sports like falconry are illustrative of what the ruling classes enjoyed in medieval Europe.

By contrast, even as foragers, Tropical and Unenriched World peoples were largely vegetarian before modern fertilisers increased nitrogen, phosphorus and chalcophile element availability. Amongst farmers, conservation required (near)-vegetarianism or veganism as disciplines to ensure societal growth and ecological protection – although whether any of these societies was absolutely vegan remains uncertain.

It’s paradoxical that the greater greenhouse efficiency of vegetarianism and veganism may have negligible environmental effects if it reduces animal food production merely over the Enriched World. In contrast to the Tropical and Unenriched Worlds, meat and fish production in Enriched lands is entirely “natural” and has never had the impacts on so many native mammals that the pastoral industry in Australia has had. Moreover, their risk-aversion, along with the status symbolism of meat in agricultural societies, has meant vegetarianism and veganism have not caught on in those regions where they are most intuitive and natural as they have in the Enriched World.

The inherent limitations of a political élite

Today, conservative journalist Rod Dreher – a man I have followed since his 2005 Crunchy Cons – provides a revealing look at a problem of which I have long been very aware without ever saying a word or even taking the slightest notice thereof. This problem – one which I can understand very easily – is in the words of ‘Ace of Spades’ that:

“the Establishment’s (my capitalisation) failure to see the appeal of Trump represents their own limitations, not Trump supporters’”

Dreher argues in his article ‘Trump: Fishtown’s Champion Against Belmont’ that the media conservatives who support causes like those of the Politically Incorrect Guides are totally different from the people to whom Donald Trump strongly appeals:

“This alienation separates Trump’s voters from the constituency of another firebrand insurgent, Ted Cruz. Cruz draws from married voters, evangelical Christians, the elderly and those who identify as “very conservative.” These folks might be angry about the political process, but their anger is ideological and their lives – filled with family and church – are fundamentally intact.”

“Trump’s voters, instead, wear an almost existential sense of betrayal. He relies on unmarried voters, individuals who rarely attend church services and those without much higher education. Many of these Trump voters have abandoned the faith of their forefathers and myriad social benefits that come with it. Their marriages have failed, and their families have fractured. The factories that moved overseas used to provide not just high-paying jobs, but also a sense of purpose and community. Their kids (and themselves) might be more likely to die from a heroin overdose than any other group in the country.”

What I can say re-reading this is that the problem of conflict between what ‘Ace of Spaces’ calls:

1. the “gentry” – those who care predominantly about lifestyle and aesthetic issues and
2. “economic/populist people” – primarily concerned about tangible wants and not how a Platonic “good society” would look

is one of the most important conflicts within a society. The first and most important part of this question is that it stands completely independent from the liberal versus conservative, Christian versus atheist battles that have dominated cultural thinking. That my mother and brother – increasingly committed atheists with age – cannot understand this conflict can be seen in their inability to grasp how claimed Catholic miracles such as Marian apparitions (e.g. Fatima) or stigmata and inedia (e.g. Therese Neumann, Alexandrina da Costa) were more successful converting highly educated literati than converting the less-educated working classes.

This observation, however, becomes explicable via the contrasting desires of these two groups. Literati – like most groups in the “liberal arts” – tend to be largely concerned with matters of lifestyle and ideology, and thus are prone to not be practically motivated by the difficulties their ideologies may create for people of lesser intellectual capabilities. Their views are shaped by culture and aesthetics, which can be either liberal or conservative depending upon what they observe in the lower classes. Many intellectuals in early and mid-twentieth century Europe saw the demands of union members, lower income workers and people on welfare as pure greed and wanting wealth earned or inherited by others. These intellectuals were also frequently disparaging toward the culture created by industrialisation, even where improved fertiliser technology created hopeless comparative disadvantages in their older industries of farming and fishing. In contrast, in today’s globalised world the tendency is to see greed within extremely wealthy corporations who exploit workers in distant nations rather than within the “precariat” (freelancers, construction workers and other temporary employees) for whom a stable job, homeownership and decent retirement is an impossibility.

Workers, by comparison, are concerned with the practicalities of making a living and do not care about the aesthetics nor the morals. Thus, it tends to be difficult for them to accept the rigid moral standards of either the “gentry left” (e.g. environmental protection via higher taxes or increased regulation) or the “gentry right” (no extramarital sex, no public welfare), whilst a narrow nationalism via restricted trade and subsidies to manufacturing offers hope to them. Like with the “gentry”, however, these working class demands can either be turned to the Left or the Right – I am familiar with how Jeff Kennett used populist demands to reform inefficient government to major advantage in the outer suburbs during the 1992 and 1996 election, despite being increasingly unable to forgive the global climatic effects of his policies that spent $6,000,000,000 on freeways. I am also aware of how soon after many farmers and small businessmen affected by globalisation turned to One Nation because they felt that public money was lavished upon migrants and Aborigines, who were taking their jobs.

In contrast, workers in Europe and East Asia lack competition with indigenous peoples or recent immigrants, and being more exposed to the wealth of the very rich are more likely to channel their anger towards them or to their own corporations setting up shop in low-wage nations. This was true even with very poorly educated workers: their only interest was a more comfortable and secure lifespan, while Catholicism (and the miracles associated therewith) preaches simplicity and asceticism incompatible with these demands. Thus, the workers of Europe and East Asia are – even with the same basic needs as Australian workers – much more socially liberal.

The key part is that none of these working-class demands, whatever they lead to, are talked about by academics of any political stripe, nor by less-educated mystics who also saw something wrong with how the world was changing. It’s a mistake that academics must avoid to understand most political trends in the modern age, and one too easily forgotten by myself when I have been reading new ideologies.