Travel and culture companies make their money and increase their following through inspirational photos, videos and stories of carefree travel. But there's more to a country than sweeping vistas, romantic beaches and overgrown antiquity, nearly all countries bare painful scars that shape them, but these aren't Instagram worthy.
War memorial, Krakow
I've liked many a photo of the aquamarine crystalline waters of Boracay and huffed with envy at photos of the Inca Trail. I've marvelled at videos of children playing in Jaipur at Holi. And plotted to take a trip on the Tran-Siberian Railway. However, what people forget is a country's bloody, unethical and traumatic past... Maybe even present.
Recently, I looked into visiting Burma (Myanmar). It's long been touted as a traveller's paradise and who wouldn't want to see that pagoda peppered panorama. However, the country is, and has been since the end of colonialism, in turmoil. In 1962, a military dictatorship plunged the country into a brutal regime, one fought by Aung San Suu Kyi - she even won the Nobel Peace Prize. Now, it's democracy has been restored, however, the persecution of the Rohingya Muslims has shown that it's far from a stable, safe and progressive country. People still flock and pagodas still dominate social media and travel content.
A couple of years ago, I visited Warsaw, Poland. It's a splendid city, full of that wonderful Bohemian-cum-Austo-Hungarian architecture. Tourists flocked to the clock towers and the palace to take selfies and enjoy street entertainers over a cold pint of Tyskie. I wondered how many people realised the whole of Warsaw was raised to the ground during WWII and all of this is new.
I also wondered how many people realised that the persecution of the Jews wasn't just contained in Germany, but happened here too. I walked through an installation positioned between the Roman Catholic church and the park of the Old Town. It displayed some photos of Poland's Home Army who died fighting the Nazis, the toll was 200,000. And on 5 August 1939, some 40,000 civilians were murdered on one day alone. And I've not even touched on the massacre at Katyn. Or the Uprising in 1944.
It's not just countries with close links to WWII that have suffered. The idyllic Mediterranean island of Cyprus has been in conflict since its fight for independence in 1958, it came to a head in 1974 when the 18% Turkish minority took control of 40% of the island, resulting in a quarter of a million refugees and over 1,000 people are still missing. People are still mourning the loss of their homes, business, villages and towns still occupied by the illegal state of Northern Cyprus.
Our sun-soaked escapes to Benidorm or cultured city breaks in Madrid ignore the scars left my General Franco and Spanish Civil War. As we head to the Prado to recoil in horror at the Goya's depictions of the Napoleonic Wars in Disasters of War, but just an hour away lays the Valley of the Fallen, dictator Franco's monument to his regime.
Only recently, in an episode of BBC4's The Art Lovers Guide has a country's struggles been highlighted with regards to travel, i.e. not in the news or a heart-wrenching, commemorative documentary. The presenter, Janina Ramerez, explored the now gentrified part of Beruit that was under siege during the Lebanese Civil War. She visited a house whose bullet holes and collapsed walls had been preserved as a reminder of that harrowing battle and the 15-year war that ravaged the country.
For a lover of history, politics and the human condition like me, I purposely seek out these exhibitions, monuments and sites, to pay homage to the people who fought and died so I would be able to safely travel to and enjoy their country.
It's hard wondering around the S21 prison in Cambodia, seeing all the blood on the walls and torture instruments laid out. I cried from the minute I set foot inside Vietnam's American War Crimes Museum (I think it's been renamed now) until at least 30 minutes after I left. I felt sick to my stomach peering inside Ussher's slave prison in Accra. But it needs to be done, these countries don't exist just for our pleasure and hedonism, they're real countries with real troubles populated by real people who still bare the scars of their history. And it, in turns, has impacted their cultures and metaphysical beings in ways we'll never understand.
These sites may not be Instagram worthy - and they're certainly not the sites for jovial, duck-faced selfies - but they deserve a prominent place in travel writing, blogging and content, giving them the respect and balance they deserve.
