Dave’s Reise nach Osten

I was in Iran, I was in Pakistan. For many people, it is unthinkable to go there. Why? It is not safe they say.

What is safety? When are you safe? We normally don’t think about it, but honestly we know that we are never safe. Every second our heart could stop beating, every time we walk we could slip and fall and get injured deathly, every time we close the door of our house behind us is a moment we enter a dangerous world (as if there would be no danger inside the house as well). Some people are paralyzed because they are scared of life. Others step out into that world and enjoy the life that was given to them.

So you are scared of going to Iran and Pakistan while I recommend it. What can you do to overcome your fear? First, define what being safe means for you. Second, inform yourself.

What is safety?

You are never entirely safe. Live with it. Safety is always relative. You can express it in a chance to survive a certain situation, but you can never entirely guarantee it for anybody. So it is never about if something is secure or not, but about how secure it is. How unsecure is too much for you? Take some time and find your line. My personal line is the everyday traffic on the streets. Many people get killed every year by simple traffic accidents. And we live with it, it is a part of the risk we are willing to take as a society. Every day. And it is okay for me too. So I consider everything that is safer than street traffic totally safe for my life. And everything that is more insecure than traffic is worth a second thought. I don’t have a no-go line because I was never confronted with it. A German friend of mine who lived in Pakistan has one. She would quit her exchange semester and go home if there is open fighting on the street. Not before.

Maybe that line is totally unrelated to what you can think of. Let me show you the steps there. First, let us go to India (or any Asian country, for that matter): The traffic is crazy. It is dangerous – at least if we apply my line. But still, crowds of tourists go to India every year. For all of them it is okay to stretch the line to some more crazy traffic. So it is for me.

For a long time, the situation in Pakistan was like this: There were suicide attacks, but only rarely and always on government buildings (police stations, secret service offices etc.). Is that something to fear? Not really, unless you are a policeman or other government official. Otherwise the chance that it hits you is incredibly small. Way smaller than getting hit by a car.

This year, the frequency of the attacks increased. On the peak, there was a daily attack. Some on the market place in Peshawar (a city close to the border of Afghanistan), one on a sidebuilding of a mosque (killing a liberal cleric). That was during the time I visited the country and it was very interesting to see how it influenced people. Suddenly people did not feel so secure anymore. I could observe that feeling in expats who were discussing their security situation. Until this point they always found confidence in the fact that the attacks targeted the government and not them. Still, most of the bombs did. But suddenly the fear factor that a bomb could hit you everywhere everytime came into the game. Exactly what the obscure enemy wants. But everybody stayed. Nobody left the country in a rush. The news were big, the unease was growing, but the real danger was still small.

What the foreigners know is that they have to keep themselves informed. Because it could happend that the front moves. And you don’t want to have an open fight close to your city, not talking of one in front of your house. That would be a real reason to leave. But the chance that this would happen was small. Which brings us to the second point.

Inform yourself

Be honest. You don’t have a clou about Pakistan. You have seen some pictures on TV and Pakistan is always in the news and that gives you a bad feeling. So what you first have to do is learn to put what you see on TV in relation. You see the result of a bomb blast, you see a huge demonstration, you see streams of refugees, you see open fightings. Well, did you ever think about that this probably happened only in one street? And in the next street… Yeah, have you ever, ever thought about the street behind the one in the news? I tell you something: In the street behind, in the parallel street, there is everydays life ruling. Maybe not in a war zone, but for sure in Islamabad.

In Turkey, I saw news on TV, showing refugees within Pakistan and I got the feeling they are flooding all the country, making it impossible to move. I almost skipped Pakistan because of that. What a huge mistake that would have been. Because of that, I know how hard it is to put information into relation when you don’t have the opportunity to see behind the news. Well, at least, try it. Don’t let fear rule. Don’t be put of by a destination by poor information. Even if there is an open war going on in a country, chances are that it is travelable in big parts. Have you thought about how journalists get the news without being killed? They are mainly in the street behind…

So, which additional information made me going to Pakistan?

Or: why didn’t I got killed in Pakistan?

The country is huge. Have you ever had a look at it on a map? You know that India is vast, but in North-South direction, Pakistan is not that much smaller. On the TV screen it may look small and the point showing where is bomb blast was covers half the country, but take it into relations. All the places they don’t cover in the news are totally safe.

I avoided all the ‘most unsecure’ areas. The areas were the army is active, Peshawar – the city close to Afghanistan that faces regular bomb blasts on market places. In most of the places I went to, I felt totally safe.

There are even travellers going to Afghanistan. I even heard the rumour that some Japanese guy cycled through it half a year ago. There are travellers going to Iraq. You think this is suicidal? Not if you inform yourself well. Most visitors to Pakistan skip Peshawar for security reasons. Most visitors to Iraq stay in the north which is a safe part, ruled by a Kurdish government. It is all about good information and about where you draw your line.