I just need to get this off my chest.
Last night my boyfriend saw something online about this couple who were biking through Central Asia and murdered by ISIS. He mentioned it to me and laughed - "What kind of idiots would go biking through ISIS territory?" - and I felt a pit in my stomach.
Because I know how this story goes. They were young and open-hearted, right? And they wanted to prove that people around the world are essentially the same, and kind, and helpful, right? And something bad happened to them, and now they're being trotted out on the news as proof that bad things happen when you trust strangers.
I told my boyfriend, "Well, if they KNOWINGLY went into ISIS territory hoping to make friends or something, that wasn't the best decision. But.. somehow I doubt that's the case." I wished that were the case. I went to bed, and I wished that the story would turn out to be just that simple in the morning.
Well, today I saw that story again on my Facebook feed. And my wish didn't come true.
I'm not linking the article because they don't deserve clicks. I'm just posting the headline and a couple of the responses it elicited on Facebook.
And now let me post the last paragraph, buried away at the very end of the article:
"CORRECTION: A previous version of this article said Tajikistan has a "known terrorist presence" and that the couple biked through "ISIS territory." It is more accurate to say that Tajikistan faces a threat of terrorism and is near to northern Afghanistan, which has a large terrorist presence."
So... they weren't really in ISIS territory. And the area they were in wasn't known to have a terrorist presence.
But that headline has stayed up.
If you read their the New York Times article about their deaths - or, you know, their travel blog where you can actually read their own words - they actually were METICULOUSLY careful planners. They weren't just gallivanting through Tajikistan on a lark. They were with a group of other cyclists as well.
But that headline has stayed up.
It also turns out that they had already experienced cruel treatment on their 2 year-long journey. They'd been attacked and threatened even in Western countries like Spain. They weren't naive; they knew there were people out there who were capable of bad things. They chose to keep going anyway, because for them the good outweighed the bad.
But that headline? Oh, they changed it to "Millennial Couple Bikes Near ISIS Territory" after getting called out.
I hate this shit. I HATE this shit.
Every single time something bad happens to someone traveling the world in an unorthodox way (cycling, hitchhiking or daring to be a woman traveling alone), it becomes "proof" that conservative hawks are right, that the world outside the West is a barbarous evil place, and that believing in the essential goodness of people gets you killed.
Meanwhile aaaaall the travelers who make those trips without getting raped or murdered never make the news. (See also: Pippa Bacca has become both a symbol of the supposed danger of traveling in Turkey and a hammer to beat over the heads of women with the audacity to think about traveling this world without a man to protect them. Meanwhile I know of several solo female hitchhikers who've gone through Turkey with no problems, but they're not famous for this.)
To willfully portray these people's story as "dumb liberals who thought they could be friends with ISIS" is horrifically disgusting. I can't imagine the rage I would feel if someone close to me was brave, resourceful and open-hearted enough to go biking through Central Asia in attempt to actually explore this damn world rather than sitting on their ass watching Nat Geo, and then got killed and RIDICULED for it.
These people believed that human beings are essentially good - something that I believe in, and something that we all DESPERATELY need to start believing in again if we're going to reverse the polarization that plagues our societies right now - and the media is twisting their story in order to claim that the opposite is true. Everything they lived through and experienced - 2 YEARS' worth of incidents where they encountered astounding kindness, openness and selflessness from complete strangers - is ignored and undermined by the one random encounter that led to their deaths.
This KILLS me, and not just because of how short-sighted and disingenuous and unfair it is. It kills me because the same thing could do easily happen to me.
Sometimes I honestly worry that if I somehow died in Turkey, even just in a car accident or something, people back home would same the same thing about me - "What did she think was going to happen? She went to a barbarian Muslim country as an American girl. It was only a matter of time."
Heaven forbid I should get raped walking down the street at night, or murdered by some crazy rando who decided to hate Americans last week because the lira crashed. I know full well I'd get shit not just from Americans, but also from Turks - "Bu Amerikalı kızın burada ne işi vardı ki?"
And that's not even mentioning all the solo hitchhiking I've done, and all the times I've been told if I got raped or murdered it would be my fault.
I have so much more to say on this topic. So many questions. I can't hold them all, they keep slipping through my mind like water.
Why is it okay to laugh at somebody's murder as long as we think they were doing something they shouldn't have?
Why, when a person dies climbing Mt. Everest or cave diving, do we say, "Well, they knew the risks and died doing what they loved," but when a person dies traveling we assume they were naive and ill-prepared?
Why do people who generally understand that xenophobia is rooted in ignorance and used as a tool to keep us divided, still laugh at the idea of traveling the world in an effort to break down these barriers?
I'm sure I'll still be looking for these answers when I'm 80 years old - if I haven't been murdered yet.
For now, all I can do is ask people not to believe the worst about someone just because you read a headline.
Read this couple's blog instead. There's 2 years of beautiful experiences there - more than most people will ever experience in a lifetime.
P.S. The use of "millennial" in the headline of this article is also a dogwhistle meant to bring up a whole constellation of associations that the media keeps pushing: "Millennials are young, naive, stubborn, too lazy to work a regular job like the rest of us. Who do they think they are, quitting good-paying jobs to go gallivanting around the world?" Why else would their generation be relevant here? Millennials are more and more making these kinds of choices - to reject the daily grind in favor of having more real experiences in their lives - and this story is a great way for the media to push back against that by saying, "Look, that attitude gets you killed by ISIS! Better just stay at your desk job." Fuck off with that transparently pro-corporate bullshit.
EDIT 08/19: I'm blown away by the all the support for this post. I also appreciate the ones who don't agree with some of my points, but are still respectful of this couple and their story.
To the ones who commented to the effect of "But they were naive tho" or insulted specific countries, I probably deleted your comment and I don't feel bad about it. This is not the place.
This week is a holiday in Turkey and I'll be stepping away from Facebook to spend time with my family, so I won't be able to respond to comments anymore.
Just, let's try to give each other the benefit of the doubt more often. Okay?
