As a sophomore, the time has come when one of the most common questions to ask fellow classmates is, “Where are you going abroad next year?” About this time one year from now, the majority of people in my class will have just been or will currently be scattered across the world, experiencing wildly different cultures from our own, supplementing our worldliness and reinforcing the notion that we are but one country among almost 200.
But recently, the decision of where to go, which is usually an exciting one, has been tainted with fear that comes with the recent terrorist attacks that have ensued all over the world. France, for example, is the fourth most common destination for American students studying abroad, but the attacks in Paris have a few people second-guessing their decisions to spend their junior year there.
After the attacks, a Business Travel Coalition survey of travel and risk managers taken in 17 countries revealed that 20 percent said they were “very or somewhat likely” to cancel travel plans to France. One can assume that the more recent attacks in neighboring Belgium have only increased this reluctance to travel.
One of the most common arguments against living in fear is that if we retreat in fear, the terrorists “have won.” We’re better off continuing with our travel plans, even if the destinations are countries with unrest. People believe that to alter them due to the possibility of terrorist activity is exactly what terrorists would want us to do. To let them have an effect on our lives at all is to allow them far too much power.
But this is the weaker of two arguments. Actively disregarding the possibility of an attack is acknowledging that there is something important to ignore. Whether we’re choosing where (or where not) to travel based on the likelihood of terrorist attacks or bravely continuing with our plans in spite of it, it is impossible to deny there is a place terrorists occupy in the backs of our minds.
The better argument against living in fear of terrorism is derived from just looking at the numbers. The sad reality is that there were 372 mass shootings in the US in 2015. From 2004 to 2014, 320,523 Americans were killed due to gun violence. Strikingly, in this same timeframe, 303 Americans were killed in terrorist attacks worldwide – or one tenth of one percent.
Before you say it, of course if our time window had included September 11, 2001, the percent would have risen to one percent – still just a tiny fraction. Ultimately, there is so much more harm caused on our own turf due to Americans using guns, that if we were deliberately limiting our whereabouts out of fear of dying, then it would be safer to go on vacation abroad than to leave our house and walk down the street.
So where is the line? At what point do aggressive terrorism prevention tactics turn to overkill? At what point do the lengthy security processes at airports, ruthless racial profiling, and immediate evacuation of public places due to suspicious abandoned objects create just the kind of chaos and paranoia that terrorists are trying to cause?
While maybe taking these defensive precautions on the home front is necessary, we shouldn’t logically extend this mind frame to our decisions on where to study abroad. Even if, for the sake of argument, we said our safety was more compromised abroad, the important question would be whether what is gained by staying “safe” at home is worth what is lost in experience and worldliness.
Perhaps this tradeoff is different for everyone. But as a college student who still has so much of the world to explore and understand, I have a hard time picturing not studying abroad to be anything but detrimental to my educational and personal development. And if confronting or ignoring fear is what will ground me more and further reinforce my understanding of societies on distant shores, then that’s exactly what I intend to do.
