Wars are so last season

Why bother conquering the world with arms and ammunition when there are so much more easier and cheaper ways to achieve it. If I was George W. Bush or Putin I would do it trough treavel industry and culture.

Through out the times great explorers, like Columbus and Marco Polo etc., have been the pioneers that have left their signature to our history. It's often left unrecognized that they also left behind the, not so nice, seed of change. In the recent history backpackers have been our seeders. I call them the 'First wave', the Scouts if you like. Often they are young people that want to explore the world to make some sense to it. They want to see the world and for them leaving the rat race is the only way to go. When they come back from their journeys from far corners of the world they tell tales of wonderful virgin beaches that are untouched by pollution and noise. They tell stories of delicious foods, beautiful people and of a rich culture that we should learn from. Everyone else are impressed of all this and they feel attracted to these adventures.

This returning 'Hippie' launches a chain reaction that can't be stopped. More and more people come to these remote parts of the world every year. Eventually new hotels and restaurants are built because of the demand. Someone gets a great idea to write to a magazine of this wonderland. Someone makes a TV program. Then it all explodes, people start travelling to these destinations by the thousands. The name appears in every newspaper and magazine. The second phase,'The invasion' has began.

When mass tourism comes to town everything changes. People are no longer feed the local specialities. Instead McDonald's are being build to keep hungre away. Chicken curry comes from the freezer and local drinks are replaced with Coca Cola. Local people are starting to adapt to serve their new masters. People might think that travel 3000 kilometers is exotic but they still want the air conditioning, cold Heineken, swimming pool and a Ford Transporter for their family.

So all you world leaders out there, especially in the western world. You had a good thing going on and you were on a way to a certain victory before you regressed and started shooting around. Invasion by implementing your culture with someone else's is quite easy. Who ever gets to the point in their society where they don't have to earn their everyday living could start concentrating on cultural invasions. Just put enough tourism to some part of the world and they will follow you. It's been done before and can be done again. Just look at some parts of Africa, Asia or Middle-East.. After a while your culture will become a solid part of the other nations culture and if you keep pushing it they will become part of your army. Example? Japan.

Think of Iraq. How much has the war on terror cost the western world? Billions and billions.. What if instead of sending troops down there we had sent tourists there? Thousands of tourist crawling around Baghdad and Teheran. Some change would bound to happen. USA could have paid part of those trips helping these cities come more wanted. This could all happen by itself if you would have a little patients but some financial aid could speed up things a bit. Sounds ridiculous? It's already happening! My Spanish roommate was about to visit Israel and half of the trip was sponsored by Israel (a.k.a USA). Two weeks vacation included buss trips around Israel visiting many politicly and culturally important sights. I could have applied for the same trip with him. Now what you think about that? In Israel all this of course works a bit differently. They've turned my theory around and are letting people invade their country. I THINK their intention deep down is to get some compassion for their political decisions by telling as many people as possible, their side of the story.

We unintentionally invented this thing called the Globalization. It's the last piece of the puzzle. If something doesn't break this puzzle we are all bound to merge into a huge mass of people without any true identity or culture. It's already happening in music in the form of Pop music but that's an other story all together.

Next time I go travelling I'm not going to tell stories of beautiful places or great sunsets or even tell where I was. All you hear from me is of the pure culture, that is if I am able to find a place like that.

Maybe the the first piece of the puzzle, the backpackers, can break the puzzle and shuffle the pieces again. At least I feel that few pieces didn't go to the right spots.