I’ve been held up at gunpoint twice in
my life once in Washington DC and once
in Darfur Sudan now one of those places
is a nation’s capital and a destination
visited by millions of tourists each
year and one of those places is a remote
region of East Africa known for its
prolonged civil war to me one of those
places was safe and the other was not my
name is Kelsey hoppy and I work in risk
management this means that I help
organizations keep their employees and
volunteers safe whether they’re crossing
the street or traveling around the world
and I thought a lot about how we as
normal people and non security experts
can engage with our safety and security
when we’re traveling by the time the DC
and Darfur
incidences happen I’d already spent the
previous 15 years traveling and working
in the former Soviet Union Southeast
Asia and much of Europe and I take in a
pretty typical approach to my safety
which was stay away from unsafe places
and I’d be fine I wanted to be safe I
just didn’t really think I had much
control over it I treated safe like a
place on a map Washington DC was safe
America was safe Iraq and Chechnya
unsafe but as I was confronted with a
teenager with a gun in DC I was forced
to real that to reconsider how I had
concluded that this was one of my safe
places have you ever asked yourself this
question where is safe perhaps you’re
asking it right now because places that
you’d formerly thought of as safe
London Paris Las Vegas seemed to be
under attack by terrorists or maybe
you’re asking it because you’ve just
always wanted to go somewhere like Cairo
or Casablanca or Miami but the world
just seems a little too dangerous at the
moment how can we know where is safe
safety is a primal human need and a core
driver of who we are in the 1940s
American psychologist Abraham Maslow
created a hierarchy of human needs and
he put safety as our second most
important human need it comes right
after our physiological needs for food
air water and sleep being and feeling
safe is actually more important to us
than being loved by our family and
friends it’s that important so it makes
sense that we care about our safety when
we’re traveling and it makes sense that
we care about the safety our family and
friends when they’re away from home but
the problem arises when we misjudge safe
and dangerous because we think that safe
is a place what being held up at
gunpoint forced me to confront was that
safe isn’t a place everywhere every
place has threats everywhere in DC there
are men with guns and in Darfur there
are also men with guns the threat of gun
violence of being held up or shot is
present in both of those places but the
difference was I hadn’t thought about it
in DC because DC was my home and in our
homes in our familiar surroundings and
routines we’ve become accustomed to
dealing with certain threats and we have
done it so well and so many times that
we don’t think of them as threats
and we don’t think about dealing with
them as dealing with dangerous
situations think about this today to get
here you and I ran a gauntlet of threats
and any one of them could have killed us
but we managed those so we’re walking
down the stairs we put away our phone
most of us we held on to the handrail we
get in the car we put on a seatbelt we
followed the rules of the road we’re
gonna cross the street we look both ways
you and I manage the threats in our
everyday life incredibly well which is
why we’re alive and what seems common
sense and second nature to most of us
can be incredibly new and different to
someone who comes to our homes or
communities from someplace else Bruce
Schneier a security technologist
mentions this in his TED talk when he’s
talking about someone in East Africa who
knows how to deal with a threat of being
attacked by lions because they work on a
game reserve now too you and I lion
attack seems really dangerous and exotic
but to someone else in their home
environment it’s perfectly normal you
deal with certain threats in Bristol
someone else deals with different
threats in Kabul Afghanistan but no
place is threat free no place is
inherently safe now we might think okay
but surely some places are safer than
others surely the UK is safer than
Somalia surely Switzerland is safer than
South Africa and we would be right
because certain places have more
numerous or more deadly threats than
others
but where we go wrong is when we begin
to think that safe as a country when we
talk about countries and continents we
tend to use these really broad brush
strokes Oh Iran is dangerous or Africa
is unsafe and these are huge places
continents and when we use broad
brushstrokes we create a problem which
is highlighted when we apply that same
thinking to our own country is the UK
unsafe I know Americans and Europeans
right now who are putting off a trip to
the UK because of the recent terror
attacks in London now you and I might
think well that’s a bit silly the UK is
more than London if they’re concerned
about London they can come to Bristol or
bus Cardiff Edinburgh Oxford Cambridge
but you and I do the same thing to other
countries simply because we don’t know
them very well a bomb goes off in
Indonesia and we write off the entire
country is dangerous
we’re extremely influenced by a single
event and the media which is usually how
we know about that event has no interest
in putting crime health risks or
terrorism into perspective and in
general the less we know about a place
the more likely we are to unhelpfully
and helpfully extrapolate that out to a
national level I experienced this
personally about five years ago when I
moved to Pakistan I didn’t know very
much about the country but people were
happy to inform me
have you seen zero dark thirty the story
about Osama bin Laden’s assassination in
the Pakistani city up to bad or they
would say have you watched the TV series
homeland which has a season about
American spies set in Pakistan Hollywood
the media painted a bleak picture
terrorism bombings murder mayhem an
unsafe country so I arrived expecting
the worst and then
nothing happened I mean nothing there
were no Taliban in the hedges there were
no shootouts in the streets I lived in
Islamabad in Lahore for three years and
I never really once felt personally
threatened or unsafe in fact in terms of
gun violence I was more at risk in
Washington DC than I was in Islamabad
why because when it comes to safe the
threats or the dangers which are present
in a place are only half the story the
other half is us if safe isn’t a place
and it isn’t a country what is it safe
is the interplay between the dangers
which exist somewhere and ourselves we
are incredibly important in the equation
of safe now you and I have hundreds of
characteristics which make up who we are
age gender nationality religion our jobs
how we dress how we behave how long were
somewhere and any one of these things
can keep us safe in one place and make
us vulnerable someplace else in
Islamabad I wasn’t vulnerable to gun
violence armed robbery
which happened rarely usually occurred
at night or when someone was alone and I
didn’t have a reason to be alone at
night in Islamabad but someone else who
had different characteristics maybe they
are Pakistani maybe they had a night job
would have been vulnerable to gun crime
let me give you another example me I’m a
middle-aged American white woman
I don’t feel unsafe or vulnerable if I’m
pulled over for a traffic violation in
America but someone else with different
characteristics say a young black
American
would feel unsafe and would feel
vulnerable but take him and I put us in
a different situation say neighbourhood
of Nairobi or a neighborhood of Chicago
or DC and I the same middle-aged
American white woman might feel safe
walking down the street whereas my young
black American friend could potentially
do the same thing unnoticed if we’re in
the same place and we have the same
threats present our safety is affected
differently because who we are who we
are how we behave and how and what we’re
doing all interrelate with the threats
there to either protect or threaten us
and that is what safe is no matter where
you are in the world now you might be
thinking well all this is great in the
abstract but you still haven’t told me
whether I should take that trip to
Hawaii or Sharm el-sheikh or Istanbul so
before I finish I want to give you a few
practical steps that you can take to
help you make that decision first take
responsibility for your safety and
security no one is going to be able to
answer that question for you should I go
no one is out there analyzing your
safety the tour company wants to sell
you a tour and the airline a ticket and
the media it’s advertising and the
government its foreign policy you are
the only person who’s going to be
thinking about you so own that decision
second be specific about where you’re
going and what could harm you there
you’re not going to Europe or even to
France you’re going to Paris what
threatens people in Paris crime travel
scams health risks it could be something
that the news
regularly reports on or it could be
something you’ve never even heard of you
can google it you can ask someone who’s
been there but try to dig a little bit
deeper than the initial headlines that
the internet search will throw at you
because we can all get consumed with
worrying about these big bang’s
getting kidnapped ambushed carjacked
murdered by terrorists and we overlook
the things which could actually harm us
or kill us
things like riding in a taxi without a
seatbelt riding on a scooter without a
helmet
dehydration malaria drinking and driving
drinking and swimming drinking and
jumping off balconies which apparently
is a thing now third know what makes you
vulnerable
if safe is the interplay between the
threats which are present in a place and
ourselves then the question isn’t is
lahore safe or is London safe it’s is
London safe for me it’s about the
specifics of you as a person and your
trip
are you moving there or are you going
there for two weeks are you living with
your family or are you staying in a
hotel
do you speak the language safety is
personal for us think about how you
reduce your risks at home and determine
if you can do the same thing abroad as I
mentioned you keep yourself safe from
some incredibly deadly things every day
can you do the same thing abroad can you
keep yourself safe from crime from car
accidents just like you do at home by
taking anti-malarial tablets can you
keep yourself safe from malaria and if
the answer to these things is yes then
take that trip and if the answer is no
or the risks or threats are beyond what
you’re comfortable with and don’t go but
the difference is is that you are in
control of your life and your travel
plans
they’re not being dictated to you by the
media or rumors or hearsay that your
friends and family have heard about a
place or even your own fears about a
terrorist attack the world is an amazing
place and travel is more accessible to
more of us than ever before what a shame
it would be if we didn’t take advantage
of that because we didn’t understand our
own safety because we thought we had no
control over it
let’s stop asking where is safe because
safe isn’t a place safe is where we are
and who we are in the story of safe you
and I are the main characters thank you
you
my life once in Washington DC and once
in Darfur Sudan now one of those places
is a nation’s capital and a destination
visited by millions of tourists each
year and one of those places is a remote
region of East Africa known for its
prolonged civil war to me one of those
places was safe and the other was not my
name is Kelsey hoppy and I work in risk
management this means that I help
organizations keep their employees and
volunteers safe whether they’re crossing
the street or traveling around the world
and I thought a lot about how we as
normal people and non security experts
can engage with our safety and security
when we’re traveling by the time the DC
and Darfur
incidences happen I’d already spent the
previous 15 years traveling and working
in the former Soviet Union Southeast
Asia and much of Europe and I take in a
pretty typical approach to my safety
which was stay away from unsafe places
and I’d be fine I wanted to be safe I
just didn’t really think I had much
control over it I treated safe like a
place on a map Washington DC was safe
America was safe Iraq and Chechnya
unsafe but as I was confronted with a
teenager with a gun in DC I was forced
to real that to reconsider how I had
concluded that this was one of my safe
places have you ever asked yourself this
question where is safe perhaps you’re
asking it right now because places that
you’d formerly thought of as safe
London Paris Las Vegas seemed to be
under attack by terrorists or maybe
you’re asking it because you’ve just
always wanted to go somewhere like Cairo
or Casablanca or Miami but the world
just seems a little too dangerous at the
moment how can we know where is safe
safety is a primal human need and a core
driver of who we are in the 1940s
American psychologist Abraham Maslow
created a hierarchy of human needs and
he put safety as our second most
important human need it comes right
after our physiological needs for food
air water and sleep being and feeling
safe is actually more important to us
than being loved by our family and
friends it’s that important so it makes
sense that we care about our safety when
we’re traveling and it makes sense that
we care about the safety our family and
friends when they’re away from home but
the problem arises when we misjudge safe
and dangerous because we think that safe
is a place what being held up at
gunpoint forced me to confront was that
safe isn’t a place everywhere every
place has threats everywhere in DC there
are men with guns and in Darfur there
are also men with guns the threat of gun
violence of being held up or shot is
present in both of those places but the
difference was I hadn’t thought about it
in DC because DC was my home and in our
homes in our familiar surroundings and
routines we’ve become accustomed to
dealing with certain threats and we have
done it so well and so many times that
we don’t think of them as threats
and we don’t think about dealing with
them as dealing with dangerous
situations think about this today to get
here you and I ran a gauntlet of threats
and any one of them could have killed us
but we managed those so we’re walking
down the stairs we put away our phone
most of us we held on to the handrail we
get in the car we put on a seatbelt we
followed the rules of the road we’re
gonna cross the street we look both ways
you and I manage the threats in our
everyday life incredibly well which is
why we’re alive and what seems common
sense and second nature to most of us
can be incredibly new and different to
someone who comes to our homes or
communities from someplace else Bruce
Schneier a security technologist
mentions this in his TED talk when he’s
talking about someone in East Africa who
knows how to deal with a threat of being
attacked by lions because they work on a
game reserve now too you and I lion
attack seems really dangerous and exotic
but to someone else in their home
environment it’s perfectly normal you
deal with certain threats in Bristol
someone else deals with different
threats in Kabul Afghanistan but no
place is threat free no place is
inherently safe now we might think okay
but surely some places are safer than
others surely the UK is safer than
Somalia surely Switzerland is safer than
South Africa and we would be right
because certain places have more
numerous or more deadly threats than
others
but where we go wrong is when we begin
to think that safe as a country when we
talk about countries and continents we
tend to use these really broad brush
strokes Oh Iran is dangerous or Africa
is unsafe and these are huge places
continents and when we use broad
brushstrokes we create a problem which
is highlighted when we apply that same
thinking to our own country is the UK
unsafe I know Americans and Europeans
right now who are putting off a trip to
the UK because of the recent terror
attacks in London now you and I might
think well that’s a bit silly the UK is
more than London if they’re concerned
about London they can come to Bristol or
bus Cardiff Edinburgh Oxford Cambridge
but you and I do the same thing to other
countries simply because we don’t know
them very well a bomb goes off in
Indonesia and we write off the entire
country is dangerous
we’re extremely influenced by a single
event and the media which is usually how
we know about that event has no interest
in putting crime health risks or
terrorism into perspective and in
general the less we know about a place
the more likely we are to unhelpfully
and helpfully extrapolate that out to a
national level I experienced this
personally about five years ago when I
moved to Pakistan I didn’t know very
much about the country but people were
happy to inform me
have you seen zero dark thirty the story
about Osama bin Laden’s assassination in
the Pakistani city up to bad or they
would say have you watched the TV series
homeland which has a season about
American spies set in Pakistan Hollywood
the media painted a bleak picture
terrorism bombings murder mayhem an
unsafe country so I arrived expecting
the worst and then
nothing happened I mean nothing there
were no Taliban in the hedges there were
no shootouts in the streets I lived in
Islamabad in Lahore for three years and
I never really once felt personally
threatened or unsafe in fact in terms of
gun violence I was more at risk in
Washington DC than I was in Islamabad
why because when it comes to safe the
threats or the dangers which are present
in a place are only half the story the
other half is us if safe isn’t a place
and it isn’t a country what is it safe
is the interplay between the dangers
which exist somewhere and ourselves we
are incredibly important in the equation
of safe now you and I have hundreds of
characteristics which make up who we are
age gender nationality religion our jobs
how we dress how we behave how long were
somewhere and any one of these things
can keep us safe in one place and make
us vulnerable someplace else in
Islamabad I wasn’t vulnerable to gun
violence armed robbery
which happened rarely usually occurred
at night or when someone was alone and I
didn’t have a reason to be alone at
night in Islamabad but someone else who
had different characteristics maybe they
are Pakistani maybe they had a night job
would have been vulnerable to gun crime
let me give you another example me I’m a
middle-aged American white woman
I don’t feel unsafe or vulnerable if I’m
pulled over for a traffic violation in
America but someone else with different
characteristics say a young black
American
would feel unsafe and would feel
vulnerable but take him and I put us in
a different situation say neighbourhood
of Nairobi or a neighborhood of Chicago
or DC and I the same middle-aged
American white woman might feel safe
walking down the street whereas my young
black American friend could potentially
do the same thing unnoticed if we’re in
the same place and we have the same
threats present our safety is affected
differently because who we are who we
are how we behave and how and what we’re
doing all interrelate with the threats
there to either protect or threaten us
and that is what safe is no matter where
you are in the world now you might be
thinking well all this is great in the
abstract but you still haven’t told me
whether I should take that trip to
Hawaii or Sharm el-sheikh or Istanbul so
before I finish I want to give you a few
practical steps that you can take to
help you make that decision first take
responsibility for your safety and
security no one is going to be able to
answer that question for you should I go
no one is out there analyzing your
safety the tour company wants to sell
you a tour and the airline a ticket and
the media it’s advertising and the
government its foreign policy you are
the only person who’s going to be
thinking about you so own that decision
second be specific about where you’re
going and what could harm you there
you’re not going to Europe or even to
France you’re going to Paris what
threatens people in Paris crime travel
scams health risks it could be something
that the news
regularly reports on or it could be
something you’ve never even heard of you
can google it you can ask someone who’s
been there but try to dig a little bit
deeper than the initial headlines that
the internet search will throw at you
because we can all get consumed with
worrying about these big bang’s
getting kidnapped ambushed carjacked
murdered by terrorists and we overlook
the things which could actually harm us
or kill us
things like riding in a taxi without a
seatbelt riding on a scooter without a
helmet
dehydration malaria drinking and driving
drinking and swimming drinking and
jumping off balconies which apparently
is a thing now third know what makes you
vulnerable
if safe is the interplay between the
threats which are present in a place and
ourselves then the question isn’t is
lahore safe or is London safe it’s is
London safe for me it’s about the
specifics of you as a person and your
trip
are you moving there or are you going
there for two weeks are you living with
your family or are you staying in a
hotel
do you speak the language safety is
personal for us think about how you
reduce your risks at home and determine
if you can do the same thing abroad as I
mentioned you keep yourself safe from
some incredibly deadly things every day
can you do the same thing abroad can you
keep yourself safe from crime from car
accidents just like you do at home by
taking anti-malarial tablets can you
keep yourself safe from malaria and if
the answer to these things is yes then
take that trip and if the answer is no
or the risks or threats are beyond what
you’re comfortable with and don’t go but
the difference is is that you are in
control of your life and your travel
plans
they’re not being dictated to you by the
media or rumors or hearsay that your
friends and family have heard about a
place or even your own fears about a
terrorist attack the world is an amazing
place and travel is more accessible to
more of us than ever before what a shame
it would be if we didn’t take advantage
of that because we didn’t understand our
own safety because we thought we had no
control over it
let’s stop asking where is safe because
safe isn’t a place safe is where we are
and who we are in the story of safe you
and I are the main characters thank you
you
Please follow and like us: