They say that travel makes you a better person. It’s not true for me. Travel makes me a less polite, more resentful, physically exhausted and emotionally drained person.
It makes me want to cut queues, to have more money (and hence better seats) and judge other people (especially those different to me, and everyone is somewhat different to me) rather harshly. I often fall sick before trips, I’m sullen and sulky during trips and fall sick again after trips. I still travel though, because I like getting there or rather being there, wherever my destination might be.
For all the rest of the time, the drive to the airport, the miserable march through security, the taking some things out and other things off, the languishing at the gate, the cramming into seats, I envy everyone else, anyone else who is not at that moment travelling.
I imagine that most, if not all of us commit similar sins of attitude and outlook when on the move. With the zipping up of the suitcase, our alternative travel selves are awakened, eager to take over. They enable us to accept arrangements and embrace desires we otherwise never would.
The arrangement of classes on planes, the poorest and cheapest in one end, the richer and better off in the other, reflects in literal and concrete terms a world where money and class determine treatment and worth. While some societies are more accepting of class divisions, the fact that these arrangements occur on nearly all airlines regardless of state or culture is notable.
Even the greatest advocates of equality, the most fervent critic of excess and special treatment, accept them and, if they are able, partake of them. Envy and condescension, the cordoned off superiority of the very special, are all deemed acceptable on board an aircraft in the alternative morality that rules the air.
Some portions of this same alternative morality endure when we land. Per the dystopic parameters of border and nationality, the colours and countries of our passports determine where we line up, what we are asked, how we are welcomed and if we are detained. The songs celebrating our common humanity are for other locations.
Don’t bring up human rights or human dignity to the man or woman in the passport booth and have no expectation of the common courtesy that lubricates the rest of life. The displeasure of the omniscient border control officer can equal the transformation of an arduous journey into a truly ghastly one. If you’re unfortunate enough to be travelling to Donald Trump’s America it can mean detention, confiscation and other horrors.
The tribulations of travel are not of course limited to the United States but they take on grotesque proportions as planes inch closer to their boundaries. We all know, for instance, the post-September 11 security regimes that have, in the decade and a half since that attack, colonised nearly every airport on Earth.
Regardless of whether you’re in Manila or Oslo or trying to get to Oslo or Manila, you will be scanned and X-rayed, your belongings scoured, your well-arranged items skewed, all for the privilege of getting on the plane.
In America, or rather when bound for America, even the large sum of all these intrusions is deemed not enough. Earlier this month, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), which is in charge of inflicting these indignities at US airports, announced that “pat- downs” are going to get more invasive. This new (and worse) pat-down will be standardised so that everyone gets the same one as opposed to the five different kinds of pat-downs that TSA agents could choose from until now. I can’t wait until I get it.
Last week also brought travellers another and even more cumbersome new rule. The US department of Homeland Security, that is now presided over by a Trump appointee, announced that passengers travelling to the United States from six Muslim countries, the UAE, Qatar, Turkey, Egypt, Morocco and Jordan will all be forbidden from carrying any electronics save mobile phones on the plane. The directive, seemingly less intrusive than the Trump administration’s now twice-struck down travel ban, accomplishes to a lesser degree some of the same objectives.
Without much explanation of the nature of the threat that has provoked the measure, arriving Muslims are collectively treated as tainted, in possession of undetectable explosives secreted in their laptops. The fact that the flights from these countries are some of the longest humans currently endure, that some may like to work or read or have to entertain small children in tiny spaces, is of no concern.
Those are the exceptional and recent inflictions of misery, but even without them travel is riddled with intolerance and inconvenience, our own alternate and impatient travel selves clashing and colliding with those of our fellow passengers. I have had to run from a woman changing a dirty nappy on the seat tray table, argue with a man who even while seated across the aisle objected to my use of an empty seat next to me, tolerate the kicks of toddlers seated behind me and the drunken blather of men seated in front of me.
We all have our horror stories because we as travellers are rather horrible people. These stories serve a good purpose; I use them to console myself on other flights (at least it’s not that, etc) harnessing the power of comparative context to render snoring strangers or stinky strangers a bit more bearable.
The larger point is simply that travel, at least economy-class travel of ordinary people like me, brings out the worst in us. Even as we partake of the great technological and scientific feat that is jet travel, we are reduced by its inconveniences to a primal state.
In the Hobbesian microcosm of the airport and the airplane, we guard our territory, fight over resources and space, are easily wronged and ever-entitled. It is almost as if this very contrast, between the miraculous nature of travelling, of moving so fast in such little time, is too much for our stone-age DNA to tolerate and so it takes us back instead of forward.
I will be on a plane again this week and I am trying hard to resist, to not morph fast and furiously into my terrible travel self. To be the better person that travel is supposed to make me or just the normally nice person that I usually am. The progress is slow and the expectation of suffering great, its acuteness exacerbated by the general uncertainty imposed by the new restrictions falling in torrents on the hapless traveller.
Against all this, the power of an individual to choose seems drastically limited both in the air and at airports: those treated like suspects feel like them, those served last like leftovers and those questioned like criminals.
In these airborne and border spaces, the categories of who paid more and who was born where, bleach away character, reduce identity to race or religion or nationality, and worth to money. We travel to see the world, but the cost of it is immersion in this other world, one where we are all lesser versions of ourselves.
Rafia Zakaria is the author of The Upstairs Wife: An Intimate History of Pakistan
Election pledges on migration
CDU: "Now is the time to control the German borders and enforce strict border rejections"
SPD: "Border closures and blanket rejections at internal borders contradict the spirit of a common area of freedom"
Skewed figures
In the village of Mevagissey in southwest England the housing stock has doubled in the last century while the number of residents is half the historic high. The village's Neighbourhood Development Plan states that 26% of homes are holiday retreats. Prices are high, averaging around £300,000, £50,000 more than the Cornish average of £250,000. The local average wage is £15,458.
How to watch Ireland v Pakistan in UAE
When: The one-off Test starts on Friday, May 11
What time: Each day’s play is scheduled to start at 2pm UAE time.
TV: The match will be broadcast on OSN Sports Cricket HD. Subscribers to the channel can also stream the action live on OSN Play.
The%20specs
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What are the GCSE grade equivalents?
- Grade 9 = above an A*
- Grade 8 = between grades A* and A
- Grade 7 = grade A
- Grade 6 = just above a grade B
- Grade 5 = between grades B and C
- Grade 4 = grade C
- Grade 3 = between grades D and E
- Grade 2 = between grades E and F
- Grade 1 = between grades F and G
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
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The Bio
Name: Lynn Davison
Profession: History teacher at Al Yasmina Academy, Abu Dhabi
Children: She has one son, Casey, 28
Hometown: Pontefract, West Yorkshire in the UK
Favourite book: The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
Favourite Author: CJ Sansom
Favourite holiday destination: Bali
Favourite food: A Sunday roast
Seemar’s top six for the Dubai World Cup Carnival:
1. Reynaldothewizard
2. North America
3. Raven’s Corner
4. Hawkesbury
5. New Maharajah
6. Secret Ambition
The specs
Engine: 4.0-litre flat-six
Torque: 450Nm at 6,100rpm
Transmission: 7-speed PDK auto or 6-speed manual
Fuel economy, combined: 13.8L/100km
On sale: Available to order now
Company%C2%A0profile
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The Intruder
Director: Deon Taylor
Starring: Dennis Quaid, Michael Ealy, Meagan Good
One star
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The National's picks
4.35pm: Tilal Al Khalediah
5.10pm: Continous
5.45pm: Raging Torrent
6.20pm: West Acre
7pm: Flood Zone
7.40pm: Straight No Chaser
8.15pm: Romantic Warrior
8.50pm: Calandogan
9.30pm: Forever Young
pakistan Test squad
Azhar Ali (capt), Shan Masood, Abid Ali, Imam-ul-Haq, Asad Shafiq, Babar Azam, Fawad Alam, Haris Sohail, Imran Khan, Kashif Bhatti, Mohammad Rizwan (wk), Naseem Shah, Shaheen Shah Afridi, Mohammad Abbas, Yasir Shah, Usman Shinwari
Results:
5pm: Baynunah Conditions (UAE bred) Dh80,000 1,400m.
Winner: Al Tiryaq, Dane O’Neill (jockey), Abdullah Al Hammadi (trainer).
5.30pm: Al Zahra Handicap (rated 0-45) Dh 80,000 1,400m:
Winner: Fahadd, Richard Mullen, Ahmed Al Mehairbi.
6pm: Al Ras Al Akhdar Maiden Dh80,000 1,600m.
Winner: Jaahiz, Jesus Rosales, Eric Lemartinel.
6.30pm: Al Reem Island Handicap Dh90,000 1,600m.
Winner: AF Al Jahed, Antonio Fresu, Ernst Oertel.
7pm: Al Khubairah Handicap (TB) 100,000 2,200m.
Winner: Empoli, Pat Dobbs, Doug Watson.
7.30pm: Wathba Stallions Cup Handicap Dh80,000 2,200m.
Winner: Shivan OA, Patrick Cosgrave, Helal Al Alawi.
The White Lotus: Season three
Creator: Mike White
Starring: Walton Goggins, Jason Isaacs, Natasha Rothwell
Rating: 4.5/5
The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
