When cultures meet

One of the nice things about living in a place where people come to holiday is the general air of gaiety. The sun is shining, the sea is blue, and all the horrors of the world – war and terror and strife - seem very far away.

People on holiday are happy people.

So when an act of senseless violence occurs, it is all the more horrifying.

A 65-year-old Australian tourist was beaten to death yesterday by some waiters after he objected to the way they served him beer.

A Dutch woman down the road from where I live was beaten by some locals last year. Again over something trivial. The woman along with her husband had been running a restaurant for some years. The woman was not seriously hurt, but she was so shaken by the incident that the couple packed their bags and left, vowing never to return.

There is, of course, the case of Scarlet Keeling.

It makes you wonder if the smiling face of tourism is not somewhat romanticized in a world of simmering discontents and covert xenophobia. It is, after all, no more than commerce, no more than an artificial 'hospitality' offered in return for cold cash. To paraphrase Adam Smith, it is not from the hospitable nature of Goans that tourists get their holiday, it is from their self-love.

Tourism is an industry in which one culture is forced to welcome a different culture for reasons of commerce. And when West meets traditional East, it seems they don't so much meet as collide. Yet the façade must be maintained at all costs. And so each side smiles brightly at the other, says 'hello, hello', and coexists till the season is done.

There is an old song by the Temptations: 'Smiling faces, smiling faces sometimes – they don't tell the truth.'

You think war and terror and strife are far away from here. But maybe it's only an illusion.