Interrailing and Internationalism
Image courtesy of Dobroš, via Wikimedia, ©2020, some rights reserved.
The reason Britain first joined the European Economic Community, the institution which later became the European Union, was because of one man’s holidays abroad.
Or that’s one interpretation anyway. Edward Heath, the Prime Minister at the time of entry in 1973, was a passionate Europhile who zealously advocated for the UK to engage with the European project. Heath’s own Europeanism is often attributed to his formative years during which he travelled widely across Europe: he spent a summer in Germany, travelled to Barcelona to witness the Spanish Civil War, and frequently visited France to experience its lively culture. Collectively, these experiences allowed the young Heath to immerse himself in a world beyond Britain; they expanded his horizons and distinctively shaped his political opinions for a lifetime and, consequently, the UK’s constitutional framework for a generation.
Among the many impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic has been the essential halting of trans-national travel, particularly for young people. Every year, at the end of their A-level exams and over their University summer breaks, young people flock abroad in their thousands to discover a new corner of the world. 300,000 Europeans under 25 years old, for example, Interrail across thirty countries every year and so-called ‘sixth form holidays’ to Amsterdam, Budapest and Dubrovnik are as popular as ever. Moreover, approximately 7.8% of UK university students who graduate every year have studied abroad for at least one semester of their studies - that’s around 19,000 students annually.
But for the 2020 cohort, this was not the case. Rather than exploring European cities, Covid-19 confined them to their own house. Rather than studying abroad, they were forced to study at home. Simply put, this cohort of youngsters were not afforded the multicultural and international experiences that Heath experienced which raises the questions of what effect will this have on the next generation’s internationalism – defined as the advocation of international cooperation - and how this will affect future foreign policymaking.
The most considerable effect of the Covid-19-induced travel scarcity is that the next generation will be far less internationalist than the previous because their ability and desire to cooperate over international borders will be less acute than other generations. This is primarily due to the fact that they will not possess the necessary cultural appreciation nor the international networks – both of which are usually nurtured by foreign travel - to facilitate effective internationalism. The likely result of this is greater nationalism and unilateralism in foreign policymaking.
Cultural appreciation is a central tenet of an internationalist approach to foreign policy because culture shapes the very interactions which lead to cooperation. For example, as a famous HSBC advert set in a restaurant in China memorably illustrates, “the English believe that it is a slur on your host’s food if you don’t finish your plate, whereas the Chinese feel like you’re questioning their generosity if you did” and therefore, in the advert, the English businessman kept clearing his plate and his Chinese hosts kept ordering more food for him! As this example highlights, culture shapes the way we behave and interact with others who themselves are shaped by their respective culture. Evidently, being able to appreciate such divergent cultures is essential to cooperating internationally.
This example also highlights that an understanding of culture only comes from experiencing and being exposed to that culture. Yes, one can sit in a library or pitch into a Zoom call and learn about a culture, but in order to understand it, one must immerse themselves in that very culture. In this regard, the 2020 cohort simply have not had the opportunity to develop an appreciation for multiculturalism because of the pandemic and will therefore be less adept at managing international situations in a culturally sensitive manner. Consequently, an increased inability to grasp cultural differences promises to create unnecessary points of conflict which will make international cooperation that much harder to attain. Therefore, by being deprived of traveling during their formative years, the next generation will find it far more difficult to express an internationalist mindset because cultural differences will prove a significant challenge.
In addition to a lack of cultural appreciation, young people’s internationalism will also be diminished because their international networks will be scarcer relative to other generations. Studying abroad and interrailing are experiences that not only immerse young people into a completely different culture but also strongly contribute to internationalising their networks. After all, experiences such as studying abroad create lifelong bonds between individuals from all around the globe. These networks then translate into opportunities for international cooperation between people, companies and governments at later points in their careers, serving as a foundation for internationalism. However, once more, the 2020 cohort have not had the opportunity to do this and therefore, even if the next generation has a desire to be internationalist, their networks won’t have sufficient depth nor breadth to achieve this.
Of course, some might argue that this was only one summer and that young people’s opportunity to travel will resume by May 2021, and consequently, that this article is being overly pessimistic about the magnitude of the impact on internationalism. This, however, appears to be wishful thinking. Airlines are predicting that international travel will not return to its pre-Covid levels until at least 2024 and current uncertainty will inevitably result in fewer Interrailing bookings and less interest in studying abroad for the foreseeable future. Furthermore, with a huge increase in ‘staycations’ during the summer of 2020, it is conceivable that, having enjoyed a cheaper and less travel-intensive holiday this year, staycations will be favoured to holidays abroad for the next few years. The negative effects on internationalism, therefore, seem likely to remain pertinent for at least the first half of this decade.
In summation, it is often cited that the threat to internationalism in the West stems from populist politicians, anti-globalist sentiments and a perception of a global order tilted towards the rich. However, the Covid-19 pandemic has added another source of threat to this mix: the lack of international exposure that young people experience. This risks creating an insular, inward-looking generation whose future foreign policies would be marked by unilateralism and nationalism thus undermining the international cooperative order of the past thirty years. As Edward Heath typifies, foreign holidays have a significant impact upon an individual’s worldview however simplistic this might sound. And in this regard, Covid-19’s contribution to eroding internationalism amongst the next generation might just be its most lasting effect on global politics.
