Politics & Power Quote by Thor Heyerdahl

Heyerdahl frames “civilization” as a kind of armored theater: the sky and sea packed with hardware from the “most civilized and developed nations,” yet the basic human act of landing is treated like a threat. The line works because it lets the reader feel the absurdity in real time. You can practically see the runways and ports locked up behind bureaucracy while the instruments of war glide freely overhead. Development, in this snapshot, isn’t measured in openness or hospitality but in the efficiency of denial.

Calling the governments “friendly” sharpens the sting. Friendship is supposed to grant access, or at least good faith. Instead, the excuse arrives prepackaged: “for reasons of security.” Heyerdahl doesn’t argue against security; he exposes how security language becomes a universal solvent, dissolving obligations without sounding cruel. It’s a critique that lands hardest coming from an explorer, someone whose vocation depends on borders being crossable and on curiosity being treated as legitimate.

Djibouti’s “tiny” and “still neutral” status is the kicker. Neutrality reads as innocence, but also as vulnerability; the place is small enough to be overlooked, and therefore available. That contrast hints at a late-20th-century geopolitical mood: great powers projecting stability through militarization, while real stability for an individual traveler is found in the margins. The subtext is bleakly modern: the “civilized” world is ringed by machinery and permissions, and the truly open door may belong to the least powerful state in the room.