I worry about visiting the USA and the UK. And I don’t think I’m alone.
There is a strange kind of anxiety I feel whenever I think about travelling to the United States. I look at well-dressed people in public spaces and, somewhere in the back of my mind, a disturbing question sometimes appears: “What if one of them suddenly pulls out a gun?”
In the UK, the fear takes a slightly different form: “What if someone pulls out a knife?”
These are not thoughts I enjoy having. They are the residue of repeatedly hearing about ordinary people going about their daily lives and suddenly becoming victims of random violence.
The report of the killing of 32-year-old Erin Piacenti near her office in New York brought that feeling back to me. A young professional. At work. Vice President of the Bank of America. In a city regarded as one of the world’s great urban centres. And suddenly, a life is gone. Perhaps what troubles me most is the randomness of it.
I come from Nigeria, a country where we have our own very serious security challenges. Yet there is something psychologically unsettling about travelling to countries that are often presented as highly developed, orderly and secure, only to find yourself thinking about where the danger might come from. You begin to realise that development is not simply about skyscrapers, infrastructure, wealth or technology. It is also about how safe people feel in the presence of strangers. A society can be extraordinarily advanced and still have people carrying invisible fears.
I don’t want to stereotype either the USA or the UK. Millions of people live normal, peaceful lives there every day. But the stories we hear can leave a psychological imprint, especially on those of us who have never quite become accustomed to the possibility of random violence.
Maybe that is what trauma does: sometimes, even before danger appears, your mind starts looking for it. And that is the part I worry about.