Tourism, Security and Safety From Theory to Practice

2
A Social Theory of Terrorism
and Tourism
Peter E. Tarlow
Learning Objectives
■
To understand the long history of the relationship between terrorism and tourism.
■
To understand that warfare has radically changed in the latter part of the last cen-
tury and now in the twenty-first century.
■
To understand that the roles of tourism, nostalgia, and terrorism intermix.
■
To understand that classical European thought has bled into other parts of the world
and has become an inspiration for terrorism.
■
To understand the major difference between tourism crimes and acts of terrorism
against tourism centers.
■
To understand that the tourism industry is going through a major paradigm shift in
its adjustment to a post September 11 world.
Toward the end of the twentieth century the postmodernist Francis Fukuyama pub-
lished his now famous thesis called “The End of History” (Fukuyama, 1989).
Fukuyama predicted that with the end of the historic battle called the Cold War, a
new “posthistory” would develop, that democracy had triumphed, and that war as
we had understood it had come to an end. Fukuyama predicted that while this post-
history would also be a time of nostalgia, it would not be a time of tranquility.
Instead he predicted that boredom fueled by lack of major conflict would “con-
tinue to fuel competition and conflict even in the posthistorical world for some
time to come” (Fukuyama, 1989). Fukuyama’s vision of nostalgia turning to
posthistorical quasi-wars may first have been manifested in the ongoing Balkan
conflicts (Ottolenghi, May 9, 2004). Ottolenghi writes about the current slaughter
of Serbians by Albanians: “(reality) was more like two ethnic groups animated by
a centuries-old reciprocal hatred, with good and evil cutting across both commu-
nities” (Ottolenghi, May 9, 2004). This postmodern sense of conflict provides a
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Tourism, Security and Safety: From Theory to Practice
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major insight into our understanding of how postmodern 
kleinkriege
(small wars
and incidents that punctuate history) will impact the world’s most postmodern
industry, travel and tourism.
Writing as a Hegelian, Fukuyama’s vision has proved to be all too true in the first
years of the twenty-first century. The September 11, 2001, attacks against New York’s
World Trade Center and the Pentagon in Washington, DC, may mark the dividing
point between the first and second stage of post-history. In this new historical period,
nations no longer fight against nations, but rather against amorphous terrorism cells.
In this post-history, wars are being fought on a new battlefield—the centers of civil-
ian leisure life. Examples of this war against civilians abound. From Saudi Arabia to
Peru, from Spain to Japan, from Israel to the United States, civilians are no longer
victims of what the military often calls friendly fire or collateral damage. Rather they
now are the specific intended targets. For example, Muslim extremist groups regu-
larly attack civilians with the hope of not only hurting the infidels’ economy and
political structure, but also as a means of demonstrating that the victims (especially
Jews and Christians) are the enemy, spreading terror throughout the victims’ society,
and lifting the terrorists’ spirits.
In this new world, today’s battles are fought and won as much on the television
screen as anywhere else. Fukuyama’s prediction of a “bellicose nostalgia” has
great implications for the travel and tourism industry. The travel and tourism indus-
try has suffered from terrorism attacks ever since the 1970s. These pre-post-his-
tory attacks, however, were never defining moments. Now in the early years of the
twenty-first century tourism has become a major target of those who seek not
merely to conquer but also of those who seek destruction for its own sake. The
September 11 mega-attack and its aftermath plunged the world of travel and
tourism into a new paradigm in which the industry may be forced to fight for its
very survival.
This chapter introduces the social-historical aspects of terrorism as it impacts
the travel and tourism industry. The chapter focuses on understanding terrorism
through the prism of classical sociological thought. The first part of the chapter
seeks to explain how late nineteenth century and twentieth century sociological
authors provide a paradigm for understanding the reasons that terrorists have often
targeted the tourism industry. We begin our journey by reviewing some of the basic
ideas of European theorists who created, although perhaps unwillingly, the aca-
demic foundations of modern terrorism. The chapter then turns to the role of nos-
talgia in understanding terrorism. Using the work of the Russian-American writer
Svetlana Boym as a basis, this chapter connects nostalgia in travel to acts of ter-
rorism against travel. The chapter then examines the social-historic connection of
overt freedom as one of the principles that inspired the cult of death. By compar-
ing the works of Hegel, Marx, Camus, modernism, and pre-modernism to those of
modern Middle Eastern figures such as the school of Sayyid Qutb, the reader will
gain a greater understanding into these classical authors’ influence on modern mil-
itant Islam. Finally, this chapter addresses philosophical questions such as, is
tourism terrorism a form of crime, and as such, should it be treated as a problem
with a potential for compromise or should it be seen as ontological in nature and
thus exist outside of the realm of compromise? What is the role of fear in terror-
ism and how can the tourism industry work to overcome fear? Are some countries,
cities, or attractions more likely targets than others? If so, what makes these locales
more vulnerable?
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