Tourism, Security and Safety From Theory to Practice

parties of Iraq and Syria, and Iranian Khomeineism are all examples of this desire
to advance to the past. The clearest expression of this form of Militant Islamism
may be the Saddam Hussein legacy. During his reign, over 1,000,000 people were
reported to have died in the Iran–Iraq war. Militant Islamism often seeks enemies
who demonstrate that diverse peoples can live together in relative harmony. Thus,
among the Muslim nations, secular Turkey exemplifies a nation where Islam,
Christianity, Judaism, and Secularism have been able to coexist (see Table 2).
A Social Theory of Terrorism and Tourism
37
Table 1
Characteristics of Restorative and Reflexive Nostalgia
Type of Nostalgia
Restorative
Reflexive
Stress
Action of going home
The longing
Push for homecoming
Quickens it
Delays it
Way it thinks of itself
Truth and tradition
Faces modernity
Dealing with absolutes
Protects absolute truth
Questions absolute truth
Politics
National revivals
How do we inhabit two places at 
the same time
Emphasis on
Symbols
Details
Memory
National and linear
Social and varied
Plots
Restore national origins and 
The past is dealt with 
conspiracy theories. 
irony and humor while mourning
A paranoiac reconstruction
is mixed with a sense of play 
of “home” based on rational
and points to the future. 
delusions (p. 41)
Source:
Boym (2001, p. xviii).
H7898_Ch02.qxd 8/24/05 8:03 AM Page 37

---

These differences are well noted in the collective works of Ralph Peters. Peters
divides terrorists into two specific categories, the practical terrorist and the apocalyp-
tic terrorist. While both forms of terrorism practice a restorative rather than reflexive
form of nostalgia, Peters notes that there are great differences between these two
forms of restorative nostalgia and these differences cast a dark shadow over tourism.
Practical terrorists seek to restore or create new–old political realities. Its prac-
titioners do not seek to destroy a society, but to eliminate what they consider to be
a political evil. Practical terrorists usually manifest limited goals. For example,
anti-abortion terrorists do not wish to destroy the United States but rather to right
(from their viewpoint) a political mistake. Apocalyptic terrorists are different.
They do not so much seek to change as to destroy; their political agendum is one
of total annihilation. “The religious apocalyptic terrorist is a captive of his own
rage, disappointments, and fantasies” (Peters, 2002, p. 23; see Table 3).