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Terrorism, like tourism, has come into its own in the 20th century. So it is a nice point that the principal check on the growth of tourism to exotic destinations should be terrorism. This week, the Israeli tourist authorities joined previous victims, including Egypt and Sri Lanka, in com- plaining that bombs and bullets were dis- couraging visitors.
The financial problems of hoteliers are a function of the continuing popularity of ter- rorism as a means to political ends. This popularity is itself the product of a histori- cal misunderstanding.
Terrorists, like the governments they hope to influence, learn history in school. The schools they attend are now likely to be in the Libyan desert, rather than the Siberian wastes, but some of the same teachers are passing on many of the same lessons. The first of these lessons is that ter- rorism works. The teachers, who like all historians have an axe to grind, probably gloss rapidly over the failure of the most significant terrorist act of the 20th century. When Gavrilo Princip murdered Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo, he engulfed the Serbian people, whose interests he claimed to represent, in a war in which they suffered terribly.
Moving on rapidly, the desert historians come to the nationalist terrorist movements before and after the second world war. These groups, they point out, succeeded in persuading European states to grant inde- pendence to their former colonies. Terror- ists graduated from bombs, guns and jail terms to political power, black limousines and Swiss bank accounts.
They succeeded, so the teachers will say, because they pushed at an open door. The British people were ready to allow India and Africa to go their own way. Imperialist guilt gripped the British establishment. And in the immediate aftermath of a world war, there was not the public revulsion against the use of weapons that there is in today's more settled age. Former terrorists were ushered into power by their erstwhile targets.
Some of today's terrorist movements may believe that they are in a similar situation. In Israel, explosions and killings have helped to force the Israeli government into the 'peace process'. Israeli public opinion was in favour of giving up some territory in return for the cessation of violence.
The IRA can also claim to have success- fully bombed their way to the negotiating table. The English have surprisingly little sense of community with Northern Ireland. They draw little or no distinction between the people of Ulster and the citizens of the Republic. Today, with a populist and prag- matic Labour government in charge, a unit- ed Ireland looks more likely than ever before.
In Algeria, history students in the ranks of the fundamentalist terrorists must also be optimistic. They know that they have the support of the people of Algeria, who voted for a fundamentalist government in an elec- tion whose result was ignored by the cur- rent regime. Terrorists with such political legitimacy on their side have usually suc- ceeded in the end.
Only in Egypt would the Libyan lecturers sound a note of caution. The Egyptian gov- ernment will not give in to fundamentalists because their demands run completely counter to the ruling class determination to create a secular, modern state. Moreover, Egyptian public opinion does not support Islamic extremes. Turning the religious clock back has no appeal in bustling, com- mercial Cairo, always a cosmopolitan and forward-looking city.
If we accept this sub-Marxist view of his- tory, the governments of Israel, Britain and Algeria should immediately give in to the bombers. Why wait, they might ask, since their success is inevitable? But before sur- rendering to the mighty march of historical determinism, politicians should ponder the other lesson taught by the history of terror- ism in the 20th century, which is that giving in to terrorists has seldom worked. Often, it creates an even more intractable and dan- gerous political tangle.
When France was forced out of Algeria, it left behind a situation that is still violent, and still unresolved. When Britain gave in to the IRA and split Ireland in two, it sowed the seeds for decades of terror. Par- tition for India, a response to Muslim ter- rorism, is still creating tensions in the sub- continent today.
So if the Israeli government is tempted to give in too easily to Mr Arafat, it should consider whether a Palestinian state might simply become a giant staging ground and training camp for a new generation of Palestinian killers, determined to take con- trol of the rest of Israel. If Tony Blair is tempted to ignore Unionist wishes, he should ponder the potential reaction of Protestant terrorist groups, a reaction for which he would be blamed. A united Ire- land would face a new wave of nationalist terrorism, but this time Dublin would be the target. Even the current peace process has its drawbacks, if it creates unrealistic expectations. History may give hope to the world's terrorist killers. For governments faced with these killers, however, it pro- vides only a warning.
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