useful + agreeable travel + design

In an era when global terrorism dominates the nightly news, are subjective and arbitrary government issued travel warnings a necessary public service?

Or do they, in effect, doubly punish victim states and decimate economies while hindering valuable direct contact and potential conciliatory communication between peoples?

While there is no denying the very real dangers which exist in the world today, it is highly unlikely that we will alleviate risk by retreating behind security barriers, ceasing to travel and avoiding interaction with people in regions where conflict has occurred or where differing views are held. Attacks in recent years in Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Israel and the West Bank and Gaza, India, Indonesia, Morocco, Spain and the United States are ample evidence of how widespread is the problem.

But to date the mostly American-led, so called "War on Terror" has proven to be as ineffective and naïve as the Reagan administration's bogus "War on Drugs". Too often when faced with terrorist bombings, many governments respond by warning against travel - as though staying at home will make us somehow immune. Why can't some governments stop fear mongering and admit the obvious, that we really don't know where the next attack will take place? Which means that terrorism-related travel warnings are pointless - even counterproductive.

Rather than foolishly adopting an approach of answering violence with violence (one need only look to Israel and Palestine to gauge the effectiveness of bomb-for-bomb diplomacy), what is needed - beyond a full examination of root causes - is to better understand, and respond to, the strategies terrorists are currently employing. A central objective of many terrorist organizations is to impair tourism-related industries and thus destabilize the economies of the targeted nations.

There is a strange relationship and inextricable link between tourism and terrorism which goes beyond coincidental phonetic similarity. As tourism is the world's largest industry, it is an appealing and surprisingly easy target for those attempting to undermine the status quo.It may sound simplistic, but one of the most effective ways to fight terrorism, therefore, is to not allow ourselves to be terrorized - to engage with the world - to continue to travel and thrive in trade and communications with the rest of the globalized world.

But in practice, many of the most vigilant anti-terrorist states respond in a strange way to attacks. Rather than assuming that omnipresent news of major terrorist activity is alert enough, in many cases they will add to the problem by issuing travel warnings advising against visiting the victim country. Such warnings can make it impossible for tour operators and airlines to obtain insurance for trips to a victimized state - which frequently has a devastating and terribly unfair negative impact on the local economies.

One telling example of this is in November of 2003, when Istanbul was hit with a series of terrorist bombs. Two Synagogues, a British owned bank and the British Embassy were bombed. Several of the perpetrators were caught on video surveillance and quickly apprehended and held, awaiting trial. Turkey depends to a very large extent on tourism revenue and was relieved to have managed to control the situation quickly to minimize the negative impact of a perception of continued high risk. But this didn't stop the U.S. and the UK from issuing blanket travel advisory warnings against Turkey - advising against all travel to any region in the country - citing intelligence of "imminent potential terrorist attack" - in spite of the fact that they would not share such intelligence with the Turkish government.

Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan lodged a formal protest with both the UK and the US, but was rebuffed. Many have speculated that the particularly ominous warning was politically motivated - as punishment for Turkey's wavering support for the invasion of Iraq. The Turkish tourism industry is now undergoing considerably increased hardship as a result. The American government finally lifted its travel ban four months later, on March 25, 2004.

Paradoxically, travelling to some of the world's more volatile regions is one of the best ways to understand the range of opinion and ideology at play in the world. Rather than waiting for a sanitized, mediatized and often misleading version of public opinion - coming face-to-face with dramatically opposing viewpoints is a compelling and "real" way of gauging world views. In March of 2004 I was in Singapore's Changi airport when a series of events played out in front of me - a microcosm of current geopolitical struggles.

As I waited at the departure gate to board a plane which had just arrived from Bangkok - I noticed the arriving passengers being re-directed to a full security check area 20 metres away. Incoming passengers were subjected to the sort of full search with metal detectors and luggage x-ray machines which are normally reserved for passengers prior to boarding aircraft. When I asked one of the Air Asia staff about this unusual practice I was told that this is regularly done for flights arriving from certain countries. On prodding - he admitted in a low voice that countries like Thailand, the Phillipines and Indonesia are among those considered a risk - presumably due to a perception of lax security at their airports and trouble-making Muslim populations. Thailand has contributed combat troops in Iraq and has been experiencing considerable terrorist activity among its Muslim minority in the country's southern regions.

Adding to the tension were four Singaporean soldiers in full combat gear carrying large machine guns, fingers on triggers, walking ominously slowly by. I've seen many such high security situations in recent years - but in most the body language and demeanour of the soldiers appears calculated to reassure innocent bystanders that they are being protected. These young men, who looked to be only in their late teens or early 20s, searched the airport with a keen and purposeful manner suggesting imminent danger.

These soldiers seemed only a step away from those walking through the streets of Baghdad at the same time. I couldn't help but to think they are a metaphor for US military and foreign policy itself - the delicate balance between experience, wisdom and firepower is lost. They are part of Singapore's well advertised "Total Defence" military strategy - which appears in billboards, television ads and is frequently referenced by that country's government-friendly monopoly press. In spite of such vigilant defence posture - no Singaporean I spoke with could identify a potential adversary.

Moments later I noticed one of the disembarking passengers who could help to justify such an aggressive stance. A middle aged man, wearing a t-shirt featuring a large image of Osama Bin Laden with the words "Attack on America" just as CNN had reported the event on September 11, 2001. A young German couple behind me in line had noticed me take the photo and were as surprised as I was at how brazenly he would wear such clothing into clearly hostile territory. They too had previously been surprised by the intense security at the airport, but we were all pleased that this man had been thoroughly searched.

Those who feel that Spain is backing away from its commitment in Iraq out of fear of terrorism would also be well served by visiting that country - to realize how little democratic support Prime Minister Aznar's government had for taking them to war in the first place. In the weeks preceding the Iraq invasion - in March of 2003 I visited Barcelona and London - during a time when the populations of both their countries, indeed all of Europe, were overwhelmingly anti-war. But on my next stop before returning home to Vancouver, I spent a week in Los Angeles and was shocked to find that the local and national US media were portraying both the UK and Spain, simply as loyal allies - and vilifying the French as though they were the sole opposition to the now inevitable war.

And now in March 2004 the Bush administration is seriously attempting to demand that the majority of visitors to the U.S. are subjected to finger-printing and photographing by U.S. authorities - being treated as criminals - simply for wishing to travel. Judging by fear of travel, media and government terrorism obsession and the general unease I've noted on several post-9-11 visits to the United States, in fact, no one seems quite so terrorized as the home of homeland security itself. During this time of ill-advised, weak leadership against the challenges of terrorism - we would all do well to ignore the current president of the US and look to a time when a great internationalist American President helped the world to overcome a similarly determined source of terror. Franklin Delano Roosevelt was speaking not only to his countrymen, but to us all when he said "we have nothing to fear but fear itself".