That's something I've been trying to understand better for months. People with much more direct experience in non-western cultures tell me that in huge areas of the modern world that a person's primary loyalty [after family I suppose] is to their TRIBE. These areas seems to include Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia. I'm not sure about India, China, and Japan, but "tribe" seems irrelevant there. In southeast Asia, tribe might matter in rural areas, but again seems irrelevant in the cities. Ditto, South America. But the "tribal" areas are central in modern conflicts so I'm thinking that I need to better understand, "What is a tribe?"
One problem I have is that I can't figure out ANY western European analogy to a "tribe" that has mattered for over 1,000 years or more. From early American history I have a pretty good idea what an American Indian "tribe" was, how they interacted and what was meant by being a member of a tribe. But the American Indian tribes were just an archaic neolithic cultural artifact of their isolation in the western hemisphere.
I read the first hand account of T. E. Lawrence [aka, Lawrence of Arabia], titled, "Revolt in the Desert". Many Arab tribes are mentioned with their leaders, such as the Howeitat led by Auda as memorialized in the movie [and relatively accurately portrayed, too, by the script & Anthony Quinn]. The tribes of pre-modern Arabia, Syria and Jordan seem to be just archaic groups like the American Indian tribes. The binding seems to be just a leader and a loose place and some relations, perhaps a dialect and some minor culture.
For now, I think our "leaders" are silly to take these "tribes" seriously in trying to create long term solutions to problems. Their only value is short-term, through personal relations of their leaders. The sooner the "tribe" as a grouping of people is completely wiped out, the sooner some peace might arise in those areas of the world. To paraphrase the Japanese aphorism, the tribe that sticks its head out should be hammered down.
But I have an open mind and admit I still don't understand what a "tribe" is, or what that concept's value is, in the modern world.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
this months national geographic does a nice job of showing how whitey wiped out the indians.
back in the day when the dead constantly toured, there was a real "tribe" of maybe 700 to 1000 people that literally followed to every show.
personally i didnt care for many of those folks or should i say drug addict bums
Applying the old tactics to some of these Middle eastern "tribes" might solve a lot of problems.
Modern revisionism on the Indians leaves out a lot. First hand accounts one can find when doing family histories show a very different picture. Ditto reading extremely well-documented histories written in the 19th century.
Many Indian tribes, if not most, disappeared after being massacred by ... other Indian tribes.
I remember vividly how the Iroquois tried to wipe out every tribe within a huge area - except themselves. It remined me of the tactics of the Suevi from Caesar's Commentary, who similarly wiped out any tribe within a huge distance form their main settlements.
There seems to be an excellent movie coming on HBO regarding the treatment of the Sioux by the US government. Bury My heart At Wounded Knee.http://www.hbo.com/films/burymyheart/?ntrack_para1=leftnav_category4_show1
Post a Comment