Human culture: not so ancient tribes (Introduction)

by David Turell , Monday, February 15, 2016, 16:39 (3206 days ago)

This long essay describes tribal culture as developed in the past and how its continued presence explains the turmoil in the Middle East: - http://inference-review.com/article/tribes-and-states - Group identities are activated by who the opponents are. Anthropologists call this complementary opposition, or balanced opposition. Its function in a tribal, or segmentary, lineage system is to guarantee some degree of equivalence between opponents. It maximizes deterrence, in the interest of peace. Thus, in this case, men who may have thought of themselves as individuals or family heads one day, on the next day thought of themselves as Dadolzai, and the day after, as Soherabzai. Lineage groups are activated contingently, usually in the case of conflict and in response to the affiliation of the opponents. - Whatever the level and scope, however, lineage mates are obliged to stand together. Lineages that stick together are admired. They are patopak, with solidarity, as opposed to those that do not, which are considered beatopak, without solidarity. - Tribes and lineages are security and defense groups. All men, except for a few religious figures, have security and defense obligations. All men are, therefore, warriors, ready to fight in defense of their lineage and their tribe. - Conflicts with surrounding tribes are not soon forgotten. The ancestor of the Dadolzai, Dadol, was among a number of Yarahmadzai ambushed and killed by members of the Rigi tribe, to the north. Clashes with the Kurds centered in Kuh-i Taftan gave the Yarahmadzai control of the Khash plain. There have been multiple conflicts with the Gamshazai, to the south. One measure taken to limit such conflicts is marriage between the chiefly families of neighboring tribes. - Courage and willingness to fight are culturally embedded traits, and easily transferable from defense to offense. Before conceding to Reza Shah's armies in 1935, the Yarahmadzai were great raiders. Brigadier-General Reginald Dyer titled his book about his Indian Army expedition against the Yarahmadzai Raiders of the Sarhad, and in it he asserted that “the tribes literally live by raiding.” From Baluch informants and from ample documentary evidence, we know that the Yarahmadzai raided Persian peasant villages in Kerman Province, as well as commercial caravans travelling between Persia and India and herders in the western border region of British India.8 They carried off grain, carpets, livestock, and captives. - *** - Tribal organization is collective, democratic, egalitarian, and decentralized. These are the important features, found among the Baluch, the Turkmen, the Bedouin, the Nuer, and many other tribal peoples. - *** - Pre-modern states wishing to emulate them have copied their constitutions and legal systems, but without actually implementing them. They continue to operate on tyrannical or tribal premises. Pre-modern states with a tribal foundation, such as those in the Arab Middle East, combine autocracy and tribal loyalty, and both of these are incompatible with constitutions, rule of law, and democracy. - *** - Countries with tribal culture, such as Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Jordan, Algeria, Libya, Morocco, and Yemen, can be ruled by despotism alone, or they will fragment along tribal lines, something painfully in evidence today. - In either case, they cannot be democratic or constitutional - *** - Islam shared with Bedouin tribal culture its structural premises: one's first loyalty is to Islam, and one must always support Muslims against infidels. The balanced opposition here is between Muslims and infidels. The cathecting of Islam in the contemporary Middle East is not a step away from tribal culture, but a reproduction of it at a broader level. Islam in its current form is thus structurally incompatible with anything beyond a tribal culture. - Comment: No wonder the mess. The whole essay is fascinating.