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January 31, 2008 - 10:01am.
When, oh when, are we Westerners going to finally wake up and realize that people who populate such far off places as Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan are simply NOT like us? In most of South Asia and the Middle East, humans are primarily viewed NOT as individuals, but as agents of family, tribe, clan or sect. This helps explain why so many Arabs marry their cousins. In tribal societies, your blood relations are the only people you can really trust. This fundamental difference in outlook explains much of what we find barbaric about traditional Muslim cultural practices. Assassinations in such cultures (like that of Benazir Bhutto in Pakistan last December) strike Westerners as a particularly horrific species of murder. But that's because we think of such people as individuals. If you instead see a woman (particularly one trying to run for political office) primarily as a low-status breeding agent of her patriarch's clan in these cultures, then everything changes. Such an intractably tribal cultural outlook is what makes Western-style democracy in such countries quite impossible. This also explains why the Neocon's grand plans for conquest, control and "nation building" in places like Iraq and Afghanistan have met with such stiff resistance…and are ultimately doomed to fail. The reasons many of the Neocons had such high hopes for these campaigns is that they shared President George W. Bush's sunny (but arrogantly ignorant) claim that "freedom is universal"…that such ideas are etched in EVERYONE's soul. That simply isn't true. The idea that our horrifically ignorant President (along with his equally arrogant and ignorant Cabal) have yet to fully grasp is that freedom and individuality are relatively recent developments in human history. Tribalism, on the other hand, is a deeply rooted instinct that has been "etched" in our evolutionary psychology since the dawn of Man. Even in Western societies, you can still see it pop to the surface now and then when tensions flare (gang wars, race riots, etc.) True democracy requires consensus building and shared values. But in tribal societies, politics is viewed as a battle of "all against all" in which the strongest tribe openly appropriates the state apparatus to enrich itself at everyone else's expense. This also includes assassinating the leaders of the other tribes if need be. In that regard, Saddam Hussein was the ultimate tribal leader. Not only did he restrict his inner circle to Sunnis, but they were also Sunnis of his own narrow Tikriti sub-clan. The idea of creating a "representative" government that includes Kurds and Shiites with their own independent power bases would have struck him as particularly insane. So would the idea of handing power over to another tribe merely because its leaders chalked up more votes in a so-called "free" election. During most of human history, letting another tribe lord over yours also meant yielding them the power to pillage your homes and rape your women. In some parts of Africa, it still does. This also explains why the United States and NATO are now so bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan and will remain so for decades to come. Both are intensely tribal societies. Our own Western march to individualism took centuries…a grinding process in which we moved from tribalism, through empire, mercantile capitalism and the industrial revolution while managing to also shrug off Communism and Hitler-style fascism along the way. However, in places like Iraq, Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan, we are essentially asking the locals to cram all of this societal evolution into just a few years…and on our (not their) timetable. In Iraq and Afghanistan, we are, quite literally, holding a gun against people's heads in a horrifically futile effort to get those entrenched tribal cultures to embrace such totally foreign Western-style concepts as "democracy" and "freedom" for which they have absolutely NO basis of understanding. Such "forced compliance" simply isn't going to happen...at least not in your or my lifetimes.  Technorati Tags:
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What happens when you infuse
Submitted by CheckerboardStr... on January 31, 2008 - 11:16am.What happens when you infuse seventh century tribalist societies with gigantic gobs of oil money and loads of twenty-first century technology?
Yo
Submitted by Carl Nemo on January 31, 2008 - 8:41pm.Yo CheckerboardStr...
ummm...religious zealot chimps, driving flashy cars, with lotsa bling armed with AK47's, set to full-auto, safety off, cruisin' to make trouble...no?! :))
Carl Nemo **==
Keith, truly a superb
Submitted by Carl Nemo on January 31, 2008 - 11:30pm.Keith, truly a superb dissertation on tribalism and it's characteristics relative to Western society and our values. We are as oil to water never to mix and it's long overdue for us to cease and desist in bringing democracy to most of the third world. In fact they are still the third world regardless of how much wealth they have because of their ingrained tribalism and religion generally being Islam, the most retrograde religion possible relative to western democratic values and systems of government. Theocracy along with national strongmen for leaders fits them well...!
"The idea that our horrifically ignorant President (along with his equally arrogant and ignorant Cabal) have yet to fully grasp is that freedom and individuality are relatively recent developments in human history."...extract from your commentary
I just thought I'd mention that our president and his cabal are very well aware of your aforementioned tribalism phenomenon. Many times people forget that our leaders have the counsel of some of the finest intellects and planners on the planet; ie., think-tankers and they are not operating in a vacuum. They know very well that they've stirred up a hornets nest within a neolithic culture and that it just aids the endless protraction of this U.S. Treasury draining, MIC/"oil patch" enriching debacle for their benefit.
The Saudi's are like family to the Bush clan so over the many years as they've solidified their ties they've become more than aware of the endless internecine tribal issues as you describe and realized they could get alot of mileage out of this phenomenona if a contrived war was started in the region.
Selling democracy and freedom to the world especially the third world is simply feelgood pap for consumption by the fairly uneducated "cornpone billy-bob" masses we find in the United States; ie., the world's duty taxslave drones...!? :|
Remember the old line about the communist domino effect that they sold to "we the people" during the JFK then Johnson era. If we didn't make a stand in Southeast Asia the commies were going to overrun the region, yes, but not the people so much but the hugely rich oil deposits that exist in SE Asia. I always remember Johnson waxing poetically about "winning the hearts and minds of the people" spoken too in his downhome Texas awshucks accent, no different than G. W.Bush, except Bush is a faux-Texan.
Yep, shor nuff maw we needs to git democruhcee to them po' folks in 'rabia...! Junior just joined the armee. He'll be gettin' a good ejicashun when he gits out curtisee of Uncle Sam...? /:| Do you think people like this have a clue about neolithic tribalism mixed with Islam;ie.,a people that have lived under sultans and caliphs and mullahs for the past 1500 years. I think not!
Americans; the common people are a generous, kind-hearted lot for the most part, but they just don't understand why others in the world just might not want a Disney theme park, Walmart, Starbucks, McDonalds and a host these mind-numbing, junk-food, junk-product vending scams on their turf...!?
Anyway thanks for bringing up a very salient issue concerning our involvement in the region. Other than to steal their oil we have no genuine purpose for being there.
Rest assured our leaders know so too...!
Carl Nemo **==
You know, Carl, you may well
Submitted by keith on February 1, 2008 - 9:40am.You know, Carl, you may well be right.
I, too, have long thought that the "hornet's nest" the US has now stirred up in the Middle East was done at least in part to keep the Moslem world in a continual state of turmoil...and, thus, deterred from attacking Israel.
Clearly, the obsessive need to continually protect and defend the Government of Israel plays a pivotal role in Mr. Bush's (and the US Congress') middle east policy. That, in turn, is probably because the Mossad has both Mr. Bush (and most of the members of the US Congress) by the short hairs just as they have done with others in similar positions in our Government for decades.
I'll be posting some more of my thoughts along that line in another blog.
Hi keith... Many people
Submitted by Carl Nemo on February 1, 2008 - 2:45pm.Hi keith...
Many people forget that many Israeli firms are making a bundle off this debacle too. Israeli companies have many of our military contracts to supply fuel, services and who knows what else for this ongoing shakedown of the U.S. tax-debtor. Everybody that's making a buck or a shekel is grinning ear-to-ear concerning this engineered debacle from Washington to Tel Aviv.
Democracy, nation-building even securing the region for Israel's benefit and other such pap are nothing but the duty feelgood reasons supplied to the less than discerning unwashed masses. :|
Carl Nemo **==