WHY TRIBALISM? The key feature of tribalism is the instinctive tendency to recognize, judge and reward people according to their group identity, rather than their characteristics as individuals. We are all familiar with it. The group in question can be based on any number of things, the most familiar, however, being 1. Ethnicity; that is, a supposed common ancestry. 2. Or it may stem from an oral tradition of group ownership of a particular land base from time immemorial. This is often accompanied by a culturally reinforced memory of having been exploited throughout history by neighbours and/or invading conquerors. 3. A third source of tribalism is a set of sacred beliefs identifying the group’s members as uniquely gifted or chosen by history or the gods. Along with any or all of these we usually find a religious mythology and rituals that have celebrated the group’s claim to distinctiveness and served to preserve and transmit it down the ages. Shared by all these variations on the theme of tribalism is a deeply ingrained sense of belonging. At first glance, this may appear to be a very positive thing. But, as the Canadian writer Michael Ignatieff pointed out in his book, Blood and Belonging, the more strongly you feel the bond of belonging to your own group, the more hostile and the more violent will be your feelings toward outsiders. It does not require much of an imagination to see a connection between the re-emergence of tribalism today, and the resurgence of the killing fields throughout the world. Feeling good in the midst of one’s own group by building fences against surrounding groups and demanding special privileges on the basis of one’s tribal membership may be a luxury that humankind can no longer afford!
Posted on: Fri, 25 Oct 2013 15:49:19 +0000
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