Subject:
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Re: Tribes (was: National nouns (was:Americans, North Americans, Americasians))
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Sat, 1 Jun 2002 21:55:13 GMT
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Viewed:
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516 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Christopher L. Weeks writes:
> In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Lindsay Frederick Braun writes:
>
> > Yeah, it's part of the problem with the US public's perception
> > of Africa and Africans. "Tribe" tends to imply unchanging, eternal
> > objectness, primitivism, isolation, and unsophistication.
>
> I'm finding this stuff fascinating. I don't associate any of those things with
> tribalism, but it seems from the reading you provided that there are at least
> several people who see this as a problem. I think of tribalism (or at least
> what _I_ mean by that) as something we ought to be striving more for -- smaller
> more communitarian civil organizations.
The problem with "tribalism" as it's called is that it tends to be
insular--that's the implication of the term. Communitarianism as I
understand it needs to owrk on many levels; in that sense it's like
a single organization with local chapters rather than groups of people
who have nothing to do with one another.
(Oh, and Bruce: The "tribes" as signifier of primitivism is a CW
thing. YMMV, as always; but realize that you're unusually forward-
thinking. The fight against the term is an effort to highlight the
problems with its implications when tossed around by the general
population.)
> > "Tribalism"
> > is the term given to the artificial division of African peoples from
> > one another, which some have in fact internalized.
>
> But my fairly scant ambient knowledge suggests that these divisions are not
> entirely artificial. My understanding is that there are some ethnic rivalries
> which are not products of European colonialism. Are you saying that's not so?
I'm not saying that at all. The problem actually isn't in detecting
differences in groups of people, but what that detection led the
colonial power to do. Tribalization reifies divisions; it closes off
accepted avenues of redress (some of which were indeed violent, but
some of which were migratory--can't do that across colonial boundaries);
and so forth. Yes, there were ethnic divisions long before European
colonialism, but they weren't the same ethnic divisions, nor were
they nearly so absolute. Reification through tribalism is largely
to blame for these, combined with the standard divide-and-rule tactic
that created further animosity even among groups who previously had
intermarried/related to one another/etc.
> > http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/talking_point/debates/african/newsid_1639
> 000/1639199.stm
>
> Good stuff! One thing that seems funny to me, that I hadn't considered in this
> context before, is that I think of national identity as a corrosive and
> exclusionary tool to control people and other resources. I have no problem
> with helping Africans to be rid fo the false implication of tribalism, but it
> seems like lots of people think that eliminating tribal divisions in favor of
> national divisions will help. How will that really be different?
Look at who's in favor of national identities: those who have
had European-style educations. They've bought into the system,
so to speak, and they see the nation-state, despite all of its
problems, as (rightly, I would argue) the source of Europe's
historical power and present wealth. Now, of course, Europe is
moving ahead, but the developmentalists proclaim loudly that
Africa must go through the "stage" of nation-states before pan-
Africanism can ever be a reality. (It's a crock, as is most
of the stage model of development theory, but the "it worked
for Europe" thing is really hard to disabuse people of.)
The problem wouldn't be solved by stripping everyone of ethnic
identities, though. It would rather be solved by relegating
those ethnic identities to a position of subordination rather
than eqivalence to the nation-state by changing the meaning and
function of those hierarchies. (I think, for example, of what
happened when the amaZulu royals opposed SAf Government policy
on various things--it's a competing power center and source of
high authority, which has only detrimental effects on the
health of the body politic.)
> > Most of my African colleagues and friends have a problem with the
> > concept because it doesn't originate in anything they themselves
> > recognized before colonialism; it's all European categorization at
> > heart. That's kind of demeaning, no?
>
> So they do assert that there were no ethnic boundaries in Africa prior to
> European colonialism? That's hard to imagine. Further, I don't exactly see
> how it's demeaning -- though if it is incorrect (or even just harmful) then I'd
> agree that we prolly ought learn better ways to describe what does exist.
They assert that the ethnic boundaries that did exist were temporary,
negotiable, and porous. For example, the Khoi and the San have been
divided apart artificially in the northern Cape region; in fact, in
the past, Khoi and San changed status fairly freely. Now they can't,
because of the legal status of both groups. The Zulu case is similar
in that a temporariy-ascendant state was made permanent by British
rule; south Nguni societies' strength in fact was in their fluidity
and flexibility. Really the only significant permanence in ethnic
identities above the village or vague regional level was in the
kingdoms of the interlacustrine region (Buganda, Bunyoro, Busoga,
etc.) and in the Muslim Sahel/Sudan (Bornu, Sokoto, Futa Jalon, etc.)
but even those tended to have some flexibility even when (as with the
Hutu and Tutsi) the societies had emigrated from different parts of
the continent and so were different enough in practice and religion
that they did not tend to intermarry.
It's amazing how much of the ethnic strife comes out of the colonial
era--it's the vast majority, because African polities didn't think
about affiliation in quite the way that Europeans did.
best
LFB
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