VIDEO BLOG
Episode 1: “It’s the Tribes, Stupid”
The real force in Afghanistan isn’t Islamism or jihadism. It’s tribalism. Mr. Pressfield compares Alexander the Great’s Afghan campaign (330-327 BC) to our own wars today.
View the credits and transcript for Episode 1.
How profound Andrey. Now could you comment on what the man is saying?
Steve:
You nailed it! Can Obama marry the daughetrs of a few Afghan tribal leaders? Maybe he could marry of his daughters?
“A continual state of feud and strife prevails throughout the land. Tribe wars with tribe. The people of one valley fight with those of the next. To the quarrels of communities are added the combats of the individuals…Every man’s hand is against the other, and all against the stranger.”
-Winston Churchill, 1897
I wish we could have had this kind of insightful advice before I was shipped off to Somalia all those years ago. The same tribalism governs much of Africa, and explains a great deal about both why African ‘nations’ do what they do, and why so many colonial powers had the troubles they did. And it goes on to explain well why we seem to have so much trouble with powers like Iran…
Agree with my favorite historical novelist!
Anybody have any ideas about leads a people out of tribalism into citizenry? All I can come up with is kings and emperors, major conquests and plagues.
Nothing beats good old capitalism or free enterprise to lead people to citizenry. Economics is often the root of problems or cultural conditions, and even revolutions (such as our own in many ways). If we/they can just figure out a way to really make money with their own natural resources and talents – other than contributing to the supply of illegal substances here – Pandora’s box will fly open, and citizenry may lie along side the hope that resides within it. Funding infrastructure, etc. and buying alliances are immediate postitives, but ideally, we must find a way for these efforts to be sustanable for the future.
If those leading the war in Afganistan will only listen to people like Steven Pressfield and Greg Mortensen ( Three Cups of Tea) we may actually be able to walk away from this conflict with every objective met and the loss of life held to a minimum. However, who gets to marry the Bactrian girl?? Obama?? Biden??
Who should marry the Bactrian Princess? This could be Bill Clinton’s great contribution to Western Civilization. I’m sure Hilary would be willing to make the sacrifice.
I think that a significant, though not very influential, portion of Americans kinda get tribalism. A significant proportion of immigrants to America were the Scots, Irish, and “Scots-Irish” who arrived here while their cultures were still tribal. (I’m from the McCoy clan which had that feud with the Hatfields. How tribal is that!) Though that tribalism has eased into citizenry over time, many, particularly rural, areas of the country still are at some vague point on the tribal-citizen spectrum. That’s probably at least partially why a significant portion of US combat troops hail from such a background. That background could be leveraged when dealing with tribal societies by training the troops with the people skills to deal with local tribesmen. I’ll bet they will pick up on the idea quickly and instinctively. I think that many already have.
Tribalism is alive and well in all human and some nonhuman communities. Like many attributes it is neither good nor bad per se. The context drives whether it is beneficial or not. The USA is not exempt. Good examples of tribalism are the immediate responses of commumities to misfortune, something that occurs more readily in America than in any other country I have lived in. Even the selfserving actions of the bigger businesses smacks of a potentially negative form of tribalism (IBM “uniforms”, the GM “culture”). The working parts of the military, guys with weapons, immediately identify with tribalism because unit coherence is built on it. That may be why soldiers make better diplomats in places like Afghanistan than do diplomats – who belong to a different kind of tribe.
This is illuminating stuff. It has the quality of pointing out what is right in front of us, which is what we have been unable to see due to our varied lenses and provincialities. But I must offer a criticism. You do not seem to be fully and consistently applying your insights. Your story about Jim Gant, Michael Harrison, and Noorafzhal in Konar province, Afghanistan, is a story of a wiley tribal leader incorporating the American military into his defenses and the power of his tribe. Tribal people are not stupid in any way. They understand the psychological depth of family and personal relationships. They will adopt a soldier, who is a normal but lost person in their worldview, believing they are offering him what he lacks, which is a group which will lend meaning to his bravery and risk in the battle against the enemy. That battle is the world to the tribal leader: his valley, his people. Now the soldier has become a “blood” brother and will help defend all that is meaningful in the world to this leader and his tribe. You suggest we should use these relationships to try to “win” a war against the “supertribe” of fundamentalist Muslims. This buys into the tribal mindset and values. Afghan tribal warriors are not citizen soldiers. War is a permanent feature of the world for them and they would not change that. They believe there will always be warriors. They want their children to be great warriors for “the people,” which is always and only the tribe. This mindset justifies all of the oppression of women that is included in their permanent emergency lives. Perhaps our last citizen soldiers were discharged after WWII, or after the draft and Vietnam. I wonder if your professional warriors are not finding kindred spirits among the tribal warriors and losing the idea of global citizenship altogether. It seems to me that if you are going to make the beginning you have achieved useful in the long run, you will need to say just what it is about global citizenship and the lives of people who can become global citizens that is superior to the lives of warriors, tribal or otherwise. There is, at the very least, a huge difference between a tribal, permanent warrior and a citizen soldier.
Let me start off by saying thanks and I’ll end with the same……(those who’s tendency to skip to the end can now go to the next comment [;^)] ….found guilty, he raises his hand)
You have done an excellent job of laying out the issues. Having read/perused all of the comments (save one lost child), the common thread in what some have objected to as I see it, where some are/have been taking you to task, is primarily verbiage and translations of what was once considered logic/common sense in our western terms and understanding. My impression is that IF those who take exception the fine particulates in the gravel bar might also wish to take care and not get it stuck in their jock strap, they would tend to be less annoyed at your words, for this is a long hump.
The candling of light you provide exposes much what IS and allows the reader to determine what is *there*. (No reference to a former CIC) History, imagination, reality and what’s been *Hammer and Tonged* into the DNA over centuries, no matter how obscured the clarity appears, is as far as this formerly uniformed jarhead, becomes as clear as the thin shelled egg and whether a rooster was involved , surrogate or otherwise.
Carry on and keep up the good work, sir!
Fi,
forest hunter