Andrea Widburg today, at the American Thinker has a post entitled Let's talk about Africa, which is where tribalism takes you that speaks to the dangers of balkanization that the Left keeps pushing on America. It's always the same with these people: women vs, men, blacks vs. whites, etc. And notice that all whites are classified under the "white Anglo-Saxon protestant" umbrella. But the term "white" can be applied with equal precision to peoples from Northern Europe, Southern Europe, the Middle East, North Africa and the Indian Subcontinent. They have a wide variety of skin tones but are all one "race." However, all of the different "races" of men are the same species, and all are created by the same God.
Through recounting three stories from Africa, Widburg shows us the results tribalism has on the fabric of society.
Humans are inherently tribal. We put people into hierarchies of relationships that usually flow outwards from family. As nations developed, the tribal family might encompass all of Germany, France, or Russia, but it was still an “us” versus “them” allegiance. Marx believed that the workers of the world would unite but in 1914, Marxists were shocked to discover that the workers of Germany did not feel any fellowship with the workers of England.
In these old nations, tribalism still had a genetic component, as well as a historical one. I had a Welsh friend whose roots in Wales went back, as she said, “to Caesar’s time.” Tribes were familial, historical, and geographic.
It was different in America, a place to which people came because they were rallying around unique ideas. This does not mean, as leftists like to say, that America “is an idea,” justifying ignoring its borders. It is a full-fledged nation, complete with defined, defensible borders and an overarching rule of law.
However, it’s also a collection of people from disparate families, geographic regions, and historic allegiances who have come for the liberty that underlies America’s institutions (flowing from the Constitution) and its culture. It’s those beliefs that make America a very big tribe.
America is a place where one can move from one part of the country to another and generally be accepted wherever that is. While there are surely regional accents, and common memories that are regional in nature. But one can fit in pretty much anywhere. However, the more balkanized we become, we risk losing this ability.
Please read all of Widburg's stores of tribalism in Africa and what happened as a result. We may not be able to change Africa, but we surely can keep what we have.
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