Summary:
Stanley Kurtz reviewing Philip Carl Salzman's "Culture and Conflict in the Middle East". Dominant theme of cultural life in Arab Middle East is the template of tribal life: collective responsibility, feuding, balanced power and honor shaping every action and thought; Islam and state merely superficial layers. Controlled anarchy. Tribal societies egalitarian and democratic. Islam: uniting all Arab tribes in ultimate feud against infidel outsiders. Western strategy for change should focus on tribal aspect not Islam; Islam sacred, tribal aspects not so and open for criticsim (14/04/2008)
Notes:
- Middle Eastern tribes: think of themselves as giant lineages, traced through the male line, from some eponymous ancestor
- each giant lineage divides into tribal segments, subdivide into clans, divide into sub-clans, etc down to families
- traditionally Middle Eastern tribes have existed outside of the police powers of the state
- keep order through a complex balance of power between these fusing and segmenting ancestral groups
- central institution of segmentary tribes is the feud
- security depends on willingness of every adult male in given tribal segment to take up arms in its defence; universal male militarization
- attack on lineage-mate must be avenged by entire group; vice versa, any lineage member is liable to be attacked in revenge for offense committed by relative
- results in system of collective responsibility: action of any one person directly affect reputation and safety of entire group; collective guilt
- Muslim tribal society is both fundamentally collectivist and profoundly individualist
- no man of the tribe can, by right, command another
- all males equal, free to dispose of their persons and property and to speak in councils that determine fate of the group
- fundamentally democratic
- Arab saying: "I against my brother; I and my brother against my cousin; I and my brother and my cousin against the world"
- liberal Westerners: why risk battle without first making a reasonable effort to talk problem out?
- sort of question liable to be posed by someone living where a state monopolizes the legitimate use of force and police and courts can be relied upon to keep the peace
- in non-state setting, where anarchy is kept under control only by the threat or use of force, it makes sense to send a war party first and ask questions later
- conveying impression of weakness
- preventing future abuse in lawless desert environment by publicly making capacity known to swiftly unify to preserve interests
- Arab tribesmen preoccupied with maintaining deterrence and are prepared to use force preemptively
- much like neocons: hawkish conservatives ("rightly") believe global anarchy underlies reality of international system; much like de facto stateless anarchy in which Bedouin Arabs live
- swift and seemingly disproportionate resort to retaliatory force against apparently trivial offenses is an effective technique for surpressing future challenges
- eg careful use of targeted force against Western critics of Islamism; overtly religious action actually shaped by a hidden tribal template
- eg fatwa against Salman Rushdie, rage against Muhammed cartoons, killing of Theo van Gogh, ...
- all examples of pro-active deterrence
- doves: use of force serves to unite foe; creating impression of an infidel war against Muslims, thus recruiting every Muslim lineage into bin Laden's civilisational war party
- true, but on the other hand, failure to strike back creates impression of weakness that invites further attacks
- Islamists view cooing of the doves as sign that their feud against the West has successfully weakened and split our own coalition
- disturbing lesson: in the absence of fundamental cultural change, the feud between the Muslim world and the West is unlikely ever to come to an end
- tribal feuds simmer on and off for generations, with negotiated settlements effecting only temporary respites
- Western liberal template takes an experience of peace under the lawful authority of a state as the normal human condition
- in this view, when peaceful equilibrium is disturbed, reasonable men reason together to restore normalcy
- in tribal template, low-level endemic feuding in conditions of controlled anarchy is the norm
- liberal "come let us reason together" model has little currency in Arab tribal culture
- Salzman: Tribal template is dominant pattern of Arab culture, not religion
- religion is overlay in partial tension with, and deeply stamped by, the dynamics of tribal life
- To think of Middle East as consisting of a number of states is mistake.
- Rather, collection of tribes.
- Governing party essentially tribe or tribal coalition with most power (e.g. Saddam Hussein)
- Statelessness increases as one moves towards periphery of nation.
- Statelessness seen by tribes as essential condition of dignity, equality, and freedom.
- State = predation under official guise
- Importance of avoiding dishonourable submission; avoiding life of peasant humiliation and exploitation
- Salzman: tribal template dominant pattern of Arab culture
- not details of tribal kinship matter, but underlying principles of "balanced opposition," in which collective responsibility, honor and feuding shape every action and thought;
- quick shifts in loyalty often called for
- unite with erstwhile enemies in opposition to a more distant foe
- all members of an enemy group are potential targets
- demand honourable behaviour from members of own group
- maintain own and group's honour by a clear willingness to sacrifice for the collective good
- Islam's founding triumph was to raise stakes of balanced opposition by uniting all the Arab tribes in an ultimate feud against infidel outsiders
- Muslim's treating tribal era of Muhammed and his early successors as golden age of Islam
- cultural influence of tribal template thus remains pervasive
- Gaza's feuding clans: revelation of bedrock of Middle Eastern social organisation
- ever-present and ever-influential beneath superficial layers of Islam and state
- political paradox posed by Salzman's tribal interpretation of Arab culture
- on one hand, pervasive tribal principles of balanced opposition are "precluding democracy" in Middle East
- to democratise Middle East, the particularist loyalties at the core of balanced opposition (kin, tribe, sect) need to be replaced by greater "individualisation"
- only then could an authentic liberal democracy based on constitionalism and the rule of law take root in the Arab world
- on other hand, tribal culture is largely egalitarian, individualist and democratic in character
- balanced opposition is democratic because decision making is collective and everyone has a say
- absence of government authority, combined with system of shifting coalitions of willing individuals, means that freedom, equality and personal responsibility - along with bellicosity and courage - are fundamental tribal values
- confusion about meaning of words "freedom," "equality," and "democracy"
- in liberal state, freedom is rights-based and universal
- in tribal society, freedom is freedom of freestanding warrior and his tribe to dominate and deprive others of their liberty
- equality refers to equal combat, as opposed to submission
- democracy is closer to a conclave of family heads in the Godfather, never far from potential violence, than to debate in a modern representative assembly
- not equality before the law, but equality outside of the law
- democracy requires something more fundamental than open consultation between descriptively free and equal parties
- Arabs know all about freely expressing their opinions in open council, yet have fundamental reservations about entering into the sort of social contract required to create a modern liberal state
- largely justified: state offers only thin alternative to "the war against all"
- most Middle Eastern states are just reincarnations of the predatory winner-take-all tribal coalitions of old
- why exchange protection of your family, tribe or sect for submission to a weak or predatory state?
- "tribal society contains just enough order to make a bit of violent anarchy bearable, and just enough grasping anarchy to make a liberal social contract unreliable"
- won't be easy to weaken cycle of particularism, ie the self-reinforcing loyalties of extended family, tribe and sect that dominate Arab countries at both state and local levels
- West needs to learn to understand and critique the Islamic Near East through a tribal lens
- Islam is only half the cultural battle
- tribal practices, however, are less swathed in sacredness than explicitly Koranic symbols and commandments
- therefore more susceptible to criticism and debate
- new and smarter strategy for change
