Summary:
Growing up in India inevitably means being exposed to tribal conflicts across class, caste, religion and language. India's identity as a secular nation is under serious threat as political parties put short term gain for political purposes over long term sustainability of India as a nation. This book is about how self identification of people as different tribes (usually based on the idea of shared blood - race, ethnicity, language,religion) has destabilized societies across the world. She analyzes different countries where US foreign policy has had an outsize influence, mostly negative because of its inability to understand tribal allegiances. Within India, the tribal instinct unites English speakers in their disdain for native language speakers. Indians who speak English in addition to their native languages have more opportunities to prosper across the country. Sticking to one's mother tongue limits the opportunities to the state they were born in. The liberalization of Indian economy after 1991 has increased the amount of migration across states. Since states in India are linguistically defined, the migration has increased the friction between different groups. Secular identity can help India reduce tribal conflicts based on religion but with fraying of that identity, the probability of clashes on religious grounds increases. While that is a desirable result for some religious parties, it is detrimental to the survival of India as it is currently constituted.
Analysis:
The assassination of Rajiv Gandhi by LTTE shocked everyone who heard about it. It was the result of Indian government's headlong rush into Sri Lankan internal affairs backfiring spectacularly. IPKF's deployment caused consternation among political parties in Tamil Nadu that took along time to die down. Tamil Nadu CM M Karunanidhi's refusal to be present at Chennai airport when IPKF soldiers arrived in body bags and calling it ITKF (Indian Tamil Killing Force) is an example of the highly charged emotions surrounding it. India underestimated the tribal animosities between majority Sinhalese and minority Tamils, made more complicated by the market dominance enjoyed by Tamils before the genocidal actions of Sri Lankan government kicked into high gear. This book focuses on the blindness of US foreign policy towards tribal allegiances as it tries to navigate its responsibilities as the sole superpower. US considers itself as the leader of Free world comprised of capitalist and democratic countries and that self-perception seeps into its view of other countries where it gets involved. This book analyzes US involvement in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan and rounds it out with the impact of tribal allegiances within America.
Colonial powers like Great Britain and France exploited identity divisions in their colonies to extend their grip on them. With the end of Second World War and the humbling of Colonial powers, US took over the mantle of leadership (along with Soviet Union) and preferred to focus on economic levers in implementing its foreign policy. American history is replete with racial injustice and cruel treatment of minorities within its borders. However, its unqualified success in integrating immigrants into mainstream American society has led it to expect the same from other countries. Most countries in the world offer citizenship by blood whereas US is one of the few countries that offers citizenship by birth. 14th Amendment to US Constitution allows people of different races and ethnic groups to proudly call themselves American. US also has made significant progress in removing exclusionary quotas in college admissions for minorities - example would be the opening up for higher education opportunities for Jews and African Americans. Some countries are multi ethnic societies but do not have a strong national identity - Iraq, Syria, Libya being some examples. Some countries have a strong national identity but are homogeneous - Germany, Japan, China are some examples. US is one of the few countries that is multi ethnic but also has a strong national identity. Great Britain is multi ethnic but it does not promote a strong national identity. France is multi ethnic but it enforces a very narrow version of national identity that brooks no opposition from any dissenters. US is considered to be a super group - A group all the same in that it has an us (Americans) versus them (non-Americans) but whose membership is open to people of different backgrounds irrespective of race, ethnicity, language, religion. It allows its individual members to hold onto their group identities as long as they abide by the identity of the super group. When US imposes democracy on other countries, it expects them to form a strong national identity and subsume any ethnic, racial and religious differences under the overarching national identity. In reality, democracy itself serves as the fuel for ethnic conflict resulting in people clinging even more strongly to their tribal identities. The general perception of elites about democracy being the panacea for tribal divisions in a country ignores the reality that liberalism, secularism, rationality, equality and free markets do not provide the group identity that humans crave.
Research has shown that children as young as 4 start identifying in group members versus out group members and modifying their behavior based on that recognition. Human brains are hardwired to identify with in group members and recognize every member's uniqueness. Out group members are viewed as different but interchangeable with any other member of the general population. Human brains also register happiness when they see other members of their in group receive a reward. Empathy has also been shown to be much higher within a group than without - the intensity of responses in brains is much higher when a person within a group is hurt. When an out group member gets hurt, members of the in group feel better about the suffering if they have not personally inflicted it on the out group member. The potency of in group versus out group is much higher for factors that depend on the idea of shared blood - so, ethnicity, race, language significantly increase the in group feeling vis-a-vis out group. Group loyalty has been found to distort how people in those groups view objective reality. The higher the education of the group members, the more pronounced those distortions become - which might explain why Trump supporters among the educated whites in US double down on their support for him in spite of media's insistence that his support will drop off if only they learnt more about inconsistencies in his political views. Group members also modify their answers to conform to the expectations of the group when their answer differs from the group. An individual can be the nicest person but placing them within a group causes drastic changes in their behavior, mostly for the worse. Terrorist groups like ISIS use gradual processes like socialization, indoctrination and radicalization to convert regular average Muslims into fanatics who give their own life for the terrorist cause. Terrorist groups like ISIS provide an identity that the individual can identify with. Belonging to a group or tribe necessarily dehumanizes everyone outside that group or tribe. While terrorism is considered to arise out of abject poverty, some of the most famous terrorists in the world have been well off - Osama Bin Laden is a particularly stark example. Whether or not a person is poor matters less than whether the group they are part of is suffering effects of group inequality, disempowerment, humiliation and hatred. The presence of these factors leads even well off people in these groups to become terrorists - LTTE leader Prabhakaran was very well educated and under his leadership, LTTE blazed a trail of barbarous tactics. Al Qaeda appealed to the self respect of well off Muslims who perceived themselves to be attacked, humiliated and persecuted by the West. By offering its adherents a tribe, terrorist groups provide them with a sense of belonging and purpose, an enemy to hate and and an opportunity to flip their humiliation to superiority.
Vietnam, historically has lived in the geopolitical shadow of China. In 111 BC, China conquered people in present day Vietnam and christened them Nam Viet (Land of the Southern Barbarians). Chinese ruled Vietnamese for the next 10 centuries imposing their cultural and imperial practices on Vietnam. In spite of the long duration of Chinese colonization, Vietnamese tenaciously held onto their Vietnamese identity. Vietnamese gained independence from China in 938 AD and repeatedly beat back subsequent Chinese intrusions. When French colonized Vietnam, Vietnamese looked to their struggle against Chinese for inspiration. With the defeat of French at the hands of Vietnamese in Dien Bien Phu, US stepped into the void. It looked at Vietnam as a front for Communist China and was determined to use it as a bulwark against Communist expansion. Ho Chi Minh was understood by US to be a lapdog of China whereas in reality, he looked at French and US as short term occupiers and Chinese as the long term threat to Vietnam. Within Vietnam, ethnic Chinese minority(called Hoa) comprised only 1% of the total population but controlled 90% of the non European private capital. China, French, US and other foreign powers interacted primarily with Hoa as they had control of the trade and economy in Vietnam. US brokered the Geneva Accords after the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu. It called for formation of North and South Vietnam. North Vietnam was communist and called Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV) under the leadership of Ho Chi Minh. South Vietnam(Republic of Vietnam) was capitalist and propped up by American support. Owing to his desire for a unified Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh committed North Vietnam to militarily liberating South Vietnam. In response, US escalated its defense of South Vietnam, viewing it through Cold war lens and loath to surrender South Vietnam to communist control. US however ignored the tribal complexities in South Vietnam. Capitalists in South Vietnam were primarily Hoa and with support from US, they amassed a great amount of wealth while the poor Vietnamese majority suffered grinding poverty. Hoa also rigged trading in essential goods, going as far as creating rice shortages to jack up the prices and making tidy profits. Actions like these worsened the food situation for the poor Vietnamese majority. Every step that US took to bolster South Vietnam government and encourage the spread of capitalism played right into the hands of North Vietnamese under Ho Chi Minh. During the hostilities, US troops could not differentiate between Hoa and Vietnamese and ended up indiscriminately killing both. However, the relative affluence of Hoa allowed them to stay safe behind well built fortifications whereas the poor Vietnamese majority bore the brunt of the US attacks. South Vietnamese soldiers were also loath to put in their full effort against North Vietnamese
considering the obsession of US with stopping Communism instead of improving the life of Vietnamese majority. After US withdrew from Vietnam, the pent up rage against Hoa resulted in ethnic cleansing campaigns carried out by Vietnamese in 1975 and 1978 killing countless Hoa and burning down their businesses. China strongly protested these killings to its fellow Communist neighbor but to no avail.
US invaded Afghanistan after the September 11 attacks on US. It has become US's longest war with no end in sight. US has fixated on Taliban as an Islamic movement but has lost sight of the fact that it is also an ethnic movement. Pashtuns have ruled Afghanistan the longest starting with Ahmed Shah Durrani in 1747. A Pashtun had ruled Afghanistan almost continuously till Zahir Shah's removal in 1973. Pashtuns abide by a code called Pashtunwali that features honor, hospitality, reciprocity and revenge. In taking refuge with the Taliban, Bin Laden appealed to them as a fellow Muslim and to their Pashtunwali code. Pashtuns live in areas straddling the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, with the British drawn Durand Line splitting the land of Pashtuns between the two countries. US followed the lead of Soviet Union in its blindness towards the ethnic fault lines in Afghanistan society. Soviet Union supported a coup by primarily Pashtun officers in Afghanistan in 1978. After the success of the coup, the Pashtun leaders went on an orgy of killing that precipitated invasion of Afghanistan by Soviet Union in 1979. Soviet Union wanted to deny space in Afghanistan for pro capitalist forces supported by US. In response, US supported the Mujahideen with arms and ammunition whose supply was overseen by Pakistan. Even though Pakistan is named for its ethnic makeup (P for Punjab, A for Afghan/Pashtun, K for Kashmir, S for Sindh, Tan for Balochistan), Punjabis dominate culture and politics within the country. Zia Ul Haq utilized this opportunity to divide and conquer Pashtuns by only providing arms to those Pashtuns who subscribed to radical Islam and shutting out others. It also allowed Pakistan to neuter Pashtun nationalism allowing Punjabis to extend their grip on power. US was focused on tying Soviet Union down in Afghanistan and turned a blind eye towards the Mujahideen and Pakistan. With the defeat of Soviet Union in Afghanistan, US withdrew from the region as well, content with the successful achievement of its Cold War aims. Between 1980 - 1992, Pakistan received $5 billion worth of arms and ammunition from the West in the war against Soviet Union. These arms were turned against each other by Pashtun groups in the civil war that followed the withdrawal of Soviet Union. They also allowed Mullah Mohammad Omar to build Taliban into a fearsome force that succeeded in capturing Kabul in 1996. The underlying support for Taliban in Afghanistan is based on Pashtun identity. The smashing success of divide and conquer policies of Pakistan with respect to Pashtuns has meant Taliban has struggled to unite Pashtuns under its leadership. The attempts at Afghanistan unity has also been undercut by indiscriminate killing of non Pashtun tribes - Hazaras, Tajiks by Taliban. US went from viewing Afghanistan through Cold War lens to viewing it through anti-Islamic lens. Pakistan succeeded in Afghanistan primarily because of its understanding of the tribal allegiances within Afghanistan. After toppling the Taliban government under Mullah Mohammad Omar, US installed a multi ethnic government that included a small number of Pashtuns. The fear of Pashtuns losing their primacy and continued meddling of Pakistan resulted in a Taliban comeback. US also took its eye off the ball in Afghanistan by focusing on the invasion of Iraq at the same time Taliban made a comeback. By the time US pacified Iraq and turned their attention to Afghanistan, Taliban had consolidated their power.
US invaded Iraq with the expectation of restoring it on the lines of Germany and Japan after Second World War. Superficially, the analogy held - both of them involved overthrow of an authoritarian regime, liberation of the population, spread of democracy and implementation of liberal constitution. Germany and Japan became prosperous and peaceful whereas Iraq became a failed state. Germany and Japan are mostly homogeneous ethnically whereas Iraq is a multi ethnic state (Shias, Sunnis, Kurds to name the only the major groups). Iraq is comparable to Yugoslavia before its breakup - a multi ethnic state with a long history of ethnic strife. When Yugoslavia became a democracy in early 1990's, it led to ethnic cleansing and brutal warfare between the different ethnic groups. In Iraq, Sunnis comprised a minority in the population but controlled the military and economy. They lived in prosperity among the poor Shiite majority. After Saddam Hussein came to power in 1979, he persecuted Shias and Kurds extensively. After overthrowing Saddam Hussein's regime, US elites (Democrats and Republicans) considered Iraq ready for democratization. By turning a blind eye to the ethnic differences within Iraq, US wrongly expected Iraqis to welcome US forces as liberators. The Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) issued its "de-baathification" order that stripped highly skilled and accomplished Baathist military leaders (who also happened to be Sunni) of their jobs and turned them into formidable enemies. It also confirmed the fears of Sunni Muslims in Iraq that their status was degraded. It led Sunni Muslim leaders to provide full throated support to insurgency against US occupation. US ignored the signs of discontent and proceeded to hold immediate elections in December 2005. Political parties that emerged from the elections closely tracked the ethnic divisions in Iraq. Sunni Muslims boycotted the elections in large numbers allowing Shias and Kurds to garner political and economic power. US threw its weight behind Nuri Al Maliki who was a Shia and a beneficiary of Iran's largesse. To no one's surprise, he proceeded to exclude Sunnis and Kurds from the Iraqi government. As the situation in Iraq steadily deteriorated, US deployed a "surge" of troops in 2007 to provide political space for Iraqi leaders to iron out their differences and work towards a common goal. The "surge" succeeded primarily because US military learned its lessons and bought off the allegiances of various Sunni tribes in their fight against insurgents led by Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi. The "surge" involved changing the training of US soldiers deployed to Iraq, to improve their awareness of tribal loyalties and local culture. US military was able to roll back the progress of insurgents and provide the political space for Iraqi leaders to unite the country. However, that advantage was squandered by Nuri Al Maliki because of his insistence on seeing Iraq as a country for Shiites and shutting out Kurds and Sunnis from the government. This fed the success of ISIS. While Al Qaeda has a pan Islamic vision, ISIS has a very specific Sunni vision. By governing with an explicit Shia bias, Nuri al Maliki pushed Sunnis into supporting ISIS as they feared Shia reprisals more than ISIS.
Hugo Chavez came to power in Venezuela in 1998, by beating a former beauty queen in the presidential elections. Like other Latin American countries, Venezuela is obsessed with beauty pageants. Beauty queens in Venezuela have been known to parlay their success into political careers. Chavez positioned himself as the representative of the dark skinned Indian majority in contrast to lighter skinned Mestizo (mixed European and Indian blood) minority.He proudly flaunted his dark skin and rode it to an upset victory in the Presidential elections. After his victory, he proceeded to break every political norm in Venezuela. That only endeared him even more to his supporters. Mestizos in Venezuela are a market dominant minority living amid the poor Indian majority. While Venezuelan elite deny vociferously that racism exists in their society, the power differential between Mestizo minority and Indian majority tells a different tale. Mestizos are descended from the Spanish people who dominated the economic, political and cultural sectors across South America. US and other Western nations primarily interacted with the elite in South American countries and were caught off guard when Chavez captured power in Venezuela. After Chavez came to power in Venezuela, the Venezuelan elite attacked him in racially derogatory terms, showing their true face after repeated denials about racism being present in Venezuela. In 2002, the Venezuelan military with the help of US and other Western nations, overthrew Chavez in a military coup and installed Pedro Carmona, a wealthy white and president of Venezuela's main business association, as the President. The backlash against the coup resulted in a popular uprising that brought Chavez back to power. Chavez ran Venezuelan economy into the ground but delivered for his constituents by reducing the extremely high levels of poverty in the country. After Chavez's death, Nicholas Maduro took over the legacy of Hugo Chavez and has accelerated the transformation of Venezuela into a failed state with rampant inflation and control by drug cartels.
US establishment in media, politics and culture completely whiffed on the phenomenon of Donald Trump in the 2016 US Presidential election and his win in the elections stunned them. Trump supporters identify with him at a tribal level (gaudy, crass, boastful, politically incorrect). When elites in US spout off about the abject poverty they observe across the world, Trump supporters take it as a signal that their fellow citizens are not interested in America. America is forecast to no longer be a majority minority nation by 2055 AD. Whites in America have been feeling threatened by the persistent messages about the browning of America in the near future. The demographic shift may be inexorable but that does not mean whites in America will quietly acquiesce to the reality. When some groups vocalize their feelings of fear and powerlessness, other groups discount it (since they have not gone through those experiences) and blame those groups for not acknowledging their persecution - An example would be African Americans demanding America account for its racist past which sends whites around the bend since whites think of themselves as having evolved from their past behavior. When whites undertake actions to identify with a minority group by taking on markers of that minority group, they are accused of "Cultural appropriation" - an example would be a white woman wearing a sari. The feelings of persecution on all sides has led to an increase in acceptance of ethnonationalism (White nationalism) as a form of conservative backlash against assertion of minority rights. Poor in America hanker for American Dream even as it recedes farther and farther across the horizon. Well off progressives attempt to show American Dream as false and that view serves as a marker for their tribe. Even though Occupy Wall Street pitched itself as fighting for the 99%, it was primarily composed of well off people. That explains why it was not able to sustain its momentum and fizzled out. While social scientists have argued, for quite some time, that poor in America are becoming more lonely pointing to declining attendance in Churches, athletic leagues, youth groups etc., that reasoning is misguided. Poor people in America have maintained their group identity through other associations that elites do not consider themselves to be part of - Police and Army being the most important ones among them. While poor people among minorities identify with drug and street gangs, poor whites (and non white religious people) have gravitated towards Prosperity Gospel. It preaches that to be rich is to be divine and that Jesus himself was a rich man. For poor people in America, Prosperity Gospel offers hope, direction and a community. WWE and NASCAR are other communities poor whites are also part of, something that elites in America look down upon(and coincidentally, something Donald Trump took part in).
The election of Donald Trump is only one of the myriad ways the anxiety of whites has shown up in recognition of that demographic milestone. When the economy is growing at a steady clip, loss of political, economic and cultural power might not result in a backlash. After 2008 recession and its anemic recovery, whites in America have perceived a loss of status in what they considered to be their nation (as much as America is multi ethnic, the general understanding of who constitutes "real" America is still predominantly white). Whites also perceive that minority groups are allowed to proudly flaunt their identity, a luxury that is not afforded to them. Historically, when whites have felt threatened about their status, their response has been to use their political power to suppress minority rights and regain their lost power through any means necessary. After American Civil War, some states in American South had majority African American populations and whites in those states used their political power to pass Jim Crow laws that enshrined segregation (separate but equal status for African Americans). The perception of widespread discrimination against whites is present among supporters of both political parties in the US. The push by colleges and universities across US to diversify their student body has opened up opportunities for different sections of American society with the exception of poor and rural whites. That has led to poor and rural whites being the only group in US who least expect their sons and daughters to be better off compared to themselves, as opposed to high levels among well off Whites, Hispanics and African Americans. The dominant position of whites throughout American History has allowed either political party to carry on the mantle of national identity at different times - Democratic party during Civil Rights era and Republicans after US Civil War. They succeeded in pushing for basic civil and political rights for all individuals regardless of group identity. In 1980's and 1990's, Conservatives used the same color blind policies to entrench the status quo. In response, liberals started to emphasize group consciousness and identity to push for minority rights. After the demise of Soviet Union, political Left lost the economic argument and shifted its focus to Identity politics. In the beginning, identity politics espoused by Left was inclusive (for example, encouraging whites to understand the experience of minorities). With no discernible progress in status quo, the Left shifted to an identity politics of exclusion and division (for example, taking whites to task for the racist sins of their ancestors). As identity politics spreads its wings, the divisions between different groups have gotten deeper as each pursues its claims. Identity politics has also given rise to "Intersectionality", an acknowledgement of multiple factors in suppressing a person - race, gender, ethnicity being some of them. An example would be the push back from minority women in the drive towards equal pay between men and women, pointing out the disparities in pay between white women and rest of the minority women. Intersectionality also played a part in depressing the attendance in the Women's March that took place on January 21, 2017, a day after Donald Trump was sworn in as the President of US. It was originally called Million Woman March and the organizers were forced to change the name after black women complained the choice of the name for the march threatened to overshadow the Million Woman March conducted for rights of black women in 1997. The reliance on identity politics has resulted in Left being caught in the crossfire of ever expanding accusations and counter accusations of cultural appropriation. Conservatives have succumbed to identity politics as well, as evidenced in their near total slavishness to Donald Trump. Showing an almost pathological inability to take responsibility, Conservatives accuse liberals of pushing them towards tribal identification. Conservatives have reaped short term rewards of focusing on white identity and supporting Donald Trump in return for victories on their core principles (Taxation, Jurisprudence etc.,.). In the long term though, Conservatives have hollowed out their movement to champion individual rights.
Other Books for Reference:
Just Babies: The Origins of Good and Evil - Paul Bloom
Queen for a Day: Transformistas, Beauty Queens, and the Performance of Femininity in Venezuela - Marcia Ochoa
Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right - Arlie Russell Hochschild
Who Are We? The Challenges to America's National Identity - Samuel P Huntington
Growing up in India inevitably means being exposed to tribal conflicts across class, caste, religion and language. India's identity as a secular nation is under serious threat as political parties put short term gain for political purposes over long term sustainability of India as a nation. This book is about how self identification of people as different tribes (usually based on the idea of shared blood - race, ethnicity, language,religion) has destabilized societies across the world. She analyzes different countries where US foreign policy has had an outsize influence, mostly negative because of its inability to understand tribal allegiances. Within India, the tribal instinct unites English speakers in their disdain for native language speakers. Indians who speak English in addition to their native languages have more opportunities to prosper across the country. Sticking to one's mother tongue limits the opportunities to the state they were born in. The liberalization of Indian economy after 1991 has increased the amount of migration across states. Since states in India are linguistically defined, the migration has increased the friction between different groups. Secular identity can help India reduce tribal conflicts based on religion but with fraying of that identity, the probability of clashes on religious grounds increases. While that is a desirable result for some religious parties, it is detrimental to the survival of India as it is currently constituted.
Analysis:
The assassination of Rajiv Gandhi by LTTE shocked everyone who heard about it. It was the result of Indian government's headlong rush into Sri Lankan internal affairs backfiring spectacularly. IPKF's deployment caused consternation among political parties in Tamil Nadu that took along time to die down. Tamil Nadu CM M Karunanidhi's refusal to be present at Chennai airport when IPKF soldiers arrived in body bags and calling it ITKF (Indian Tamil Killing Force) is an example of the highly charged emotions surrounding it. India underestimated the tribal animosities between majority Sinhalese and minority Tamils, made more complicated by the market dominance enjoyed by Tamils before the genocidal actions of Sri Lankan government kicked into high gear. This book focuses on the blindness of US foreign policy towards tribal allegiances as it tries to navigate its responsibilities as the sole superpower. US considers itself as the leader of Free world comprised of capitalist and democratic countries and that self-perception seeps into its view of other countries where it gets involved. This book analyzes US involvement in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan and rounds it out with the impact of tribal allegiances within America.
Colonial powers like Great Britain and France exploited identity divisions in their colonies to extend their grip on them. With the end of Second World War and the humbling of Colonial powers, US took over the mantle of leadership (along with Soviet Union) and preferred to focus on economic levers in implementing its foreign policy. American history is replete with racial injustice and cruel treatment of minorities within its borders. However, its unqualified success in integrating immigrants into mainstream American society has led it to expect the same from other countries. Most countries in the world offer citizenship by blood whereas US is one of the few countries that offers citizenship by birth. 14th Amendment to US Constitution allows people of different races and ethnic groups to proudly call themselves American. US also has made significant progress in removing exclusionary quotas in college admissions for minorities - example would be the opening up for higher education opportunities for Jews and African Americans. Some countries are multi ethnic societies but do not have a strong national identity - Iraq, Syria, Libya being some examples. Some countries have a strong national identity but are homogeneous - Germany, Japan, China are some examples. US is one of the few countries that is multi ethnic but also has a strong national identity. Great Britain is multi ethnic but it does not promote a strong national identity. France is multi ethnic but it enforces a very narrow version of national identity that brooks no opposition from any dissenters. US is considered to be a super group - A group all the same in that it has an us (Americans) versus them (non-Americans) but whose membership is open to people of different backgrounds irrespective of race, ethnicity, language, religion. It allows its individual members to hold onto their group identities as long as they abide by the identity of the super group. When US imposes democracy on other countries, it expects them to form a strong national identity and subsume any ethnic, racial and religious differences under the overarching national identity. In reality, democracy itself serves as the fuel for ethnic conflict resulting in people clinging even more strongly to their tribal identities. The general perception of elites about democracy being the panacea for tribal divisions in a country ignores the reality that liberalism, secularism, rationality, equality and free markets do not provide the group identity that humans crave.
Research has shown that children as young as 4 start identifying in group members versus out group members and modifying their behavior based on that recognition. Human brains are hardwired to identify with in group members and recognize every member's uniqueness. Out group members are viewed as different but interchangeable with any other member of the general population. Human brains also register happiness when they see other members of their in group receive a reward. Empathy has also been shown to be much higher within a group than without - the intensity of responses in brains is much higher when a person within a group is hurt. When an out group member gets hurt, members of the in group feel better about the suffering if they have not personally inflicted it on the out group member. The potency of in group versus out group is much higher for factors that depend on the idea of shared blood - so, ethnicity, race, language significantly increase the in group feeling vis-a-vis out group. Group loyalty has been found to distort how people in those groups view objective reality. The higher the education of the group members, the more pronounced those distortions become - which might explain why Trump supporters among the educated whites in US double down on their support for him in spite of media's insistence that his support will drop off if only they learnt more about inconsistencies in his political views. Group members also modify their answers to conform to the expectations of the group when their answer differs from the group. An individual can be the nicest person but placing them within a group causes drastic changes in their behavior, mostly for the worse. Terrorist groups like ISIS use gradual processes like socialization, indoctrination and radicalization to convert regular average Muslims into fanatics who give their own life for the terrorist cause. Terrorist groups like ISIS provide an identity that the individual can identify with. Belonging to a group or tribe necessarily dehumanizes everyone outside that group or tribe. While terrorism is considered to arise out of abject poverty, some of the most famous terrorists in the world have been well off - Osama Bin Laden is a particularly stark example. Whether or not a person is poor matters less than whether the group they are part of is suffering effects of group inequality, disempowerment, humiliation and hatred. The presence of these factors leads even well off people in these groups to become terrorists - LTTE leader Prabhakaran was very well educated and under his leadership, LTTE blazed a trail of barbarous tactics. Al Qaeda appealed to the self respect of well off Muslims who perceived themselves to be attacked, humiliated and persecuted by the West. By offering its adherents a tribe, terrorist groups provide them with a sense of belonging and purpose, an enemy to hate and and an opportunity to flip their humiliation to superiority.
Vietnam, historically has lived in the geopolitical shadow of China. In 111 BC, China conquered people in present day Vietnam and christened them Nam Viet (Land of the Southern Barbarians). Chinese ruled Vietnamese for the next 10 centuries imposing their cultural and imperial practices on Vietnam. In spite of the long duration of Chinese colonization, Vietnamese tenaciously held onto their Vietnamese identity. Vietnamese gained independence from China in 938 AD and repeatedly beat back subsequent Chinese intrusions. When French colonized Vietnam, Vietnamese looked to their struggle against Chinese for inspiration. With the defeat of French at the hands of Vietnamese in Dien Bien Phu, US stepped into the void. It looked at Vietnam as a front for Communist China and was determined to use it as a bulwark against Communist expansion. Ho Chi Minh was understood by US to be a lapdog of China whereas in reality, he looked at French and US as short term occupiers and Chinese as the long term threat to Vietnam. Within Vietnam, ethnic Chinese minority(called Hoa) comprised only 1% of the total population but controlled 90% of the non European private capital. China, French, US and other foreign powers interacted primarily with Hoa as they had control of the trade and economy in Vietnam. US brokered the Geneva Accords after the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu. It called for formation of North and South Vietnam. North Vietnam was communist and called Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV) under the leadership of Ho Chi Minh. South Vietnam(Republic of Vietnam) was capitalist and propped up by American support. Owing to his desire for a unified Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh committed North Vietnam to militarily liberating South Vietnam. In response, US escalated its defense of South Vietnam, viewing it through Cold war lens and loath to surrender South Vietnam to communist control. US however ignored the tribal complexities in South Vietnam. Capitalists in South Vietnam were primarily Hoa and with support from US, they amassed a great amount of wealth while the poor Vietnamese majority suffered grinding poverty. Hoa also rigged trading in essential goods, going as far as creating rice shortages to jack up the prices and making tidy profits. Actions like these worsened the food situation for the poor Vietnamese majority. Every step that US took to bolster South Vietnam government and encourage the spread of capitalism played right into the hands of North Vietnamese under Ho Chi Minh. During the hostilities, US troops could not differentiate between Hoa and Vietnamese and ended up indiscriminately killing both. However, the relative affluence of Hoa allowed them to stay safe behind well built fortifications whereas the poor Vietnamese majority bore the brunt of the US attacks. South Vietnamese soldiers were also loath to put in their full effort against North Vietnamese
considering the obsession of US with stopping Communism instead of improving the life of Vietnamese majority. After US withdrew from Vietnam, the pent up rage against Hoa resulted in ethnic cleansing campaigns carried out by Vietnamese in 1975 and 1978 killing countless Hoa and burning down their businesses. China strongly protested these killings to its fellow Communist neighbor but to no avail.
US invaded Afghanistan after the September 11 attacks on US. It has become US's longest war with no end in sight. US has fixated on Taliban as an Islamic movement but has lost sight of the fact that it is also an ethnic movement. Pashtuns have ruled Afghanistan the longest starting with Ahmed Shah Durrani in 1747. A Pashtun had ruled Afghanistan almost continuously till Zahir Shah's removal in 1973. Pashtuns abide by a code called Pashtunwali that features honor, hospitality, reciprocity and revenge. In taking refuge with the Taliban, Bin Laden appealed to them as a fellow Muslim and to their Pashtunwali code. Pashtuns live in areas straddling the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, with the British drawn Durand Line splitting the land of Pashtuns between the two countries. US followed the lead of Soviet Union in its blindness towards the ethnic fault lines in Afghanistan society. Soviet Union supported a coup by primarily Pashtun officers in Afghanistan in 1978. After the success of the coup, the Pashtun leaders went on an orgy of killing that precipitated invasion of Afghanistan by Soviet Union in 1979. Soviet Union wanted to deny space in Afghanistan for pro capitalist forces supported by US. In response, US supported the Mujahideen with arms and ammunition whose supply was overseen by Pakistan. Even though Pakistan is named for its ethnic makeup (P for Punjab, A for Afghan/Pashtun, K for Kashmir, S for Sindh, Tan for Balochistan), Punjabis dominate culture and politics within the country. Zia Ul Haq utilized this opportunity to divide and conquer Pashtuns by only providing arms to those Pashtuns who subscribed to radical Islam and shutting out others. It also allowed Pakistan to neuter Pashtun nationalism allowing Punjabis to extend their grip on power. US was focused on tying Soviet Union down in Afghanistan and turned a blind eye towards the Mujahideen and Pakistan. With the defeat of Soviet Union in Afghanistan, US withdrew from the region as well, content with the successful achievement of its Cold War aims. Between 1980 - 1992, Pakistan received $5 billion worth of arms and ammunition from the West in the war against Soviet Union. These arms were turned against each other by Pashtun groups in the civil war that followed the withdrawal of Soviet Union. They also allowed Mullah Mohammad Omar to build Taliban into a fearsome force that succeeded in capturing Kabul in 1996. The underlying support for Taliban in Afghanistan is based on Pashtun identity. The smashing success of divide and conquer policies of Pakistan with respect to Pashtuns has meant Taliban has struggled to unite Pashtuns under its leadership. The attempts at Afghanistan unity has also been undercut by indiscriminate killing of non Pashtun tribes - Hazaras, Tajiks by Taliban. US went from viewing Afghanistan through Cold War lens to viewing it through anti-Islamic lens. Pakistan succeeded in Afghanistan primarily because of its understanding of the tribal allegiances within Afghanistan. After toppling the Taliban government under Mullah Mohammad Omar, US installed a multi ethnic government that included a small number of Pashtuns. The fear of Pashtuns losing their primacy and continued meddling of Pakistan resulted in a Taliban comeback. US also took its eye off the ball in Afghanistan by focusing on the invasion of Iraq at the same time Taliban made a comeback. By the time US pacified Iraq and turned their attention to Afghanistan, Taliban had consolidated their power.
US invaded Iraq with the expectation of restoring it on the lines of Germany and Japan after Second World War. Superficially, the analogy held - both of them involved overthrow of an authoritarian regime, liberation of the population, spread of democracy and implementation of liberal constitution. Germany and Japan became prosperous and peaceful whereas Iraq became a failed state. Germany and Japan are mostly homogeneous ethnically whereas Iraq is a multi ethnic state (Shias, Sunnis, Kurds to name the only the major groups). Iraq is comparable to Yugoslavia before its breakup - a multi ethnic state with a long history of ethnic strife. When Yugoslavia became a democracy in early 1990's, it led to ethnic cleansing and brutal warfare between the different ethnic groups. In Iraq, Sunnis comprised a minority in the population but controlled the military and economy. They lived in prosperity among the poor Shiite majority. After Saddam Hussein came to power in 1979, he persecuted Shias and Kurds extensively. After overthrowing Saddam Hussein's regime, US elites (Democrats and Republicans) considered Iraq ready for democratization. By turning a blind eye to the ethnic differences within Iraq, US wrongly expected Iraqis to welcome US forces as liberators. The Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) issued its "de-baathification" order that stripped highly skilled and accomplished Baathist military leaders (who also happened to be Sunni) of their jobs and turned them into formidable enemies. It also confirmed the fears of Sunni Muslims in Iraq that their status was degraded. It led Sunni Muslim leaders to provide full throated support to insurgency against US occupation. US ignored the signs of discontent and proceeded to hold immediate elections in December 2005. Political parties that emerged from the elections closely tracked the ethnic divisions in Iraq. Sunni Muslims boycotted the elections in large numbers allowing Shias and Kurds to garner political and economic power. US threw its weight behind Nuri Al Maliki who was a Shia and a beneficiary of Iran's largesse. To no one's surprise, he proceeded to exclude Sunnis and Kurds from the Iraqi government. As the situation in Iraq steadily deteriorated, US deployed a "surge" of troops in 2007 to provide political space for Iraqi leaders to iron out their differences and work towards a common goal. The "surge" succeeded primarily because US military learned its lessons and bought off the allegiances of various Sunni tribes in their fight against insurgents led by Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi. The "surge" involved changing the training of US soldiers deployed to Iraq, to improve their awareness of tribal loyalties and local culture. US military was able to roll back the progress of insurgents and provide the political space for Iraqi leaders to unite the country. However, that advantage was squandered by Nuri Al Maliki because of his insistence on seeing Iraq as a country for Shiites and shutting out Kurds and Sunnis from the government. This fed the success of ISIS. While Al Qaeda has a pan Islamic vision, ISIS has a very specific Sunni vision. By governing with an explicit Shia bias, Nuri al Maliki pushed Sunnis into supporting ISIS as they feared Shia reprisals more than ISIS.
Hugo Chavez came to power in Venezuela in 1998, by beating a former beauty queen in the presidential elections. Like other Latin American countries, Venezuela is obsessed with beauty pageants. Beauty queens in Venezuela have been known to parlay their success into political careers. Chavez positioned himself as the representative of the dark skinned Indian majority in contrast to lighter skinned Mestizo (mixed European and Indian blood) minority.He proudly flaunted his dark skin and rode it to an upset victory in the Presidential elections. After his victory, he proceeded to break every political norm in Venezuela. That only endeared him even more to his supporters. Mestizos in Venezuela are a market dominant minority living amid the poor Indian majority. While Venezuelan elite deny vociferously that racism exists in their society, the power differential between Mestizo minority and Indian majority tells a different tale. Mestizos are descended from the Spanish people who dominated the economic, political and cultural sectors across South America. US and other Western nations primarily interacted with the elite in South American countries and were caught off guard when Chavez captured power in Venezuela. After Chavez came to power in Venezuela, the Venezuelan elite attacked him in racially derogatory terms, showing their true face after repeated denials about racism being present in Venezuela. In 2002, the Venezuelan military with the help of US and other Western nations, overthrew Chavez in a military coup and installed Pedro Carmona, a wealthy white and president of Venezuela's main business association, as the President. The backlash against the coup resulted in a popular uprising that brought Chavez back to power. Chavez ran Venezuelan economy into the ground but delivered for his constituents by reducing the extremely high levels of poverty in the country. After Chavez's death, Nicholas Maduro took over the legacy of Hugo Chavez and has accelerated the transformation of Venezuela into a failed state with rampant inflation and control by drug cartels.
US establishment in media, politics and culture completely whiffed on the phenomenon of Donald Trump in the 2016 US Presidential election and his win in the elections stunned them. Trump supporters identify with him at a tribal level (gaudy, crass, boastful, politically incorrect). When elites in US spout off about the abject poverty they observe across the world, Trump supporters take it as a signal that their fellow citizens are not interested in America. America is forecast to no longer be a majority minority nation by 2055 AD. Whites in America have been feeling threatened by the persistent messages about the browning of America in the near future. The demographic shift may be inexorable but that does not mean whites in America will quietly acquiesce to the reality. When some groups vocalize their feelings of fear and powerlessness, other groups discount it (since they have not gone through those experiences) and blame those groups for not acknowledging their persecution - An example would be African Americans demanding America account for its racist past which sends whites around the bend since whites think of themselves as having evolved from their past behavior. When whites undertake actions to identify with a minority group by taking on markers of that minority group, they are accused of "Cultural appropriation" - an example would be a white woman wearing a sari. The feelings of persecution on all sides has led to an increase in acceptance of ethnonationalism (White nationalism) as a form of conservative backlash against assertion of minority rights. Poor in America hanker for American Dream even as it recedes farther and farther across the horizon. Well off progressives attempt to show American Dream as false and that view serves as a marker for their tribe. Even though Occupy Wall Street pitched itself as fighting for the 99%, it was primarily composed of well off people. That explains why it was not able to sustain its momentum and fizzled out. While social scientists have argued, for quite some time, that poor in America are becoming more lonely pointing to declining attendance in Churches, athletic leagues, youth groups etc., that reasoning is misguided. Poor people in America have maintained their group identity through other associations that elites do not consider themselves to be part of - Police and Army being the most important ones among them. While poor people among minorities identify with drug and street gangs, poor whites (and non white religious people) have gravitated towards Prosperity Gospel. It preaches that to be rich is to be divine and that Jesus himself was a rich man. For poor people in America, Prosperity Gospel offers hope, direction and a community. WWE and NASCAR are other communities poor whites are also part of, something that elites in America look down upon(and coincidentally, something Donald Trump took part in).
The election of Donald Trump is only one of the myriad ways the anxiety of whites has shown up in recognition of that demographic milestone. When the economy is growing at a steady clip, loss of political, economic and cultural power might not result in a backlash. After 2008 recession and its anemic recovery, whites in America have perceived a loss of status in what they considered to be their nation (as much as America is multi ethnic, the general understanding of who constitutes "real" America is still predominantly white). Whites also perceive that minority groups are allowed to proudly flaunt their identity, a luxury that is not afforded to them. Historically, when whites have felt threatened about their status, their response has been to use their political power to suppress minority rights and regain their lost power through any means necessary. After American Civil War, some states in American South had majority African American populations and whites in those states used their political power to pass Jim Crow laws that enshrined segregation (separate but equal status for African Americans). The perception of widespread discrimination against whites is present among supporters of both political parties in the US. The push by colleges and universities across US to diversify their student body has opened up opportunities for different sections of American society with the exception of poor and rural whites. That has led to poor and rural whites being the only group in US who least expect their sons and daughters to be better off compared to themselves, as opposed to high levels among well off Whites, Hispanics and African Americans. The dominant position of whites throughout American History has allowed either political party to carry on the mantle of national identity at different times - Democratic party during Civil Rights era and Republicans after US Civil War. They succeeded in pushing for basic civil and political rights for all individuals regardless of group identity. In 1980's and 1990's, Conservatives used the same color blind policies to entrench the status quo. In response, liberals started to emphasize group consciousness and identity to push for minority rights. After the demise of Soviet Union, political Left lost the economic argument and shifted its focus to Identity politics. In the beginning, identity politics espoused by Left was inclusive (for example, encouraging whites to understand the experience of minorities). With no discernible progress in status quo, the Left shifted to an identity politics of exclusion and division (for example, taking whites to task for the racist sins of their ancestors). As identity politics spreads its wings, the divisions between different groups have gotten deeper as each pursues its claims. Identity politics has also given rise to "Intersectionality", an acknowledgement of multiple factors in suppressing a person - race, gender, ethnicity being some of them. An example would be the push back from minority women in the drive towards equal pay between men and women, pointing out the disparities in pay between white women and rest of the minority women. Intersectionality also played a part in depressing the attendance in the Women's March that took place on January 21, 2017, a day after Donald Trump was sworn in as the President of US. It was originally called Million Woman March and the organizers were forced to change the name after black women complained the choice of the name for the march threatened to overshadow the Million Woman March conducted for rights of black women in 1997. The reliance on identity politics has resulted in Left being caught in the crossfire of ever expanding accusations and counter accusations of cultural appropriation. Conservatives have succumbed to identity politics as well, as evidenced in their near total slavishness to Donald Trump. Showing an almost pathological inability to take responsibility, Conservatives accuse liberals of pushing them towards tribal identification. Conservatives have reaped short term rewards of focusing on white identity and supporting Donald Trump in return for victories on their core principles (Taxation, Jurisprudence etc.,.). In the long term though, Conservatives have hollowed out their movement to champion individual rights.
Other Books for Reference:
Just Babies: The Origins of Good and Evil - Paul Bloom
Queen for a Day: Transformistas, Beauty Queens, and the Performance of Femininity in Venezuela - Marcia Ochoa
Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right - Arlie Russell Hochschild
Who Are We? The Challenges to America's National Identity - Samuel P Huntington
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