21st Century Tribalism
Aug 17th, 2008 | By Abhishek Bhatnagar | Category: Commentary**Edited Mon 22, 2008
It seems that a favorite pastime of humans is constant contemplation of our socio-political systems. To modern youth, for example, an ideal society would provide an individual with all the comforts they desire, but also never inconvenience others. We could never allow dictatorships or authoritarian regimes like China or North Korea, but when we face the likes of Saddam and Hitler, we run out of plausible solutions. We would not only like to eradicate all poverty and provide permanent electricity and food to everyone, but also heavily reduce the human footprint on Earth. Several such contradictions exist in the common liberal thought.
This is not an obsession of modern youth only. All throughout known history, philosophers, priests, politicians, scientists, and artists have tried their own fixes. We have so far tried various forms of communism, monarchy, and democracy, none of which have led to the fulfillment of a majority of individuals. So it doesn’t seem like the modern world has found a path yet. But perhaps a look into our own past would offer a solution. A good place to start is African tribalism.
It has been said before that the African tribes are much more egalitarian in their governance than those from the rest of the world. Though there is no scientific basis for such a statement and it probably is not true, when you compare the Yanomamo (South America) or the Imbi (Papua New Guinea) to the Zulu or the Kung, you can’t help but draw similar conclusions. I am sure this incongruity is caused by nothing more than the structure of modern anthrapolgy. It’s just that those African stories that are more popular happen to be more tame then those American stories that are popular.
One such story is that of the Mbuti, a tribe of pygmies from Congo. A constant companion to the anthrapologist (Colin Turnbull), and I am sure one of the most interesting people on our planet, Kenge, is a large part of the story. His exuberance for life and wild manners make almost everything he does very interesting.
There are many memorable scenes from “The Forest People” but the one that totally stands out in my mindis the trip Turnbull and Kenge take outside Kenge’s home (The Ituri Forest). They visit a number of local plantations upon which other already acculturated tribes work under the Belgian Empire. They also run into a priest who in one instance refuses to help an injured man because he is not Christian. But the best part comes when they decide to visit the Virunga National Park.
For those who are not familiar, this park is an absolute dream for naturalists. The peaks of the Rwenzori mountains are covered with snow. At a lower altitude vast grasslands cover the plains. At the very bottom, Lake Edward, one of Africa’s great lakes is surrounded by marshlands and slime forests. And
the night time would offer you the brilliant glow of lava from two semi-active volcanoes.
Or at least these were the conditions back in 1962.
(Incidentally, more than 95% of the hippos in this park have been poached since then) Anyway, back to the story.
Kenge was absolutely opposed to the idea of the visit. He had been told earlier that this was a land of “no trees”. Turnbull had tried to explain to him that the area they were going to visit was a grassland, and the density of trees was nothing compared to that of the Ituri. Kenge, whose tribe call the forest their mother and everything since it not only feeds them but also clothes them, could not imagine how anything good could come out of such a land, that is if it even existed.
What follows is something totally harrowing. I am not going to ruin the story for anyone reading the book, but it changes Kenge in one way, and gives the reader an amazing perspective into the minds of our ancestors.
The reason I am writing all of this is because I just discovered that in 2006, Kenge died. And I’d imagine that for anyone who’s already read the book, Kenge was somewhat of an icon. His people resisted a conversion to a more modern life style and stuck to their heaven.
The Mbuti, if they were like the other tribes, would have lived at a plantation labouring all of their strength and time to raise crops for their colonialist masters. This would have brought them real dollars, a sense of pride (though false), and a more “civilized” way of life. But by being amongst the very few to resist, they evidently enjoyed much happier lives and certainly left a lasting impression on science.
There still are a few such tribes left in the world - still uncontacted, though clearly aware of us. They might not be as utopian as the Mbuti, but their lifestyle is an ancient one and surely a part of our heritage. These tribes are under constant threat of exposure to miners, loggers, poachers, missionaries, militaries and governments. Their progenitors were never exposed to the diseases to which ours were, so their immune systems could not handle many of the viruses that live dormant within us. Anyone of us could unwittingly spread an epidemic between them.
There is a case for optimism here too though. Many of the world leaders from countries that harbor such tribes are becoming more and more aware of them. New additions to the Brazilian government seem to be very conscious to the native tribes and are actively taking steps to protect them. The president of Bolivia, Evo Morales, himself a native, also seems genuine in his care. But in Africa, trouble still looms. Wars and other conflicts have already changed the lifestyles of most such tribes, and they are causing further problems for the new converts too.
Kenge might be gone, but there is still hope for others. You can also help by donating. Governmental organizations such as FUNAI in Brazil are always a good place to start, but there are alternatives. Survival International is also a contender for your money.
Only about thirty years ago the term ‘first contact’ was so often heard, but now most people don’t even know such tribes exist. So let’s do something before we lose them completely and become a monoculture.
**Images taken from the blog of a very lucky man, who lived in the Congo and also met Kenge himself, Kim Gjerstad. http://kim.uing.net/1537/home.html?b_st=90&b_d=&b_cd=20070620&b_m=0&b_u=0&b_pi=3980&b_k=0&b_s=&b_o=DESC
Last 5 posts by Abhishek Bhatnagar
- Where is the case for optimism? - December 29th, 2008
- Mutiny on a Chromosome - December 20th, 2008
- Conservation-ing - December 1st, 2008
- The life of a language - November 30th, 2008
- Five animal names that make you giggle - November 16th, 2008
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Do you think all cultures should be preserved? I don’t, I would love to see female genital mutilation go completely extinct, and this is only one custom which I feel this way about.
For that matter I find much of modern U.S. culture repugnant, like its anti-intellectualism.
I definitely feel you as far as human rights issues are concerned, but I find the argument that cultures should be preserved for their own sakes naive at best, and dangerous at worst.
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Abhishek Bhatnagar Reply:
August 24th, 2008 at 11:44 pm
None of us like to see genital mutilation or stoning to death or several other such customs, but if you look at the issue completely objectively, it is not up to you or me to decide which cultures stay and which go. If we start making that decision, then we are essentially forcing our pov.
Would you say the same about tribal cultures that kill and rape at much more brutal levels on a daily basis? All of our ancestors did the same.
[Reply]
Ian Reply:
August 25th, 2008 at 11:46 am
Are we on complete cultural relativity now? Can’t we hold some standards - Universal Human Rights / dignity of all persons? We can claim superiority over our ancestors, but still admit to not being the greatest culture we possibly could (since shit still happens). I think “looking at the issue completely objectively” is utter BS. It’s not forcing a POV when you stand up for a child that doesn’t have a choice in brutal torture.
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[...] one of my earlier posts, I had made a reference to Virunga National Park - a 7800 square kilometer reserve of the Congolese [...]
Hmmm. This was actually my dominant political paradigm when I was younger.
If I may make a few strongly worded points of argument:
I would point out that egalitarianism in the context of hunter-gatherers typically means that every male member of a community has an equal opportunity to play dictator over anyone else. The basis for leadership in a primitive egalitarianism is actually the same as the basis of fascist leadership: charismatic authority (I am not calling anyone a fascist, this is merely a lesson in cross-cultural comparison). While the modern primitives and the romantics would undoubtedly argue, as did a certain Lord John Acton, that without absolute power (in the form of industrial nation-states or agricultural empires) we should have no fear of absolute corruption, I would counter that we’ve seen plenty of corruption, but has anyone ever truly wielded absolute power? Let me rephrase that question: “Does God exist?” Didn’t think so. So there we have, no such thing as absolute power, so we really have no way of testing Lord John Acton’s hypothesis, do we?
On the subject of the Yanomamo, I assume you are aware of their infamous penchant for misogyny, wife-beating, and other nasty forms of anti-woman brutality. As for cultural relativity (and feminism, for that matter), the unfortunate Yanomami women actually consider the scars inflicted by their brutal husbands to be signs of their male masters’ affection: the more a Yanomami man beats his wife, or slices her skin with his machete, the more he is said to value her like the object she is considered in Yanomamo culture. Perhaps we can tease out the signs of the Stockholm Syndrome?
Obviously this is not true for every primitive society, but statistically it’s true for most of them. The !Kung practice arranged marriages. As for genital mutilation, previously brought up, don’t get me started. The reason I went into anthropology in the first place to advanced the “Modern Tribalist” agenda, offering primitive community as the best possible model for peaceful and naturalistic human coexistence. The reason I eventually discarded this theory was because of my having gone into anthropology.
The “primitive” has always been subject to distorted romanticization by outsiders. Finally, what would it take to reduce the human footprint and allow us to start over? Arguably we’re all alive today because 75,000 years ago climate disruption lead human ancestors to migrate, spreading diseases as they came into contact, at one point actually reducing the gene pool to about 10,000 breeding pairs. So are we all just supposed to wait for the next depopulation bomb? Because if you want everyone to live as hunter gatherers or horticulturalists off the land, you’re gonna need a lot less people. And getting the human population to a more manageable and sustainable size- well that’s going to take some major technocratic social engineering over a very long term, unless of course we’re down with the aforementioned euthenasia. It’s either that, or hope for one hell of an asteroid impact to remind the lucky(?) survivors of some much needed cosmic humility.
That’s what my theory depended on: an apocalyptic and utopian vision of death and destruction. And I still tried to make it work. Eventually that naive idealism was eroded by the effects of my own cognitive dissonance. Barring a major depopulation event, I’ll keep my technology, my progress, and my global community, thank you.
[Reply]
Abhishek Bhatnagar Reply:
September 4th, 2008 at 10:33 pm
Barry, I think you misunderstood me. I never claimed that a tribal lifestyle is more egalitarian than ours; it is well known that in their lives, the chances of being killed as a result of violence are greater than in ours by many magnitudes. All tribal societies practice any combinations of arranged marriage, wife-beating (not the same as misogyny), and general brutal behavior all around - that is not a surprise to anyone. I merely suggested that certain African tribes have been portrayed as being more egalitarian than others.
And the Toba catastrophe theory (population down to 10,000 breeding pairs) you refer to is not as solid science as one might hope. I understand there is some evidence pertaining to it, but that might just as well be circumstantial.
I think taking down fascination with tribal societies to inevitable euthanasia is a little extreme, but maybe that’s just me!
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[...] Hart’s time in the Ituri Forst was spent with the Bambutis, among whom was our favourite - Kenge. A documentary available at Google Video, Hearts of Brightness, describes their time there and work [...]