This is a paper I wrote for a course I’m taking in South Africa. I’m publishing it here since I believe it’s of general interest for my readers.
Motto: “If names not be correct, language is not in accordance with the truth of things. If language be not in accordance with the truth of things, affairs cannot be carried on to success.”( Confucius, Analects, Book 13, Cap. 3)
Imagine for a second how an account of the last year’s xenophobic attacks against the rroma citizens living in Neaples, Italy, would sound like, if the journalist covering the event would use the same terminology normally used when covering Africa. “After a 17 year-old girl of the Gypsy tribe entered a flat in Ponticelli and tried to steal a 6-year-old girl, the city erupted in fury causing a chain of xenophobic attacks against several gypsy clans. Their tribal violence resulted in various gypsy camps being burned to ashes, tens of houses destroyed and two human casualties.1” That’s how it would sound, but, “happily,” stories of this kind are never told in this way. The word tribe seems to be “reserved” for Africans only. Whenever one talks about similar social tensions in Europe, one classifies them as ethnic tensions. No one ever talks about the Albanian tribe in Kosovo, the Hungarian tribe in Romania or the Kurdish tribe in Turkey. But if it’s Africa we’re talking about, most conflicts have to do with tribes. The segregated linguistic distinction that is alternatively applied to the two cases (Europe and Africa) is not an innocent mistake on behalf of the journalist covering an event, but a complex, historical distinction that can be traced back to the 19th century accounts of Africa, and that is still being used in the contemporary descriptions of the continent. As tribe and tribalism have become two intrinsically embedded terms in the European discourse and imagination of Africa, “tribal” and “African” have become virtually synonyms in most international mainstream media accounts, among European and North American policy-makers and, most important, the Western public itself. But, as Mafeje Archie asked himself, “Are things necessarily what they are called?2”Is the word “tribe” describing a contemporary easily identifiable reality or does it promote a misleading stereotype that is a product of the 19th century imperial discourse which that has been preserved and adopted by current post-colonial discourses? This paper will discuss the origins of the word tribe, its social and political function, and the implications of the contemporary use of the term.
The word tribe comes from Latin and it was originally used to describe isolated micro-communities that were progressively incorporated in the Roman Empire3. But the word tribe will only gain a wider usage in the 19th century as a consequence of the written reports that were describing the European-African encounters. It is certainly unclear what the Britons exactly meant by tribe, but it has been theorized that the word was generally used to describe more primitive African social and political structures4.
Taken out of context, the word tribe therefore seems “harmless.” However, by being used during the age of scientific rationalism, when racial theories were used to justify the colonization of African lands, when it was believed that Africans needed to be saved by Europeans, and that Europeans had to bring civilization to the “dark continent,” the word tribe gained new connotations. The word tribe was no longer used to describe more simplistic forms of organization (which in reality were not than simple as Europeans thought they werr!), but to suggest the primitiveness, the backwardness and the primordiality of such structures and Africans themselves.
Group of massai people at a ceremonial procession
Now, one could immediately make the argument that since the original meaning of the word tribe was not one based on racial grounds, and that we now live in post-colonial times when the idea that Africans are situated on a lower stage of humanity is no longer acceptable, there should not be a problem with using the word tribe. Why? Because people would no longer attach to it the dimension of racial segregation or the need to justify colonial rules. In other words, a “tribe” would be nothing more than “a notional form of human social organization based on a set of smaller groups (known as bands), having temporary or permanent political integration, and defined by traditions of common descent, language, culture, and ideology,” as Encyclopedia Britannica defines it. There are several flows with that argument. Firstly, the argument that the original meaning of a word should be used if a society managed to amend the racial, political, or social tensions associated with it, is quite problematic. One simple example can illustrate why. The word “nigger” was not a derogative word in its original form. The word was derived from the Spanish/Portuguese word negro, meaning “black.” One step back, “Negro” (and therefore “nigger”) comes from nigrum, the accusative form of the Latin word niger (pronounced like “knee-ger”), simply meaning “black”. In conclusion, while the word “nigger” has no historical underlying negative intent in the formation of the word, prior to the rise of racism, it is no longer used in common discourse. Even if it followed the same linguistic pattern, the word tribe is still a part of the common language and is rarely seen as an offensive and pejorative term. Even if it is!
A more important difficulty regarding the use of this word is that we simply don’t know what it refers to. According to Mafeje Archie “Classical anthropology depicted tribes as “self contained, autonomous communities practicing subsistence economy with no or limited external trade.”5 According to Chris Lowe (Boston University,) a tribe could potentially be described as “a social group that shares a single territory, a single language, a single political unit, a shared religious tradition, a similar economic system, and common cultural practices, such a group is rarely found in the real world.6” But the same author is very quick to observe that: “These characteristics almost never correspond precisely with each other today, nor did they at any time in the past.7” What this shows is that the word tribe is a concept that is constantly defined and redefined based on the intention and the imagination of the speaker that uses that term. This means that the definition of the term will change every time someone uses the word tribe. This is not to say that all people who use the word tribe are racist, but that the specific characteristics of the definition are changed based on what the speaker thinks a tribe really is. In this context, the word tribe is of no practical use for the audience it is intended to, as it is too broad in its nature and it’s more of a variable than a clearly defined concept.
Besides its generality, the word tribe should be avoided as it is generally associated with primitiveness, lack of change, or even resistance to change. Ironically, some of the “tribes” that are considered archaic and conservative structures have actually been the product of colonialism and had no intrinsic value in the pre-colonial world. Tutsis and Hutus, the two ethnic groups that co-habit in the Central Africa between Rwanda, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo were once the same people, speaking the same language, and sharing the same culture. The distinction between the Hutus and Tutsis was only enforced by the German and the Belgium Colonists. They distinguished between the two groups based on their primary occupations –pastoralists and (or, in the colonial distinction, “versus”) agriculturalists; they, the colonists, enforced the divisions, and played the two groups against each other by alternatively giving each of them more rights and benefits, to the detriment of the excluded group.
But the perversion of this “ideology of tribalism” (as named by Mafeje Archie) can also be found in other areas and discourses than the pure historical account of ethnic differences. For example, it is easy and convenient to reject developmental failures when you explain these failures by making references to tribal affairs as a motif for developmental impediments. Since tribes are often seen as “irrational structures of power” it is easy to suggest that it is impossible to negotiate and work with such structures. In a way, it absolves the development agents from their personal or collective failures, as “tribal affairs” are inherently thought of in terms of their irrationality, superstition.
In the introduction of this paper I hinted at the hypocrisy of the current alternative use of tribe and ethnicity based on where these tensions occur on the map. The distinction goes far beyond simply calling an internal conflict a “tribal conflict” in Africa and an “ethnic conflict” in Europe or Asia. It also affects the way the conflict is dealt with. When an ethnic conflict occurs in Europe, as in the case of the xenophobic attacks against the rroma citizens in Italy, statal and parastatal organizations (the European Commission in this case) immediately look for solutions to the conflict and ways to protect the rights of the oppressed group. It is therefore implied that an ethnic conflict can be rationally dealt with. The situation is clearly different in the case of African conflicts. One could make the argument that because Westerners see tribal conflicts as conflicts based on irrational claims and superstitions, their willingness to intervene and look for solutions is diminished. It took the United Nations three months to intervene in the Rwandan genocide, while thousands of Tutsis were being killed every day. And one of the reasons why the international organizations were reluctant to intervene in the conflict was that it was unclear whether the conflict was a civil war between two tribal forces or a genocide. The genocide in Darfur is still happening despite widespread international outcry. To make things even more complicated, Westerners sometimes tend to label as tribal, conflicts that do not even fit their definitions and perceptions of tribalism. The conflict in Somalia has often been regarded as tribal (especially in the 1990s) despite the fact that there are no tribes in Somalia. There are only clans and lineages, but the distinction is rarely made or observed. To briefly conclude on the matter, the idea of tribes shapes European and North American perceptions of ethnic conflicts in Africa and makes them more inclined to see African conflicts as random explosions of irrational violence.
As shown in this paper, the nineteen century image of a “dark continent” is still visible in European and American representations and it is most easily identifiable in the description of different African conflicts, structural adjustment failures, or even political coups as a consequence of tribal tensions. But one should then ask oneself, as a Westerner: “how is it possible that we are still getting it wrong?” The last forty years are full of sheer contradictions in respect to how the West sees Africa. The World Bank is probably the most infamous organization on the continent and different projects are failing on a current basis despite having extremely generous budgets and the best intentions behind them. I think there is a twofold answer to the question. Firstly, seeing most conflicts in Africa as a consequence of tribal affairs and using the word tribe to describe several obstacles that intervened in the path to sustainable development oversimplified the nature of political and economic relations between Africans, and between Africa and the rest of the world. By oversimplifying the problem, the answers and the resources allocated to solving the problem did not correspond to actual necessities. Secondly, despite the fact that anthropologists have been arguing for the last 30 years against using the word tribe seeing most conflicts as a consequence of “tribal violence” most broadcasting agencies and international newspapers are still using the word “tribe” in order to justify these conflicts. And the most recent example of this perverse discourse has been the way the Western media covered the outbreaks of violence following the disputed national elections in Kenya in late 2007. Since the beginning of the conflict, the New York Times cataloged the violence as being the consequence of a “tribal conflict for political dominance.8” In fact, Jeffry Gentleman, the journalist covering the Kenyan elections for NY Times went so far as to argue that “the election seems to have tapped into an atavistic vein of tribal tension that always lay beneath the surface in Kenya but until now had not provoked widespread mayhem.9” France Press gave exactly the same description of the conflict by saying that “Old rivalry between the tribes of Kenya’s newly re-elected President Mwai Kibaki and opposition leader Raila Odinga has fed violence that has killed at least 162 since last week’s disputed poll.10” For those aware of the current situation in Kenya, this coverage of the conflict seemed at least offending. Most people that spent a considerable amount of time in Kenya know that the violence that erupted after the election had little to do with tribal affairs. It had to do with poverty and politically instigated violence. Yes, politicians did exploit tribal differences as a means to achieve their political goals, but that didn’t make the post-election violence a consequence of a tribal war. It is this type of contradictions that have created and powered a mythical and mystical image of Africa, that works both against Africans and Europeans themselves.
Is the “ideology of tribalism” the only strikingly visible representation of the “dark continent” that has been preserved in our representation of the continent? Surely not. After 200 years, there are still “specialists” and “experts” that argue that Africa is inherently different from any other part of the world and that its economic and political failure should be understood in the light of these differences. But as Basil Davidson and his followers show, Africa is not so different from other continents. In fact, most African countries are now at a stage of development comparatively similar to the one most East European states experienced in late 1980s, early 1990s11. Moreover, people look at Africa as if it’s one homogenous place, despite the fact that they would never make generalizing statements about Europe, Asia, or America (the continent). From a different perspective, “darkness” and “blackness” are sometimes seen as synonyms not only in the racist discourse but also the racial discourse which objects to the African sexual immorality, the fact that Africa as a whole has yet to experience peace and long term prosperity etc. All in all, there are several misconceptions that can still be found in our representation of Africa, but, as shown in this paper, the problem of tribalism is of greater importance and impact on how we, the Westerners, see African politics and realities.
To sum up, the use of the word tribe and the consequences of “the ideology of tribalism” are some of the most visible nineteenth century images of Africa that are still present in our conceptualization of the African continent. Despite the fact that the word tribe is reminiscent of the racist theories that were designed to justify the European ideological and physical domination of the African continent, it is still widely used by the mainstream media and the Western public itself. In this paper, I have showed that the word tribe is misleading, that it promotes false stereotypes of the continent, and that it only makes things more confusing rather than more specific. Moreover, tribalism is only a way to exoticize the continent and understand its difficulties and our failures on the continent in the light of these exotic characteristics. In practice, the word tribe has no coherent meaning. It is fully based on historical assumptions, it rejects African realities, it points at nothing in particular, and perpetuates the idea that African conflicts are primitive, savage and therefore should easily be refuted, and even annihilated when possible. Those who study African pre-colonial history know exactly that the word “tribe” meant absolutely nothing to the African people, before the European colonialists arrived to Africa. Why should it mean anything today?
1 The actual account of the story can be found at: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article3940192.ece
2 Mafeje Archie, “the Ideology of Tribalism”, The journal of Modern African Studies, 9, 2, (1971), p. 254
3 Lamb David, The African, Vintage; Rev Upd edition (June 12, 1987), Introduction.
4 SoutHall Aidan, “The Illusion of tribe”, in Peter Gutkind, ed., The Passing of Tribal Man in Africa, page 28-30.
5 Mafeje Archie, “the Ideology of Tribalism”, The journal of Modern African Studies, 9, 2, (1971), p. 257
6 Lowe Chris, Talking about “Tribe” Moving from Stereotypes to Analysis, Africa Action, 1997, page 3.
7 Idem, page 3.
8 http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/31/world/africa/31kenya.html
9 Idem
10 http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/RWB.NSF/db900SID/EMAE-7AEN8R?OpenDocument
11 A more elaborate discussion is presented in Basil Davidson, The Black Man’s Burden: Africa and the Curse of the Nation-State, Three Rivers Press, 1993