Humans are inherently tribal. We put people into hierarchies of relationships that usually flow outwards from family. As nations developed, the tribal family might encompass all of Germany, France, or Russia, but it was still an “us” versus “them” allegiance. Marx believed that the workers of the world would unite but in 1914, Marxists were shocked to discover that the workers of Germany did not feel any fellowship with the workers of England.
In these old nations, tribalism still had a genetic component, as well as a historical one. I had a Welsh friend whose roots in Wales went back, as she said, “to Caesar’s time.” Tribes were familial, historical, and geographic.
It was different in America, a place to which people came because they were rallying around unique ideas. This does not mean, as leftists like to say, that America “is an idea,” justifying ignoring its borders. It is a full-fledged nation, complete with defined, defensible borders and an overarching rule of law.
However, it’s also a collection of people from disparate families, geographic regions, and historic allegiances who have come for the liberty that underlies America’s institutions (flowing from the Constitution) and its culture. It’s those beliefs that make America a very big tribe.
Or at least, that ought to make America one big tribe of people whose fealty to the ideas means that they also believe in the borders and the laws—and the rights of all those who share those beliefs to live in peace with them.
Image: YouTube screen grab,
However, the left has a plan: It will gain power by breaking these unique bonds between the people in America. No longer are we all one people who bleed red, white, and blue, regardless of skin color, race, geographic place of origin, sex, sexual preference, etc.
Instead, for decades, leftists have steadily been balkanizing us. Now, our loyalties lie not with nation and values, but with people who share our skin color, our nation of origin, being a conservative or a leftist, or being hetero- or homosexual.
This way lies madness. And I do mean madness. It doesn’t mean a path to power; it means a highway to hell.
And if you don’t believe me, look at what’s going on in Africa, a continent that has never been able to break free from ancient tribal values or racial obsessions. Here are just three stores of what happens when those values are ascendant especially when, as in South Africa, they have a Marxist gloss:
One. The South African government, which has abandoned Nelson Mandela’s efforts to create racial harmony after generations of apartheid, isn’t even pretending anymore that its goal is anything other than destroying whites:
Political scientist Dr Frans Cronje warned that the new Expropriation Act allows the government to take any property and pay less than its market value.
He told Biznews this was the biggest threat the Expropriation Act poses and that land expropriation and nil compensation are red herrings.
President Cyril Ramaphosa signed the controversial Expropriation Bill into law last month. The legislation sets out how organs of state can expropriate land in the public interest.
The government explained that this Act aligned expropriation legislation with the Constitution and outlined how and on what basis expropriation can be conducted.
The state and most other stakeholders focussed on land expropriation with nil compensation to “promote inclusivity and access to natural resources”.
If you want to see where this ends up, just look to Zimbabwe, which quickly went from being one of the most productive, affluent countries in Africa to one of the poorest once it reassigned land from knowledgeable white farmers to completely ignorant black citizens. Being the right skin color did not grow crops.
Two. Also in South Africa, because the dysfunctional, race-obsessed Marxist government is focused on land appropriation, it embarked upon a savage attack on artisanal miners trying to work old diamond mines. These people have created a community within the mines and pay for permission to mine them. However, in August, the government decided to go after the miners. What happened next was a disaster:
Hundreds, if not thousands, of miners have been trapped underground at a disused mine in South Africa for weeks as a police operation results in a humanitarian disaster – and a growing number of corpses.
At least 109 people have died and scores have resorted to cannibalism to avert the same fate in an abandoned mine shaft near Stilfontein, 170km southwest of Johannesburg, South Africa.
Police and soldiers disrupted supply routes to the miners in August, blocking food and other essentials from reaching those underground for three months in an effort to arrest illegal artisanal miners, known as zama zamas (“those who try”).
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In a letter sent to human rights lawyers, miners said there were 109 corpses and that some of those underground had resorted to cannibalism and eating cockroaches to stay alive. They asked for masks because of the smell and bleach to get rid of the maggots on the bodies.
Another video that surfaced showed emaciated people, many of them too weak to muster the considerable strength needed to find a way out of the tunnels.
Third, in Goma, the Democratic Republic of Congo (“DRC”), when a Rwanda-backed rebel group entered the city, “Hundreds of women were raped and burned alive during the chaos after a Rwandan-backed rebel group entered the Congolese city of Goma last week.” The DRC, of course, has been the site of non-stop war for decades, as battling groups (i.e., tribes) are engaged in non-stop war—something that precisely mimics the tribal battles that have been the norm in Stone Age communities going back tens of thousands of years.
For more about Africa, I highly recommend this essay by Kim du Toit. It’s 22 years old, but I suspect it’s only become more, rather than less, true over the years.
We must fight the Democrats’ balkanization efforts with every fiber of our beings. Failure to do so means that Africa’s fate could too easily be ours.