It's the Tribes (merged thread)

[Tukhachevskii]

What you said above negates what William Owen said. He thinks that tribalism is irrelevant in Lebanon. I wonder how much time he has spent with the ((Al-Luhayb)) of the ((Al-Jubur)) - they spend their time going between Lebanon, Palestine, Syria, Jordan, and Iraq!

Tribeguy,

Actually, what I posted was a link to the opinion of another commentator. Although having both studied tribal structures in the MENA at Uni as well as having experienced them in Yemen personally I can only speak for myself. Thus, I belive that the methodological reductionism that logically follows from your over-emphasis on tribal systems of governance does an injustice to the extremely complex political imbroglio currently extant in the MENA. That said, we know that tribalism played an immensely important role in Saddam Hussein's regime, which was deliberate and heightened, and still does though it is partly superveined upon buy sectarianism which was "supressed" as a politically motivating force. Also tribalism is very important in Jordan ,Yemen ,Pakistan and Afghanistan but less so in Egypt and Lebanon (previous caveats aside). In Pakistan and Afghanistan the tribal aspect is almost wholly isomorphic with the ethnic divisions of each country to such an extent that the explanatory value of isolating the tribal elements alone is about as useful as only focusing on the ethnic, linguistic or sectarian aspects. The structural metamorphosis that tribes underwent under the Egyptian and Lebanese regimes did not remove them but altered their significance and modus operandi. Tribes are not unimportant; their importance derives from the presence or absence of other political forces, trends, structures. As Lenin said (and, IMO, it was perhaps the only thing he said that ever had a ring of truth to it) "everything is connected to everything thing else". We must take that to the grundnorm of any comprehensive understanding of any political/military phenomena.