As American as They Wanna Be

In any case, one of the blabbermouths on The McLaughlin Group started talking about the possibility of establishing a democratic government in Iraq, assuming a U.S. win in the war I assume we're going to wage over there. It seemed like the blabbermouth (who may actually have been Pat Buchanan, come to think of it) wasn't really questioning that we would try to set up a democratically elected government, but did question how well that would go over with the locals.

This got me to thinking about the whole idea of democracy. I suppose that I am as parochial about democracy (and the free-market economy that goes with it in the U.S.) as any American. Who wouldn't want to live under a government vetted by a majority of the citizens of a given nation or state?

But thinking about it, I realized something about Americans: we are not a tribal people, not at all. What we see as "family" means blood more than community. There are some ways that the community as family might be an advantage, but on the other hand, if we were tribal, our democracy could not have succeeded, and I think that would be a shame.

I do not understand the tribal mindset that has led to genocide in Africa and dictatorships in many other countries. It is completely foriegn to me, as democracy might well be to a person raised in Cold War Russia.

Part of it is that recent history is very different than ancient history. I tend to think that Americans have less of a sense of ancient history since the country--and even the land it occupies--was nothing but myth in the way back. Whether you like us or not, we have managed to cram quite a bit of growing into slightly less than 300 years.

Another part is that we have never had large families who were politically dominant and controlled enough of the land mass to make a difference. That's one good thing about our size, it keeps us honest.

As usual, I am not sure what my conclusion is, except that tribalism can be dangerous. I don't think tribalism is currently a problem in Iraq; although Saddam Hussein did succeed a relative, and he intends for one of his sons to succeed him, but his motivations seem more political to me than familial. (In other words, it seems to me that he cares more about the endurance of his policies than anything else.)

On the other hand, if the U.S. and all its might manage to affect regime change in Iraq, all of a sudden we're going to have to deal with tribalism.

And I think that's a much stronger force than anybody in the American military recognizes.

before - after