Ants, millions and millions of ants, each
individual belonging to a nest, and each nest belongs to a specific type of
species. Same goes to tribalism. Tribalism is where people with the same
thoughts and principles live together in a social organization called tribes.
Same as ants, these people are strongly ethnical and extremely loyal to their
tribes, even if it means sacrificing their lives.
Kenya is a country where majority of its
nations are involved in tribalism. Although the history of tribalism in Kenya
couldn’t be tracked down to the ancient times, which suggests that Kenya is quite
new to tribalism, there are many conflicts happening between the tribes, where
people from different tribes are always insulting and criticizing each other
due to their different thoughts and mindsets influenced by their respective
tribes. In some occasions, these small actions will lead to big brutal wars
which involve fighting and killing. For instance, in the year 2007, Kenya had
suffered more than 1200 casualties in a war which lasted a month long,
triggered by the re-election of the president, causing the supporting tribe to
be in war with the opposing tribe. Houses were burned down, people were killed,
and it was a total chaos.
A war between you yourself might be good for thoughts
on decision-making, but however, in the scale of a nation, it is not. Kenya
used to be in harmony; however this generation of the nation is not able to be
united due to political issues where the government is very hard to be chosen
as everyone is fighting to control the state. It will not make much difference in
politics due to the hatred of one another’s tribes, including the governments.
Also, in order to hold an election for the government, the country must be
prepared to give the prices and to face the consequences as tribes will
disagree with one another, with everyone suggesting that their tribe leader
should lead the country, triggering a lot of conflicts and in serious
situations, war.
Tribalism can also be judge as a burden in
the human society. It had manipulated the minds of its entire group, leading
them to the loss of their humanities and moral values. Competitions between the
tribes and loyalty had caused the people to doing actions from insulting to
killing each other, those who are not loyal to the tribe or denies to perform
traditional rituals or actions which doesn’t make sense will result to the
extermination from the tribe, sometimes even with violence.
Besides, loyalty in tribalism is just an
excuse for “forcing” its people to perform actions which are irrelevant and
maybe deadly to themselves and others. They are forced to perform dangerous
rituals and to fight others where it threatens life. It is considered as a test
of loyalty however, the theory of loyalty is misunderstood by the tribes where
loyalty is earned, not forced.
People in the tribe can argue tribalism can be
a driving force of the people, giving them a purpose in their lives, dedicating
and servicing the tribe, giving them the sense of nationhood and common good,
influencing and expanding the tribe by gathering more peoples. Tribalism is
indeed a driving force for the people, but where? It acts as a driving force
for people to do bad things, a force which leads people into chaos and giving
them the excuse on blaming the fault on others, especially people who do not
agree with them. Moreover, tribalism does not give the sense of nationhood to
its people as it is obvious to where there is no presence of unity in the
country.
Also, tribalism states that they provide a
non-hierarchical environment to the people, escaping the hierarchical cities of
the modern world. People live in happiness, with all the rights being
distributed equally among the tribes, sharing everything they have or found.
The argument is invalid as a non-hierarchical environment is the best
opportunity for corruption. The human nature is not designed to live in a
non-hierarchical environment due to the natural behavior of humans such as
greed or envy. Even in a non-hierarchical environment, there will sure be
natural competition between one another, competing with one another.
Describe as the cancer of a country,
tribalism is silently destroying the infrastructure of it, slowing down and
holding back every new improvement, development, or change. The case under this
is caused by the loyalty of the tribe members to their cultures and traditions,
where they ignore and disapprove with any new changes which interfere with
their traditional methods or thoughts. This is why even with technology
provided to them, they will still prefer using the traditional methods due to
close-minded believes.
The ants are very hardworking groups where
they will attack other species to increase survival or to get advantages from
them such as slavery. However, we are humans and not insects. In conclusion,
tribalism is bringing the world disadvantages more than advantages. We humans
are social and are able to live together as a world. Changes are essential for
the advancement of humans and there must be a change in mindsets in tribalism
or they will be eliminated from the world some days due to the technological
fallback.
