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Africa: "Tribe" Background Paper, 1
Africa: "Tribe" Background Paper, 1
Date distributed (ymd): 971221
APIC Document
APIC Background Paper 010 (November 1997)
This series of background papers is part of a program of public education
funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York and the Ford Foundation.
The attractively produced typeset version of this background paper is
available from APIC for $2 ($1.60 ea. for 20 or more). Add 15% for postage
and handling. Order in bulk for your class or study group, or to send to
news media in response to stereotypical coverage of Africa.
Talking about "Tribe": Moving from Stereotypes to Analysis
November, 1997
For most people in Western countries, Africa immediately calls up the
word "tribe." The idea of tribe is ingrained, powerful, and expected.
Few readers question a news story describing an African individual as a
tribesman or tribeswoman, or the depiction of an African's motives as tribal.
Many Africans themselves use the word "tribe" when speaking or
writing in English about community, ethnicity or identity in African states.
Yet today most scholars who study African states and societies--both
African and non-African--agree that the idea of tribe promotes misleading
stereotypes. The term "tribe" has no consistent meaning. It carries
misleading historical and cultural assumptions. It blocks accurate views
of African realities. At best, any interpretation of African events that
relies on the idea of tribe contributes no understanding of specific issues
in specific countries. At worst, it perpetuates the idea that African identities
and conflicts are in some way more "primitive" than those in
other parts of the world. Such misunderstanding may lead to disastrously
inappropriate policies.
In this paper we argue that anyone concerned with truth and accuracy
should avoid the term "tribe" in characterizing African ethnic
groups or cultures. This is not a matter of political correctness. Nor
is it an attempt to deny that cultural identities throughout Africa are
powerful, significant and sometimes linked to deadly conflicts. It is simply
to say that using the term "tribe" does not contribute to understanding
these identities or the conflicts sometimes tied to them. There are, moreover,
many less loaded and more helpful alternative words to use. Depending on
context, people, ethnic group, nationality, community, village, chiefdom,
or kin-group might be appropriate. Whatever the term one uses, it is essential
to understand that identities in Africa are as diverse, ambiguous, complex,
modern, and changing as anywhere else in the world.
Most scholars already prefer other terms to "tribe." So, among
the media, does the British Broadcasting Corporation. But "tribal"
and "African" are still virtually synonyms in most media, among
policy-makers and among Western publics. Clearing away this stereotype,
this paper argues, is an essential step for beginning to understand the
diversity and richness of African realities.
What's Wrong With "Tribe?"
- Tribe has no coherent meaning.
What is a tribe? The Zulu in South Africa, whose name and common identity
was forged by the creation of a powerful state less than two centuries
ago, and who are a bigger group than French Canadians, are called a tribe.
So are the !Kung hunter-gatherers of Botswana and Namibia, who number in
the hundreds. The term is applied to Kenya's Maasai herders and Kikuyu
farmers, and to members of these groups in cities and towns when they go
there to live and work. Tribe is used for millions of Yoruba in Nigeria
and Benin, who share a language but have an eight-hundred year history
of multiple and sometimes warring city-states, and of religious diversity
even within the same extended families. Tribe is used for Hutu and Tutsi
in the central African countries of Rwanda and Burundi. Yet the two societies
(and regions within them) have different histories. And in each one, Hutu
and Tutsi lived interspersed in the same territory. They spoke the same
language, married each other, and shared virtually all aspects of culture.
At no point in history could the distinction be defined by distinct territories,
one of the key assumptions built into "tribe."
Tribe is used for groups who trace their heritage to great kingdoms.
It is applied to Nigeria's Igbo and other peoples who organized orderly
societies composed of hundreds of local communities and highly developed
trade networks without recourse to elaborate states. Tribe is also used
for all sorts of smaller units of such larger nations, peoples or ethnic
groups. The followers of a particular local leader may be called a tribe.
Members of an extended kin-group may be called a tribe. People who live
in a particular area may be called a tribe. We find tribes within tribes,
and cutting across other tribes. Offering no useful distinctions, tribe
obscures many. As a description of a group, tribe means almost anything,
so it really means nothing.
If by tribe we mean 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. These characteristics almost never correspond
precisely with each other today, nor did they at any time in the past.
- Tribe promotes a myth of primitive African timelessness, obscuring
history and change.
The general sense of tribe as most people understand it is associated
with primitiveness. To be in a tribal state is to live in a uncomplicated,
traditional condition. It is assumed there is little change. Most African
countries are economically poor and often described as less developed or
underdeveloped. Westerners often conclude that they have not changed much
over the centuries, and that African poverty mainly reflects cultural and
social conservatism. Interpreting present day Africa through the lens of
tribes reinforces the image of timelessness. Yet the truth is that Africa
has as much history as anywhere else in the world. It has undergone momentous
changes time and again, especially in the twentieth century. While African
poverty is partly a product of internal dynamics of African societies,
it has also been caused by the histories of external slave trades and colonial
rule.
- In the modern West, tribe often implies primitive savagery.
When the general image of tribal timelessness is applied to situations
of social conflict between Africans, a particularly destructive myth is
created. Stereotypes of primitiveness and conservative backwardness are
also linked to images of irrationality and superstition. The combination
leads to portrayal of violence and conflict in Africa as primordial, irrational
and unchanging. This image resonates with traditional Western racialist
ideas and can suggest that irrational violence is inherent and natural
to Africans. Yet violence anywhere has both rational and irrational components.
Just as particular conflicts have reasons and causes elsewhere, they also
have them in Africa. The idea of timeless tribal violence is not an explanation.
Instead it disguises ignorance of real causes by filling the vacuum of
real knowledge with a popular stereotype.
- Images of timelessness and savagery hide the modern character of African
ethnicity, including ethnic conflict.
The idea of tribe particularly shapes Western views of ethnicity and
ethnic conflict in Africa, which has been highly visible in recent years.
Over and over again, conflicts are interpreted as "ancient tribal
rivalries," atavistic eruptions of irrational violence which have
always characterized Africa. In fact they are nothing of the sort. The
vast majority of such conflicts could not have happened a century ago in
the ways that they do now. Pick almost any place where ethnic conflict
occurs in modern Africa. Investigate carefully the issues over which it
occurs, the forms it takes, and the means by which it is organized and
carried out. Recent economic developments and political rivalries will
loom much larger than allegedly ancient and traditional hostilities.
Ironically, some African ethnic identities and divisions now portrayed
as ancient and unchanging actually were created in the colonial period.
In other cases earlier distinctions took new, more rigid and conflictual
forms over the last century. The changes came out of communities' interactions
within a colonial or post-colonial context, as well as movement of people
to cities to work and live. The identities thus created resemble modern
ethnicities in other countries, which are also shaped by cities, markets
and national states.
- Tribe substitutes a generalized illusion for detailed analysis of particular
situations.
The bottom-line problem with the idea of tribe is that it is intellectually
lazy. It substitutes the illusion of understanding for analysis of particular
circumstances. Africa is far away from North America. Accurate information
about particular African states and societies takes more work to find than
some other sorts of information. Yet both of those situations are changing
rapidly. Africa is increasingly tied into the global economy and international
politics. Using the idea of tribe instead of real, specific information
and analysis of African events has never served the truth well. It also
serves the public interest badly.
If "Tribe" Is So Useless, Why Is it So Common?
- Tribe reflects once widespread but outdated 19th century social theory.
As Europeans expanded their trade, settlement and military domination
around the world, they began trying to understand the different forms of
society and culture they met. In the 19th century, ideas that societies
followed a path of evolution through definite stages became prominent.
One widespread theory saw a progression from hunting to herding to agriculture
to mechanical industry. City-focused civilization and related forms of
government were associated with agriculture. Forms of government and social
organization said to precede civilization among pastoralists and simple
agriculturalists were called tribal. It was also believed that cosmopolitan
industrial civilization would gradually break down older localized identities.
Over the course of the 20th century scholars have learned that such
images tried to make messy reality neater than it really is. While markets
and technology may be said to develop, they have no neat correspondence
with specific forms of politics, social organization, or culture. Moreover,
human beings have proven remarkably capable of changing older identities
to fit new conditions, or inventing new identities (often stoutly insisting
that the changed or new identities are eternal). Examples close to home
include new hyphenated American identities, new social identities (for
example, gay/lesbian), and new religious identities (for example, New Age).
- Social theories of tribes resonated with classical and biblical education.
Of course, most ordinary Western people were not social theorists. But
theories of social evolution spread through schools, newspapers, sermons
and other media. The term tribe was tied with classical and biblical images.
The word itself comes from Latin. It appears in Roman literature describing
early Roman society itself. The Romans also used it for Celtic and Germanic
societies with which many 19th and early 20th century Europeans and Americans
identified. Likewise the term was used in Latin and English bibles to characterize
the twelve tribes of Israel. This link of tribes to prestigious earlier
periods of Western culture contributed to the view that tribe had universal
validity in social evolution.
- Tribe became a cornerstone idea for European colonial rule in Africa.
This background of belief, while mistaken in many respects, might have
been relatively benign. However, emerging during the age of scientific
rationalism, the theories of social evolution became intertwined with racial
theories. These were used to justify first the latter stages of the Atlantic
slave trade (originally justified on religious grounds), and later European
colonial rule. The idea that Africans were a more primitive, lower order
of humanity was sometimes held to be a permanent condition which justified
Europeans in enslaving and dominating them. Other versions of the theory
held that Africans could develop but needed to be civilized by Europeans.
This was also held to justify dominating them and taking their labor, land
and resources in return for civilization.
These justifying beliefs were used to support the colonization of the
whole continent of Africa after 1880, which otherwise might more accurately
have been seen as a naked exercise of power. It is in the need to justify
colonizing everyone in Africa that we finally find the reason why all Africans
are said to live in tribes, whether their ancestors built large trading
empires and Muslim universities on the Niger river, densely settled and
cultivated kingdoms around the great lakes in east-central Africa, or lived
in much smaller-scale communities between the larger political units of
the continent.
Calling nearly all African social groups tribes and African identities
tribal in the era of scientific racism turned the idea of tribe from a
social science category into a racial stereotype. By definition Africans
were supposed to live in tribes, preferably with chiefs. The colonizers
proposed to govern cheaply by adapting tribal and chiefship institutions
into European-style bureaucratic states. If they didn't find tribes and
chiefs, they encouraged people to identify as tribes, and appointed chiefs.
In some places, like Rwanda or Nigeria, colonial racial theory led to favoring
one ethnic group over another because of supposed racial superiority (meaning
white ancestry). In other places, emphasis on tribes was simply a tool
of divide and rule strategies. The idea of tribe we have today cannot escape
these roots.
But Why Not Use "Tribe?" Answers to Common Arguments
- In the United States no one objects to referring to Indian tribes.
Under US law, tribe is a bureaucratic term. For a community of Native
Americans to gain access to programs, and to enforce rights due to them
under treaties and laws, they must be recognized as a tribe. This is comparable
to unincorporated areas applying for municipal status under state laws.
Away from the law, Native Americans often prefer the words nation or people
over tribe.
Historically, the US government treats all Native American groups as
tribes because of the same outdated cultural evolutionary theories and
colonial viewpoints that led European colonialists to treat all African
groups as tribes. As in Africa, the term obscures wide historical differences
in way of life, political and social organization, and culture among Native
Americans. When we see that the same term is applied indiscriminately to
Native American groups and African groups, the problem of primitive savagery
as the implied common denominator only becomes more pronounced.
- Africans themselves talk about tribes.
Commonly when Africans learn English they are taught that tribe is the
term that English-speakers will recognize. But what underlying meaning
in their own languages are Africans translating when they say tribe? Take
the word isizwe in Zulu. In English, writers often refer to the Zulu tribe,
whereas in Zulu the word for the Zulu as a group would be isizwe. Often
Zulu-speakers will use the English word tribe because that's what they
think English speakers expect, or what they were taught in school. Yet
Zulu linguists say that a better translation of isizwe is nation or people.
The African National Congress called its guerrilla army Umkhonto weSizwe,
"Spear of the Nation" not "Spear of the Tribe." Isizwe
refers both to the multi-ethnic South African nation and to ethno-national
peoples that form a part of the multi-ethnic nation. When Africans use
the word tribe in general conversation, they do not mean the negative connotations
of primitivism the word has in Western countries.
- African leaders see tribalism as a major problem in their countries.
This is true. But what they mean by this is ethnic divisiveness, as
intensified by colonial divide and rule tactics. Colonial governments told
Africans they came in tribes, and rewarded people who acted in terms of
ethnic competition. Thus for leaders trying to build multi-ethnic nations,
tribalism is an outlook of pursuing political advantage through ethnic
discrimination and chauvinism. The association of nation-building problems
with the term "tribe" just reflects the colonial heritage and
translation issue already mentioned.
African ethnic divisions are quite real, but have little to do with
ancient or primitive forms of identity or conflict. Rather, ethnic divisiveness
in Africa takes intensely modern forms. It takes place most often in urban
settings, or in relations of rural communities to national states. It relies
on bureaucratic identity documents, technologies like writing and radio,
and modern techniques of organization and mobilization.
Like ethnic divisions elsewhere, African ethnic divisions call on images
of heritage and ancestry. In this sense, when journalists refer to the
ethnic conflicts so prominent all across the modern world -- as in Bosnia
or Belgium -- as tribalism, the implied resemblance to Africa is not wrong.
The problem is that in all these cases what is similar is very modern,
not primitive or atavistic. Calling it primitive will not help in understanding
or changing it.
- Avoiding the term tribe is just political correctness.
No, it isn't. Avoiding the term tribe is saying that ideas matter. If
the term tribe accurately conveyed and clarified truths better than other
words, even if they were hard and unpleasant truths, we should use it.
But the term tribe is vague, contradictory and confusing, not clarifying.
For the most part it does not convey truths but myths, stereotypes and
prejudices. When it does express truths, there are other words which express
the same truths more clearly, without the additional distortions. Given
a choice between words that express truths clearly and precisely, and words
which convey partial truths murkily and distortedly, we should choose the
former over the latter. That means choosing nation, people, community,
chiefdom, kin-group, village or another appopriate word over tribe, when
writing or talking about Africa. The question is not political correctness
but empirical accuracy and intellectual honesty.
- Rejecting tribe is just an attempt to deny the reality of ethnic divisions.
On the contrary, it is an attempt to face the reality of ethnic divisions
by taking them seriously. It is using the word tribe and its implications
of primitive, ancient, timeless identities and conflicts which tries to
deny reality. Since "we" are modern, saying ethnic divisions
are primitive, ancient and timeless (tribal) says "we are not like
that, those people are different from us, we do not need to be concerned."
That is the real wishful thinking, the real euphemism. It is taking the
easy way out. It fills in ignorance of what is happening and why with a
familiar and comfortable image. The image, moreover, happens to be false.
The harder, but more honest course, and the only course which will allow
good policy or the possibility of finding solutions (although it guarantees
neither) is to try to recognize, understand and deal with the complexities.
To say African groups are not tribes, and African identities are not tribal,
in the common-sense meanings of those words, is not to deny that African
ethnic divisions exist. It is to open up questions: what is their true
nature? How do they work? How can they be prevented from taking destructive
forms? It is, moreover, to link the search for those answers in Africa
to the search for answers to the similar questions that press on humanity
everywhere in the world today.
The main text of this paper was drafted by Chris Lowe (Boston University).
The final version also reflects contributions from Tunde Brimah (University
of Denver), Pearl-Alice Marsh (APIC), William Minter (APIC), and Monde
Muyangwa (National Summit on Africa).
(continued in part 2, with "Cases in Point" and "For
Further Reading")
This material is produced and distributed by the Africa Policy Information
Center (APIC), the educational affiliate of the Washington Office on Africa.
APIC's primary objective is to widen the policy debate in the United States
around African issues and the U.S. role in Africa, by providing accessible
policy-relevant information and analysis usable by a wide range of groups
and individuals.
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