Mordukhay Murad 7/28/2007 Anthro 127
The Role of Tribes in the US Conflict in Iraq
My article discusses the current situation in Iraq and the attempt of the United States to restore order by gaining the loyalty and arming several different tribal groups that exist in the area. This tactic comes along with many positive and negative consequences. Lets take a look at this situation and see if we can relate it to subjects and readings covered in this course. "Race is a way of differentiating people by physical characteristics which themselves are said to signify something about a persons intellectual and physical properties ... Ethnicity is a way of differentiating people by cultural characteristics such as language and social custom. Nationality is the ethnicity of the nation-state." (OConnell 1) The issue going on in Iraq currently, separates several different ethnicities and sub-ethnicities that were once united as part of one single nation. Now, the Shiites, Sunnis, Kurds, and other groups are split into roughly 30 different tribal confederations which consist of hundreds of tribes and clans. These groups have proven to be a very powerful force against Al-Qaeda in the War in Iraq. Because of this "the No 2 U.S. Commander in Iraq, Army Lieutenant General Raymond T. Odierno, the told reporters that he was encouraging commanders to strike deals with tribes, religious leaders and local insurgent
groups that could help build reconciliation from the ground up ." Ever since the U.S. troops have been discussing tactics and making deals with the local tribal groups huge differences have been seen. More and more locals have been creating their own security forces in different areas of the region and the amount of attacks in areas where talks have been made have dropped by more than half. These leaders also have great knowledge of the area and can be the deciding factor in the US victory overseas. This is one of the crucial reasons why it is so important to gain the support of these groups. Another is the fact that ethnicity is stronger and more powerful adhesive nationality. "In contrast to nationality which is a fluid concept, as in the case of the Welsh and Bretons) , ethnicity is generally fixed and immutable. A person can change his nationality but not his ethnicity." (Katzman 8) Since ethnicity binds people much more strongly than nationality, convincing a few key members in a tribal group to provide assistance , usually means the rest of that group will wholeheartedly join the conflict . However, promoting tribalism to such an extent can have its consequences as well. First of all, tribes function based on their own set of laws, subject to change at their own discretion. This can be a very unstable and dangerous inconsistency. Also, their loyalty can be very short-lived. "Although tribes can offer effective leadership at the grass-roots level, their shifting loyalties and frequent clashes among them present risk on a national
stage." Because of this the U.S. must be very wary while arming these tribal groups because chances are that it will not be very easy to disarm them. Also you must be very careful with the leaders of these tribes because they are usually available to highest bidder. If they start gaining to much authority over the situation they can negatively impact the situation and it might start looking very similar to Afghanistan or Pakistan. Another reason which may make the encouragement and arming of tribes the in region a bad idea is because this is a form of structural violence. Although structural violence usually includes a dominant force systematically oppressing and killing of members of a less dominant group, it can be also used to describe methods in which one group provokes another group to commit violent acts against their rivals for the overall benefit of the first group. According to Wikipedia.org, "Structural violence and direct violence are highly interdependent . Structural violence inevitably produces conflict and often direct violence including family violence, racial violence, hate crimes, terrorism, genocide, and war." The U.S. is attempting to take over control of the insurgent problem by giving weapons to Iraqi citizens and religious groups and sending them off to battle against their own people. Although these people might not be the same on an ethnic level, they all share similarities on a national level. "The history of Rwanda and Burundi shows that once minor-ethnic categories Hutu and Tutsi share language and culture and kinship systems - were lent weight and social meaning by colonial administrators who divided and conquered, deepening social inequalities and the fueling nascent ethnic
rivalry." This shares frighteningly similar characteristics to what the United States is attempting to do in Iraq right now. Encouraging these people to fight against one another seriously stunts the development of Iraq as a whole and stirs conflict not so easily resolved. However, the overall situation there is improving for the moment. The people are being more supportive of the United States and there is slow progress between their relations. Promoting tribalism seems to be easing the influence radical insurgent groups have on Iraq as a whole. ",,In all countries, you cant do anything without the people, and the people of Iraq are tribal, said Faleh Dulaimi, media advisor to Rishawi, who heads the Abu Risha tribe." Under Saddam Hussein, these tribal groups were suppressed and methods were put into place to make these tribal groups lose influence. However over time, Hussein realized the importance of these groups and began openly encouraging tribalism. Most of Iraq is ethnically divided anyways, national identity is very weak. This has gotten worse since the US wiped out the Iraqi military and the few unifying groups that were in power of the country. This lead to the state in which Iraq is now. "The political formations that make up the current government are mostly based on ethnicity and religion." Hopefully, the effort of the United States to involve the tribal groups of Iraq in securing the stability in their own country will only continue to take positive steps forward.
References Cited
Chuck OConnell, 2003, Introduction; The Social Construction of Race, Ethnicity, and Nationalism; Can You Tell By Looking? and; The Social Construction of Race: Transforming "White" into "Black." In The Reader for Race and Ethnicity, 3rd edition, edited by Chuck OConnell, pp. ix, 1-5. Boston: Pearson Custom Publishing. Avi Katzman, 2003, Peeling the Ethnic Onion. In The Reader for Race and Ethnicity, 3rd edition, edited by Chuck OConnell, pp. 7-9. Boston: Pearson Custom Publishing.
Paul Farmer, 2003, On Suffering and Structural Violence.Patholiges of Power Berkely University Printing Press Wikipedia.org 7/26/2007 Structural Violence http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structural_violence 6/15/2007