[WARNING: This post
is likely to be extremely long even by my very lax standards!]
So, recent events are looking ominous
for Iraq.
There are reasons why, and I'm going to
discuss what I believe is the primary one.
But first, back story!
See, I've been thinking about this post
for a long, long, looooooooong time.
Since, like, 2005.
Why so long? Because when I have a
topic this important, I like to give it some thought, and more
evaluation.
And I think this particular subject is
the real, true "culture war."
It's core to the events in our country,
in Iraq, in the world at large, and our success in dealing with it
will determine the future course of our society.
But first we have to talk about it, and
understand what “it” is, and to do that, in a most circuitous
way, I have to tell you a story.
Get a drink. Take a leak. Get comfy;
this one is a bit of an investment.
Ready?
Awesome.
So, we invaded Iraq. Took down a
dictator. In our fingerpointing culture, we love to argue about the
fact that that dictator was originally our idea.
Fair; the point those folks always miss
is that that then makes him specifically our moral responsibility to
remove when he begins to use weapons of mass destruction.
People also love to try to dismiss the
idea that Saddam Hussein had such weapons.
They conveniently forget that he
actively used them against the Kurds, one of the groups we'll be
talking about in passing. That is recorded, actual fact about which there's no argument or disagreement. There's no ACTUAL argument to support the idea that he
had no WMDs; there are only people who choose not to accept that idea in
favor of their chosen political agenda.
Not to worry, we'll eventually circle
back to that point, when we bring the discussion to our own shores.
But we removed him. He was a douche;
everyone pretty much agrees that Saddam was bad news.
So, now we set up a new government,
which is “democracy” in that the citizens all get to vote on
their new government, which then becomes...
Well, whatever they voted
for? Yay, self-determination!
And purple fingers.
Then, our heroic, expensive,
tragedy-filled, imperfect but admirable efforts having been
completed, we pack up to go home.
It's only a few months after that process finished, and the
collapse is already well underway.
Why?
Why are the Iraqis simply walking off
their posts, abandoning their obligations, and letting ISIS run
crazy?
I mean, seriously, as much of a goof as
he is, how can you let Archer kick your ass this bad?
(Whaddaya mean it's not that ISIS?
Shut... Oh. Oh, my bad.)
So, apparently these guys just have a
misfortunate naming choice, but they actually do have military
weapons, sort of.
They have a lot more now, because
although they started with AKs and IEDs, the materiel left behind
when the Iraqi Army packed up and went home has proven quite useful.
Dammit. (My tax dollars!)
So why did that happen?
Tribalism is one of the major answers.
See, “tribalism” doesn't mean what
we tend to think it does in the USA. Go 'Murica, and all, but when
we're discussing tribalism, we're not talking about Native Americans.
Tribalism as a concept is the system of
thought in which individuals hold loyalty primarily to smaller
groups, and rely on those groups as their “society” and culture,
instead of larger groups with more distributed impact.
What this means is that the Kurds tend
to hang with other Kurds because they trust them – there's a
certain level of societal trust and loyalty they can depend on with
other members of their smaller group, which isn't present in their
relationships with members of other groups, including larger groups
like the Iraqi government.
Why?
Because of external threats, mostly.
Iraqi culture over just the last hundred years has been a tapestry of
battle, foreign intervention, invasion, and civil strife.
When you can't trust the guy from 200
miles away because the last five guys from 200 miles away have tried
to steal your dinner and rape your daughter, you tend to trust the
guy next door a lot more.
See, a smaller group is easier. In a
smaller group, it's very easy to regulate the group to be aligned
with the interests of its members, and it's much easier to enforce
the group's standards against misbehavior internally. The bigger the
group becomes, the more difficult that trick becomes.
The most “visible,” with finger
quotes for “all of you people look alike to me” goodness, of
these groups are racial ones. In a lot of places around the globe,
this exact distinction has been used as an excuse to congregate, as
an identifier, as a common interest, as a common means of identifying
a foe...
Race is a thing, even if we're trying
really really hard to move past it in the USA. Or we think we are,
anyway.
This is another point we will come back
to, I promise, because it's hugely relevant to us. Not so much to
Iraqis, though, and since we're still talking about them...
So, we have this country which has
political parties, religious groups, racial groups. All kinds of
groups for the average citizen to belong to; and the average citizen
tends to identify with the groups with the most overlap for them. The
Ba'athists, for example, are a socialist political group founded by
Shi'a Muslims, but mostly made up of relatively secular Sunni members
now, due to a degree of Pan-Arabist thought not agreeable to most
Shi'a.
So, your average Iraqi has several
points of congruence to check there; Shi'a or Sunni? Primarily
religious or primarily secular? Pan-Arabist, or independent Iraq?
Socialist or corporatist or some other ist?
The ones who find themselves in
agreement with a plurality of those points of identification, tend to
align with the party. Just as in the United States, most citizens do
the same with Democrat or Republican, identifying with one or the
other (or one of the smaller parties,) based on congruence with their
own internal identifiers.
I'm getting ahead of myself.
So, we tried to build a single,
monolithic government for Iraq, and we gave it all the tools it
needed to survive but one: we gave it weapons, an army, money, food,
technology...
...But we couldn't make the citizens
trust it.
They still trust their smaller groups.
The Kurds still want an independent Kurdish state, which is extremely
unlikely, considering they live in parts of three nations, one of
which is much more stable than Iraq. The Sunnis want Sunni
leadership; the Shi'a want Shi'ite leadership. And they distrust the
eyebrows off anyone in one of the other groups – and
seemingly work their tails off to earn that distrust, by screwing the other groups
around as thoroughly as they can at every opportunity.
For a society as a whole to exist as a
stable entity, it needs the trust of its members.
The Iraqis have had nothing for the
last hundred years but demonstrations of why trusting an institution
as large as a national Iraqi government is a fool's game.
Predictably, they have learned not to
trust a national Iraqi government. Gee, it's funny how that works
out, don't you think?
Well, except it's not, really, because
when those Iraqi soldiers – those poor guys who tried to do the
right thing for their country – got ordered to abandon a position
in the face of the enemy, they assumed (having been trained in
military thinking) that there was a real reason for that order, even
if they didn't know what it was, so they followed it.
Except that reason was that their
senior officers don't trust the government any more than they do, not
realizing that that's a self-fulfilling prophecy. If the guards
abandon their posts, the government cannot guard you.
YOU'RE THE GUARDS, YOU WORTHLESS FUCKS!
Over the last 72 hours, I've been
reading news stories about Iraqi soldiers
weeping openly when they
realized that following the orders of
their superiors has left the
gates unguarded and open, and placed their families, their homes, in
harm's way again.
AGAIN.
They paid a huge price to be able to
guard their homes, and their act of trust in the society they were
building, the very act of trust they were asked to present as the
price of admission to a real society, has proved the downfall of that
society.
AGAIN.
I...
Words fail me.
They have betrayed
the concept of
trust. Their soldiers may never again be able to extend that degree
of trust. Each time society fails you,
your ability to believe it erodes, just a little.
I would say that the kind of man who is
willing to take up arms – against enemies whose brutality he knows
from years of experience – in support of an idea, is the kind of
man whose opinion matters at home.
The kind of man whose words are
weighed.
The generals and politicians in charge
of the Iraqi Army have just created a generation of men who will
tirelessly advocate for tribalism.
Their acts in betrayal of the society
the Iraqi Army was trying to build have not only destroyed that
society, they salted the fucking earth to ensure that another
government will never grow unless watered with blood.
Thanks, assholes.
What does this mean to us?
It means tragedy, despair, risk,
danger, and hope.
You see, those same forces are at work
in our society.
It's always easier to trust the guy
standing next to you than the one a hundred miles away.
It's so much easier to identify
yourself by a label. Even while we protest “being labeled,” we
fall so easily for that trick over and over.
“You're not really a feminist
because...”
“You're an Uncle Tom.”
“I don't trust foreigners.”
“The rich are out to get us.”
“My party is right about everything,
and your party is made up of lying liars who lie. Also idiots. Your
arguments are obviously insane and therefore shouldn't be allowed to
pollute the discourse.”
"All cis-people are rapists."
Tribalism.
The general culture in the United
States, as a whole, has a very high degree of societal trust. You
may not know your neighbor personally, but you're reasonably sure
that if he borrows your mower, he'll give it back – and if he
doesn't, there are societal recourses. You can call the police, and
be reasonably assured that your mower will be recovered.
You can rest in total certainty that,
even if they can't recover your mower, the police won't come to your
house, disapprove of your finances, burn your house down and rape your
sister.
The United States used to be considered
the great melting pot. Remember that phrase? It meant that immigrants
could come here from any part of the world, and they would be
welcomed into our culture.
Read that last sentence again.
That doesn't mean what it's been
twisted into.
Immigrants, coming to this nation, used
to be expected to become Americans.
But there's an insidious poison, which
is the notion that that expectation is wrong.
See, expecting you to act like you are
in the United States is the exact same requirement that every other
country on planet Earth has to their immigrants. Move to Mexico,
you're required by law to learn Spanish. Why? Because you have to fit
in.
You have to become a part of Mexican
culture.
Move to New Zealand? You have to be
gainfully employed before you can move there at all, and the
requirements for that are comically demanding. Why? Because you have
to fit in.
Only in the United States have we been
arrogant enough as a culture to assume that people coming here will
collect their American self-identity through osmosis, without any
kind of statutory requirement.
“Well, America is so much better than
where they came from...”
I've said something similar, myself, in
a slightly different context.
“Every year people cross 70 miles
of shark-infested ocean in flimsy boats to get here from Cuba. Nobody
goes the other direction.”
But that's because getting here is the
whole goal, guys.
Because the immigrants coming to the
United States now, don't believe their countries are a mess because
of them. Suggesting such a thing is hugely offensive. Try it; tell
someone that Africa is, by and large, fucked beyond repair because of
the decisions and behavior of Africans.
That's quite a shiner you're sporting,
there, chief.
What that means is that they agree
completely that the United States is better, but that happened
through sorcery. We're just luckier. Natural resources.
Better hair.
Whatever.
Either way, they flock here from all
over the world, to escape their shitty situation back home, and when
they get here, what's the first thing they do?
Find other people as similar to them as
possible, form a group, and try really, really hard to make their
little corner of this country as similar to their homeland as
possible.
Because...
...wait for it...
...They don't trust us.
They don't trust us, they don't trust
their local governments, they don't trust the federal government,
they don't believe the police are there to help them, they don't
believe the military is any more admirable or functional than the
ones in the countries they came from because...
…Because that's what life, and their
personal experiences, have taught them.
What evidence do they have? They came
from someplace where their life wasn't that great.
They come here, and they get treated as
a second-class citizen, because they can't speak English well, or
they look different, or they dress funny, and before you know it, you
have those tiny clusters giggling and looking over at you while
carrying on an animated conversation in a language you've never heard
before.
They're telling a joke, or making an
observation, that they know perfectly well would offend you if you
understood it. And they don't trust you, because you're not them, so
they keep that observation to themselves. Fuck you. You're different.
And it gets worse, because quite a lot
of people in this society, in this country, are working tirelessly to
make everyone here easily divide into a conveniently labeled group.
Why?
Why would they want that?
Why would they want a reduction in the
level of societal trust?
Because the smaller your group, the
more secure you are within that group – but the less able to resist
external control you become. Your group is more like you, but you're more outnumbered.
The more insular, and insulated, your
tribe – regardless of the label used to identify that tribe – the
weaker it is as a means of mutual defense.
Mutual defense is the most fundamental
function of a society.
Why would someone want to reduce your
ability to do that?
So they can control you.
So we bear labels.
Gay, Straight, Trans. White, Black,
Atheist, Christian, Hindu, Muslim. Male, Female. “Feminist.”
“Egalitarian.” Republican. Democrat.
And your degree of response to any of
those depends on your degree of personal trust in the society as a
whole, and your points of congruity with that societal sub-group.
When a trans-person goes on an
anti-cisperson rant, the tribalists rejoice.
When a single, noisy nutbar tells
people that an appreciative glance at an attractive member of the
opposite gender is “stare rape,” the tribalists rejoice.
When religious groups draw hatred for
their desire to adhere to their religion, the tribalists rejoice.
When you refuse to even listen to the
arguments of another political party because they're not on your
team, the tribalists rejoice.
They use victimhood as a weapon and a
rallying cry. The more offended you can be by someone else, the more
easily you can put that person on the defensive, when you have no
right to do that.
But the tribalists are to be feared.
The ideology of tribalism is a threat.
Why?
Ask the Iraqi Army.
And when you're done, when you've heard
the stories of those men who have eaten the bitterest fruit of
tribalism and been fooled into wanting more of it, ask yourself if
you want that, here.
Ask yourself if your label is more
important than being able to walk the streets unafraid, not free from
the worry that someone will pester you, but sure-footed and certain
in the knowledge that if that happens, someone will help you.
Ask yourself if your investment in your
tribe is so vast it's worth more to you than the fruits of a unified
culture. Because that culture is why people come here.
It's not sorcery. It's not luck. It's
not natural resources.
It's not good hair.
It's trust.
Ask yourself if your label is worth
more to you than trust, if your viewpoint is worth more than your
society, if your pet issue is more important than the culture that
made your viewpoint and pet issue safe enough to be relevant.
If you can answer that question "no,"
then congratulations; you're a real American, regardless of labels.
Because the only part of being an
American that's "real," is the determination that that
comes first; that as a society, we defend each other; protect each
other; that we're all on one team, and THAT team, that label, is the
one that really matters.
And if we forget that...
