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Tribal and urban people by Louis Proyect 06 February 2002 00:31 UTC |
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Jack Weatherford, "Savages and Civilization: Who Will Survive?" The North African scholar and public official Ab-ar-Rahman Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406) wrote the first historical analysis to focus on the relationship between tribal and urban people as the key to understanding world history and human civilization. His greatest work was the seven-volume history of the world, Kitab al-'Ibar, in which he stated his intention to invent a science of civilization, drawing from his studies of Arabic, Greek, and Hebrew writings and from his own political service in Spain, the Maghreb, and Egypt. Ibn Khaldun regarded asabiyah, loosely translated as "group solidarity" or "community," as the primary principle underlying tribal society. For Ibn Khaldun, asabiyah arises from kinship, mutual assistance, and affection and thereby forms the essence of tribal social life and culture. Tribal people live on the earth in a simple, natural way that satisfies basic needs, but they must maintain a strong sense of community to survive in the harsh environment they inhabit. In Ibn Khaldun's analysis, city people needed tribal people because the tribal people reinvigorated the civilized world. Tribes brought new blood to the cities, and they brought ideas such as Islam or Judaism from the desert to the city. Most important, they brought a direct, simple, and honest way of dealing with one another and with the world around them. These strengths of tribal community account for the success of the Hebrew tribes in conquering the Canaanite cities, of the Arab Bedouins in conquering the Middle East, of the Moors in conquering Spain, and even for the success of the Turkish tribes from Asia pressing on the urbanized Arab and Persian world during Ibn Khaldun's lifetime. The longer tribal people associated with urban people, however, the weaker the former became. When tribal people came in contact with urban civilization, asabiyah immediately came under attack from the luxuries that weaken kinship and community ties of the tribe and by the artificial wants for new types of cuisine, new fashions in clothing, larger homes, and other novelties of urban life. According to Ibn Khaldun, Civilization faces an eternal dilemma. Civilization needs the tribal values to survive; yet civilized urban life in most parts of the world destroys tribal people whenever contact is made. -- Louis Proyect, lnp3@panix.com on 02/05/2002 Marxism list: http://www.marxmail.org
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