Despite Balkans, ‘tribalism’ often a positive force

"Tribalism" has been flung around a lot as this year's dirty word.

It has been called the cause of the Balkan problems and of the small-mindedness of the Serbs, who stubbornly cherish Kosovo as their national "Jerusalem." And the European Union, that great historical reservoir of sweetness and light, recently expressed some impatience with Israel's tribal stubbornness about the real Jerusalem.

Some clarification is needed, and it should start with the Jews, who are, after all, a tribe -- but often uneasy about it.

In a famous essay early in the century, the American Jewish philosopher Morris Cohen wrote that Zionism was the kind of idea by which the world would be "Balkanized -- that is, organized on a tribal basis as it was in the Dark Ages. But whether tribalism triumphs or not, it is none the less evil, and thinking men should reject it."

Many of us wince at the "T" word as applied to us, but the typical dictionary definitions of tribalism fit us like a glove: "Strong feeling for a group with numerous families and generations claiming common ancestry, although often accepting adopted strangers -- and with some developed set of customs and traditions, often religious in nature."

The majority of young American Jews of his time initially agreed with Cohen, caught up in the prevailing belief that universalism was the great source of peace and brotherhood and that tribalism was consequently evil.

Of course, this was the same generation of American Jews who then fought in the war against Hitler and gradually learned about the Holocaust. When they came out the other end of that war -- those who did -- their opposition to Israel was broken. Even Cohen admitted that while he had not changed his mind about tribalism, Israel was a necessity.

Cohen's mistake was in underestimating the dangers of universalism. Sure, we all belong to a common humanity, but most of us cannot find a personal identity by just belonging to 5 billion people with thousands of different sets of customs and beliefs. Nor could we form a personal identity if all 5 billion suddenly adopted the same customs and beliefs. In both cases, the result is rootlessness, and from that comes the worst social diseases the world has ever seen -- from personal pathology to totalitarianism.

So, large numbers of Americans are now actively seeking a coherent and compatible community to which they can belong. Belonging to America is politically satisfying, but it is not enough. Without such a community, there is a vacuum that human nature usually abhors.

That community is often most successful as a network of families, of generations and of common traditions, especially religious traditions. That is why so many American Jewish youth today are seeking to more strongly "tribalize" themselves within America. For Jews, religion and tribe are inseparable.

But what about the recurrent tribal killing fields in the Balkans? Is there a difference between the tribalist impulses of, say, a Golda Meier and a Slobodan Milosevic?

Let's see. Meier said she was more forgiving of the Arabs for killing Jews than for forcing Jews to kill Arabs. And the majority of Israelis, just polled, have said that they think the Palestinians should have their own state -- although they, of course, want some security assurances in exchange. Israel is tribal by definition, but is constrained by other religious values.

Remember that the Yugoslavia where Tito's army imposed "universalism" was a brutal and repressive place with its own killing fields. It is not tribalism per se that is the evil there now, but a tribalism that is uncompromising and unconstrained by larger human values.

Tribalism, in itself, is an expression of important and honorable human needs. Without understanding that concept, we cannot understand either Israel or the American "Jewish renaissance" that we are trying to further.