Tribalism

The H11 Newsletter is on the website (forgot to put that up). 

My father always said that tribalism is the biggest cause of trouble in the world. But what is tribalism? Does my 100% English ancestry going back minimum six generations and much further mean that I am a single tribal descendant? Absolutely not as I do have Huguenot ancestry from the late 1400s arriving in Somerset from France. I also have Scot ancestry with my Routledge family arriving in Cumberland around the beginning of the 1400s in the Bewcastle area. My possible Irish ancestry arrived in Lancashire/Warwickshire area in the latter part of the 1700s from Northern  Ireland so even with all that English ancestry I have a lot of British Isles and Northern European ancestry. But I think to him tribalism was more of a mindset where one begins to think of their locale/area as a distinct unit but no one on this earth is of a distinct tribal nature unless you belong to one of the secluded groups that are becoming rarer and rarer in the Amazon and other isolated spots. But they are not truly a tribe but rather just a hermit group of people who have managed to keep civilization away from them. 

The danger lies in thinking that you are unique and that uniqueness gives you some sort of a special footing and to me that is tribalism. At its worst we saw Hitler using brute force and creating a police state that spilled out over its borders in pursuit of land and riches. That is what we always need to prevent and at the moment both Hamas in their barbaric attack on Israel and Russia in their barbaric attack on Ukraine exemplify "tribalism" where they assert causes that they claim gives them a right to do these things. They need to be nipped in the bud and forced back into the area they sprang from with no gains (where does Hamas belong; desert island perhaps with lots of sharks around it). Still the hostages are not released and it is more than 1.5 years since that was demanded by the International Court. All the children stolen from Ukraine not yet returned either by Russia. 

The origins of Hamas are actually unknown to me; I assume they are disgruntled Muslims (they appear to claim to be followers of Islam which is actually hard to believe given the murder/torture of the Israeli people committed by Hamas 7 Oct 2023) who could not make it in their own country; found a commonality with each other; tried to take over Egypt and then thrown out of Egypt they leached onto the Palestinian people and we have the result in front of us - the Palestinian people still being used by Hamas to try to attract the attention of the world and create hate for Israel (but most importantly money and land for themselves because they are just greedy and they decided on this route to satisfy their greed). Russia used the "clearing out Nazis" route to invade Ukraine which is just another big lie; it is Russian greed for land and resources that drives Russia but what have they gained; a lot of deaths of their own youth and a lot of hate from Europe which was actually coming around to like them. They sacrificed the goodwill created by their contribution to the Second World War although their contribution entirely on the Eastern front with the Western Allies being the victors in the west, north and south. 

So tribalism is a mind set having almost nothing to do with your ethnicity which in my case appears to be 100% European with 66% being British/Irish if I look at 23 and Me, going to Living DNA I am 100% British and as I continue the rounds from Ancestry to FT DNA to My Heritage to the Genographic Study the numbers vary here and there but in general the 100% European/British Isles remains as the overall accepted value for my ethnicity. But that only goes back a few thousand years and we all sprang from the south around the equator!

But we need to watch tribalism where some people support one group as being superior; that is a mistake for sure and exceptionalism can happen in any society that is not repressed and encourages education or in a repressive society but with sources (like well educated parents or some other source) that can supply knowledge and create exceptionalism from the gifted children in our world.  

My thoughts for the day and we had a great rain yesterday; much needed and appreciated. Thank you God.