Tribalizing America

The purpose of this book is to call attention to the emerging crisis in America’s identity, with the hope of inspiring an effort to address the crisis, through the return to emphasizing a unified purpose, culture, and people. Such effort is necessary in order to preserve the essential character of the United States of America, a culture guided by moral clarity and a people united by the common fundamental ideals of unity and progress. The essence of the American identity and character, up till now, is in successfully maintaining the delicate balance between individual identity and group identity. The foundation of the American consciousness lies in the belief that individual rights rank above group rights and that collective individual rights should determine group rights; that group rights should derive from individual rights, not determine them. This is the essence of both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, which are, perhaps, the two greatest testaments of democracy in human history, all deriving from the providential ideals that we are all created equal by God and in the image of God, hence the unalienable rights of the individual citizen.

Some people characterize the emerging crisis in America’s identity as a sign of inevitable coming of age—the shedding of quaint idealism for the “new and more progressive idealism” called multiculturalism. This new idealism is the essential element of postmodernism or the postmodern age, and is viewed as one borne by the vehicle of political correctness, on the road to progress. While recognizing the merits of political correctness, I must say that I disagree with that point of view. I believe that the crisis is borne by multiculturalism and moral relativism, driving the vehicle of political correctness to the terminus of chaos. There is unnecessary and over emphasis on ethnicity in America today that encourages cultural divergence and sectarianism, ‘tribalism’, if you like, hence encouraging division. This is a direct threat to the continued viability of the United States, because it weakens cohesion and erodes the unity of purpose of this great country.

There is an increasing and dangerous shift in ideals—a departure from the ideals of the founders that emphasized individual rights instead of group rights. Considering the entrenched and debilitating ethnic and sectarian problems that plague most of the world, as we see today in places like Turkey, Macedonia, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Bosnia, Sudan, Syria, Rwanda, Nigeria, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, etc., America must wake up and turn back from the path it has embarked on, to avoid ending up in a similar or worse situation. America must return to emphasizing ideas and values that have worked and made America successful thus far—a common language instead of multiple languages, individual rights instead of group rights, unified cultures instead of divergent cultures; the same ideas and values that have worked and made America successful, instead of embracing failed ideas and values in the name of multiculturalism and political correctness.

The bedrock of America’s success and greatness is the rights of individual citizens, as guaranteed by the Constitution and the loyalty of those citizens to the single national entity — the United States of America. America’s democracy and prosperity remain unparalleled by any other, at least in recent history, primarily because of the underlying principles upon which America was founded. These principles are fundamentally based on individual rights and freedom rather than group or disparate collective rights. They derive from the providential ideal that “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights”.

Even great movements such as the labor and civil rights, in spite of their importance, are purely symbolic political and social vehicles by which individuals commute to their destination —the provisions of the Constitution, or merely platforms from which individuals reach out for what they believe are their entitlements—social justice, under the Constitution. The collective rights of these “pseudo groups” do not transcend or override individual rights; rather, they derive from individual rights—collective individual rights. They are, indeed, microcosms of the larger American democracy.

The human and constitutional rights of the individual citizen are the essence of true democracy. Without them, the exercise would be devoid of legitimacy. As a recent immigrant from Nigeria, a country where the main obstacle to true democracy is wanton and rampant abuse of human and constitutional rights of the individual citizen and endemic corruption fostered by tribalism and nepotism, I have seen individual rights eroded, and in some cases, completely replaced by group (i.e. tribal or ethnic) rights.

Many of the political leaders of such groups are lacking in vision, purpose, and virtuous intent, and are patently fraudulent, possessing only dubious motives to exploit the people they claim to represent, most of whom are uninformed and politically misguided. These so-called “leaders” are hopelessly unreliable. More often than not, when their conducts and records are held up to scrutiny, they sidestep the issue of accountability, by resorting to group (tribal) politics fueled by misinformation and deception.

They frequently excite the sentiment of their groups, by deceptively and manipulatively arousing emotions and long-held perceptions, which have perennially turned groups against one another. This tactic has become the choice instrument of manipulation and exploitation. It is guaranteed to work like a charm all the time, to effectively divert scrutiny away from the corrupt instigators and their dubious conducts. They just stand aside and gleefully relish the spectacle of the mayhem they have induced, and they are deft at doing so.

There is a great concern that the current rate of integration in America or lack thereof presents a serious potential problem to the American identity and democracy. Because of this, the inherent and attendant problems thereof, such as the politicians who are desperate to stay in power (and who increasingly exploit these problems) and the unprincipled and rabid capitalists, whose allegiance lies only in wherever, whatever, and