Thomas L. Friedman Quote
The first and oldest of these traditions is tribe-like politics. I use the term tribe-like to refer to a pre-modern form of political interaction characterized by a harsh, survivalist quality and an adherence to certain intense primordial or kin-group forms of allegiance. Sometimes the tribe-like group that is in power in the Middle East, or is seeking power, is an actual tribe, sometimes it is a clan, members of a religious sect, a village group, a regional group; sometimes it is friends from a certain neighborhood, an army unit, and sometimes it is a combination of these groups. What all these associations have in common is the fact that their members are all bound together by a tribe-like spirit of solidarity, a total obligation to one another, and a mutual loyalty that takes precedence over allegiances to the wider national community or nation-state. The
The first and oldest of these traditions is tribe-like politics. I use the term tribe-like to refer to a pre-modern form of political interaction characterized by a harsh, survivalist quality and an adherence to certain intense primordial or kin-group forms of allegiance. Sometimes the tribe-like group that is in power in the Middle East, or is seeking power, is an actual tribe, sometimes it is a clan, members of a religious sect, a village group, a regional group; sometimes it is friends from a certain neighborhood, an army unit, and sometimes it is a combination of these groups. What all these associations have in common is the fact that their members are all bound together by a tribe-like spirit of solidarity, a total obligation to one another, and a mutual loyalty that takes precedence over allegiances to the wider national community or nation-state. The
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About Thomas L. Friedman
Friedman began his career as a reporter and won two Pulitzer Prizes in the 1980s for his coverage on conflict in Lebanon and politics in Israel, followed by a further prize in 2002 for commentary on the war on terror.