For the Nation to Live the Tribe Must Die
1. ‘For the nation to live, the tribe must die.’ Assess the validity of Samora Machel’s assertion with reference to examples in Africa and/or Asia.
It has been estimated that there may be some 600 to 1,000 different tribal groups or more in Africa. There are some whose territory may be 200 or 300 miles square. Inside each large territory may live more than a million people. The smaller tribes may have only two or three thousand people and some of the smallest have only a few hundred. Most tribes are no larger than 250,000 people, the population of only a medium-sized American city. To a number Africans today, the tribe is more important than the nation in which he or she lives. Subsequently it has been said that the African will think of himself as a Yoruba or an Ibo rather than, say, a Nigerian and quite obviously for the nation to exist as a unit which is the problem.
Tribalism; a distinguishing feature of the African continent which more than any other continent has seen the constant near perpetual reshuffling of the state through coups as a result of its offshoot nepotism. But what is this phenomenon and is it the case that the contempt it breeds is a hindrance to the growth of nationalism and its love child the unified nation. My issue with this term arises from the true understanding of what it connotes, a group of communities existing under a leader Upon first glance Machel’s assertions is indisputable, the tribe if this term even suffices the nature of this divisive concept and the degrees of separation it has the power to create between existing tribes encompasses race, class, language and culture can create a ‘tower of Babel’ complex within a nation as when the house is divided it can or may never stand.
A Tribe may be defined as any group of people numerically larger than the community to which members of an extended or perceived kinship group belong, they share common name, language, culture and eponymous origin and thus this unifying phenomenon
It has been estimated that there may be some 600 to 1,000 different tribal groups or more in Africa. There are some whose territory may be 200 or 300 miles square. Inside each large territory may live more than a million people. The smaller tribes may have only two or three thousand people and some of the smallest have only a few hundred. Most tribes are no larger than 250,000 people, the population of only a medium-sized American city. To a number Africans today, the tribe is more important than the nation in which he or she lives. Subsequently it has been said that the African will think of himself as a Yoruba or an Ibo rather than, say, a Nigerian and quite obviously for the nation to exist as a unit which is the problem.
Tribalism; a distinguishing feature of the African continent which more than any other continent has seen the constant near perpetual reshuffling of the state through coups as a result of its offshoot nepotism. But what is this phenomenon and is it the case that the contempt it breeds is a hindrance to the growth of nationalism and its love child the unified nation. My issue with this term arises from the true understanding of what it connotes, a group of communities existing under a leader Upon first glance Machel’s assertions is indisputable, the tribe if this term even suffices the nature of this divisive concept and the degrees of separation it has the power to create between existing tribes encompasses race, class, language and culture can create a ‘tower of Babel’ complex within a nation as when the house is divided it can or may never stand.
A Tribe may be defined as any group of people numerically larger than the community to which members of an extended or perceived kinship group belong, they share common name, language, culture and eponymous origin and thus this unifying phenomenon
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