Raid and Revenge

I’m still pondering what possible purpose the abortive attacks in London and Glasgow last week may have had. A day or so ago I wrote a post in which I implicitly rejected Napoleon’s dictum (fear or gain) as an explanation. The Muslim 2%+ in the United Kingdom will not dictate terms to the 97%+ non-Muslims. That’s just a statement of reality. Indeed, experience suggests that the United Kingdom’s Muslim population has more to lose than to gain from such incidents and the men who appear to have been involved in the planning and attempted execution of these attacks were certainly bright enough to recognize it. Similarly, I find it hard to consider fear as the motivation. What do they have to fear?

I wonder if we’re erring in seeking the sorts of political or material explanations that are debated endlessly in the pages of the newspapers and in the comments sections of blogs. There are other motivations and perhaps we should consider them.

Recently I’ve been thinking about patterns of raid and revenge. These have been observed in cultures all over the world, particularly in tribal cultures and especially in those which have experienced isolation from other cultures. Consider, for example, this:

Despite the fact that most Arabs dwell in cities and villages and not the desert in this modern world, many hold the Bedouin ethic and ethos as the yardstick by which to be measured. The Bedouin is seen as the living ancestor, witnesses to the ancient glory of the heroic age for the Middle East. Certain characteristics, customs, and practices developed from the structure of the Bedouin society. During their wanderings in the desert, several units would form sub-tribes, then combine to form tribes, and tribes would come together to form confederations. The units were based primarily on kinship and practiced intermarriages to preserve the lineage. As a result of these alliances, group solidarity developed. Loyalty to the group (asibiyya) became the supreme value and moral code by which to live and die. Tribesmen and women (through their chastity and modesty) were taught from an early age to protect the group solidarity. Anyone threatening or causing harm to that solidarity was subject to vengeance.

The concept of honor (sharaf) is another core value of the tribe used to preserve and protect group cohesion and individual integrity. There are several aspects to this concept. For instance, there is honor in having numerous sons; in demonstrating the ability to defend one’s family, tribe, home, village, country, and property against an adversary; in conducting a raid according to tribal rules of warfare; in showing bravery and courage; in showing Bedouin hospitality and generosity, no matter how poor one is (even to a fugitive or potential adversary who seeks asylum, and even at the risk of one’s own safety); in having pure Arab blood; by women preserving their sexual honor for the family; in showing a strong sense of group solidarity; and in behaving with dignity and always preserving “face” (wajh). As one writer has noted, “All these different kinds of honor, clearly distinguished in Arab life and operative at various times and on various occasions, interlock to surround the Arab ego like a coat of armor.”

Therefore, if someone causes serious harm or death to a member of the tribe, or if one’s honor is damaged by the action of another, then an act of revenge is required to avenge (al–tha’r) or restore the honor back to the person, family, or tribe. As the saying goes, “Dam butlub Dam–blood demands blood.” If an individual in the tribe is shamed, then the whole tribe is shamed. As a result, an act of revenge is needed to restore honor to the family or tribe and protect its collective honor. Thus, the Arab saying, “It is better to die with honor than live with humiliation.” An alternative (used as a means of stopping revenge attacks) may be to settle the dispute in the tribal way by engaging in mediation (fas’l). If the disputing parties can reach a satisfactory agreement to compensate for the harm or injustice, a blood feud or revenge attack may be averted.

from Lt. Col. Richard Welch’s article, “Stepping Out of the Quagmire”. Note, too, chapter four on feuds of Emrys Peters’s monumental study of the Bedouins of Libya, The Bedouin of Cyrenaica, in which he considers the limits to mediation in settling blood feuds.

Revenge raids don’t depend in any way on the object of the raid’s willingness to resist or defend against the raid. In a sense the object of the raid is incidental to the raid itself—the target audience for the raid is the kinship group, not the object of the raid. These are features of a repute system in which, as long as there is repute to be maintained or gained, there will be a motive to conduct a raid.

Don’t minimize the potential danger of such a system of raid and revenge, either. It’s speculated that just such a system, gotten out of hand, ended the Anasazi civilization in the American Southwest.