Tribalismo, Islam e Terrorismo

Uma nova e potencialmente interessante abordagem ao terrorismo que tira o Islam de foco e analisa o papel das tribos na violência. Como diz Stanley Kurtz sintetizando o argumento do livro de Philip Carl Salzman, Culture and Conflict in the Middle East: "Universal male militarization, surprise attacks on apparent innocents based on a principle of collective guilt, and the careful group monitoring and control of personal behavior are just a few implications of a system that accounts for many aspects of Middle Eastern society without requiring any explanatory recourse to Islam. The religion itself is an overlay in partial tension with, and deeply stamped by, the dynamics of tribal life. In other words--and this is Salz-man's central argument--the template of tribal life, with its violent and shifting balance of power between fusing and fissioning lineage segments, is the dominant theme of cultural life in the Arab Middle East (and shapes even many non-Arab Muslim populations). At its cultural core, says Salzman, even where tribal structures are attenuated, Middle Eastern society is tribal society".