The anthropologist, Dr. Muhammed Al-Haddad, sees "tribalism" as a descriptive term to identify a certain kind of social group. In this social group kinship principles are dominant and thus rule behavior and much of the interpersonal interaction. In this case of "a tribe as a social group", blood brotherhood (or relationship by birth) is the key to the relationship among members of the tribal group.
In short, genealogical origin dominates the relationships. This genealogical relationship is the basic rationale for the identity of individuals in the group. Such as situation is common in other parts of the world, from Iraq to Sudan to Somalia or Nigeria and Kenya-where bitter fighting has taken place in recent years among tribes. However, in Kuwait such violence has not been the case in general.
Tribal identity is a transnational phenomena in the Arab Gulf region, which is to be expected as these tribal genealogical groups are founded on Bedouin movements and traditions dating back millennia. This is still the case, even though tribes, such as the Kuwaiti ruling family, i.e. the al-Sabah tribe, basically had settled in what is Kuwait over 240 years ago and haven't been generally observed as Bedouins since that time.
Likewise, mercantile classes include other tribes in Kuwait. This mercantile class of tribesmen have been since subsumed under the title of "urbans"-which other Kuwait tribesmen use to identify (with somewhat disdain) these more cosmopolitan Kuwaiti peoples. In short, every Kuwaiti citizen ostensibly belongs to one tribe or another, but the "urbans" prefer not to be associated in the minds of others as tribesmen.
KEY QUESTIONS ON KUWAITI TRIBES
In this introductory speech on tribes in Kuwait, Dr. Al-Haddad asked the following questions: (1) Has "tribalization" weakened in Kuwait in recent times? (2) What has the Kuwaiti government done to weaken tribalism? (3) What has tribalism done for Kuwait? (4) What has happened to tribalism in terms of integration into Kuwait?
Dr. Al-Haddad noted that there are other definitions of tribe than the anthropological one he prefers to use. Other concepts of tribe include the idea of equating "nomads with the word tribe". Other definitions claim that "tribes are Bedouin" or "Bedouins as equivalent to tribe".
However, Dr. Al-Haddad notes that in Kuwait these definitional entities are in no way equal to each other in the 21st century version of tribalism in Kuwait.
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