I just read an interesting essay by Lee Smith, that explains why the Taliban beat America. He said “There is no mystery about why the U.S. experience in Afghanistan ended in failure, embarrassment, and scandal. Nor is it a mystery why the Taliban took over Kabul so quickly. They were fighting for primacy. Their victory was foreordained.“ Smith continues by saying it has to do with what the Arabs call asabiyya, or solidarity of purpose. Smith went on to say that “With it (asabiyya), the most primitive tribe can overturn the mightiest of civilizations; without it, a people will wither in the desert.”
Full article here: https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/assabiya-lee-smith
Assabiyya, I suppose then, is also the reason why the Russians withdrew, humiliated, from Afghanistan in the 80’s after occupying it for almost 10 years.
A Wikipedia article says that “asabiyya is a concept of social solidarity with an emphasis on unity, group consciousness, and a sense of shared purpose and social cohesion, originally used in the context of tribalism and clanism.” Farther down the article it states “Ibn Khaldun describes asabiyya as the bond of cohesion among humans in a group-forming community. The bond exists at any level of civilization, from nomadic society to states and empires. Asabiyyah is strongest in the nomadic phase, and decreases as civilization advances. As the current asabiyyah declines, another more compelling asabiyyah may take its place; thus, civilizations rise and fall, and history describes these cycles as they play out.”
To crisp that up – as a tribe gets fat and happy, the fire, the drive, the need to stick together diminishes. It’s why, I think, we Catholics don’t see ourselves as a tribe at all but a loosely associated group of individuals.
The asabiyya concept fits nicely with what I recently coined as the “yawning culture” of many Catholics. Yawning as bored, lacking interest in, or learning more about, lack of zeal about – their Catholic faith or Catholic identity. We might even be embarrassed about being Catholic so we keep that fact in the closet. How’s that for an ironic twist over the past 40 years?
As a tribe, we Catholics could be a very formidable opponent to the current societal craziness and erosion of our freedoms.
I said could be. As Ibn Khaldun said though, as one asabiyyah declines (in our case that would be a strong Catholic identity and purpose) another more compelling one takes its place.
What’s the new asabiyya on the rise? Research led me to another article that may provide one possibility.
“As G.K. Chesterton brilliantly observed, when a man loses faith in God, he does not believe in nothing; he believes anything. Anything can turn into an object of paganistic worship; for example, a politicized “Truth.” And a crusade for “Justice” can become an oppressive dystopia, a new wave of totalitarianism. At the core of totalitarian thought and behavior is the practice of forfeiting personhood to a consecrated idea. When a society elevates the idea above the sanctity of individual life, citizens suffer abuse, coercion, violence, and pain. Millions die because political idolatry presupposes perpetual human sacrifice. That is the lesson of the Russian Revolution.”
I hope that’s not the history lesson we leave our children or our grandchildren to experience. It will take a Catholic version of asabiyya, a strong drive driven by purpose (a purpose given to us by Christ and largely forgotten) that can create a courageous and heroic response needed to change the course of current human events.
