Political Tribes

by Amy Chua

  a British court ruled: See Dinah Shelton, ed., The Oxford Handbook of International Human Rights Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 232 (discussing 1772 case of Somerset v. Stewart). While Lord Mansfield’s decision in Somerset v. Stewart did not literally abolish slavery within the borders of England, it did severely undercut the institution’s legal standing, precipitating its decline. See Oldham, “New Light on Mansfield and Slavery,” 68.

  Great Britain abolished: Geoffrey Care, Migrants and the Courts: A Century of Trial and Error? (London and New York: Routledge, 2016), 222 n. 26.

  “separate but equal” . . . aftereffects of slavery: See generally Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Color Blindness (New York: The New Press, 2012); James Forman, Jr., Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2017), epilogue; Chris Hayes, A Colony in a Nation (New York: W. W. Norton, 2017).

  47 million people: United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division, International Migrant Stock 2015, accessed June 17, 2017, http://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/migration/data/estimates2/estimates15.shtml (dataset in “Total international migrant stock”).

  more than 140 countries: Anna Brown and Renee Stepler, “Country of Birth: 2014,” Statistical Portrait of the Foreign-Born Population in the United States, 2014, table 5 (Washington, DC: Pew Research Center), April 19, 2016, accessed April 14, 2017, http://www.pewhispanic.org/2016/04/19/statistical-portrait-of-the-foreign-born-population-in-the-united-states.

  19 percent . . . 12 million: United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division, International Migrant Stock 2015.

  In 2014, Australia and Canada: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, International Migration Outlook 2016 (Paris: OECD, 2016).

  As of 2015: United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division, International Migrant Stock 2015.

  in 2008, “unthinkable”: Adam Nagourney, “Obama Elected President as Racial Barrier Falls,” New York Times, November 4, 2008.

  have been super-group empires: See generally Chua, Day of Empire, 192–232.

  92 percent: “The Upper Han,” Economist, November 19, 2016, https://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21710264-worlds-rising-superpower-has-particular-vision-ethnicity-and-nationhood-has.

  the Muslim Uighurs: Andrew Jacobs, “Xinjiang Seethes Under Chinese Crackdown,” New York Times, January 2, 2016.

  Japan and Korea: See Kosaku Yoshino, Cultural Nationalism in Contemporary Japan: A Sociological Enquiry (London: Routledge, 1992), 24–26; Gi-Wook Shin, Ethnic Nationalism in Korea (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2006), 4.

  most European nations: See Alberto F. Alesina et al., “Fractionalization,” Journal of Economic Growth 8, no. 2 (2003), 162–65, 184–89; Max Fisher, “A Revealing Map of the World’s Most and Least Ethnically Diverse Countries,” Washington Post, May 17, 2013.

  assimilate, at least publicly: Robert F. Worth, “The Professor and the Jihadi,” New York Times, April 5, 2017 (citing Olivier Roy and Gilles Keppel).

  “pure French” national identity: “Marine Le Pen Rejects All That’s Not ‘Pure French,’” NBC News, December 23, 2016, http://www.nbcnews.com/video/marine-le-pen-rejects-all-that-s-not-pure-french-840325187686.

  “ostentatious” displays of religion: Justin Gest, “To Become ‘French,’ Abandon Who You Are,” Reuters, January 16, 2015, http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2015/01/16/to-become-french-leave-your-identity-behind.

  “is fundamentally compatible”: See Angelique Chrisafis, “French PM Calls for Ban on Islamic Headscarves at Universities,” Guardian, April 13, 2016.

  “If you want”: “‘Your Ancestors Were Gauls,’ France’s Sarkozy Tells Migrants,” Reuters, September 20, 2016, http://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-election-sarkozy-idUSKCN11Q22Y.

  The “burkini ban”: Alissa J. Rubin, “French ‘Burkini’ Bans Provoke Backlash as Armed Police Confront Beachgoers,” New York Times, August 24, 2016.

  stopped providing pork-free meals: Romina McGuinness, “‘You Eat or You Go’ Muslims Furious as Mayor Scraps Pork-Free Option on School Dinner Menu,” Express (UK), January 19, 2017; Angelique Chrisafis, “Pork or Nothing: How School Dinners Are Dividing France,” Guardian, October 13, 2015.

  hostile to the nation: See Worth, “The Professor and the Jihadi.”

  is surprisingly weak: See Frank Bechhofer and David McCrone, ed., National Identity, Nationalism and Constitutional Change (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), 1–2, 200–201; Mark Easton, “How British Is Britain?,” BBC, September 30, 2013, http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-24302914.

  linked to “Englishness”: See A. Maurice Low, “Nationalism in the British Empire,” American Political Science Review 10, no. 2 (May 1916): 223–34. For an interesting analysis of the use of the British Royal Navy as a somewhat successful national unifying force, see Alex Law, “Of Navies and Navels: Britain as a Mental Island,” Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography (special issue, Islands: Objects of Representation) 87, no. 4 (2005): 267–77; see also Amelia Hadfield-Amkhan, British Foreign Policy, National Identity, and Neoclassical Realism (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2010), 101–34.

  84 percent of the total population: Office for National Statistics, 2011 Census: Population Estimates for the United Kingdom, March 2011, accessed June 17, 2017, http://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/populationestimates/bulletins/2011censuspopulationestimatesfortheunitedkingdom/2012-12-17.

  anathema in polite circles: Andrew Gamble and Tony Wright, ed., Britishness: Perspectives on the British Question (West Sussex, UK: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009), 4, 143.

  Scottish independence was: Steven Erlanger and Alan Cowell, “Scotland Rejects Independence from United Kingdom,” New York Times, September 18, 2014.

  Little England movement: See, e.g., Nick Clegg, “Where Would You Rather Live—Great Britain or Little England?,” Guardian, April 21, 2014; Mark Leonard, “What Would a UK Outside the EU Look Like?,” Guardian, October 5, 2015; see also Jessica Elgot, “English Patriotism on the Rise, Research Shows,” Guardian, January 10, 2017.

  Britain has no restrictions: “The Islamic Veil Across Europe,” BBC, January 31, 2017, http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-13038095.

  To the dismay: Nicola Woolcock, “Pork Is Removed from School Menus Across London Borough,” Times (UK), February 13, 2015; Dan Hyde, “Schools Stop Serving Pork for Religious Reasons,” Telegraph (UK), February 12, 2015; Julie Henry, “Bangers Ban in Hundreds of Schools,” Telegraph (UK), June 17, 2012.

  called “cultural separatism”: David Cameron (as the leader of the Conservative Party), 2007 speech on Islam and Muslims, London, June 5, 2007, http://www.ukpol.co.uk/david-cameron-2007-speech-on-islam-and-muslims.

  “[America] does succeed”: Ibid.

  “feel little sense”: Clive Crook, “Britain, Its Muslims, and the War on Terror,” Atlantic, August 2005.

  Second- and third-generation: Cameron, 2007 speech on Islam and Muslims.

  growth of homegrown jihadis: Robert Leiken, “Britain Finally Faces Up to Its Homegrown Jihadist Problem,” Wall Street Journal, September 7, 2014.

  Manchester suicide bomber: Martin Evans et al., “Everything We Know About Manchester Suicide Bomber Salman Abedi,” Telegraph (UK), May 26, 2017.

  “The July [2005 London] bombers”: Crook, “Britain, Its Muslims, and the War on Terror.”

  As of 2015, more British Muslims: Mary Anne Weaver, “Her Majesty’s Jihadists,” New York Times, April 14, 2015.

  identification with Brussels: Directorate-General for Communication, European Commission, “European Citizenship,” Standard Eurobarometer 85 (Spring 2016), 18.

  “It is not for”: Matteo Salvini’s Facebook page, trans. Matteo Godi, Jul
y 21, 2015, https://www.facebook.com/salviniofficial.

  The Irish, Italians: David R. Roediger, Working Toward Whiteness: How America’s Immigrants Became White (New York: Basic Books, 2005), 5–6, 16; James R. Barrett and David Roediger, “In-between Peoples: Race, Nationality, and the ‘New Immigrant’ Working Class,” Journal of American Ethnic History 16, no. 3 (1997): 3–44; Michael O’Meara, “How the Irish Became White, Part 1,” Counter-Currents, December 26, 2012, https://www.counter-currents.com/2012/12/how-the-irish-became-white-part-1.

  From the nation’s: Taken almost verbatim from Chua, Day of Empire, 248.

  waves of immigrants: Kristofer Allerfeldt, Beyond the Huddled Masses: American Immigration and the Treaty of Versailles (London: I. B. Tauris & Co., 2006), 16–17, 21, 23; Roger Daniels and Otis L. Graham, Debating American Immigration, 1882–Present (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2001), 12–18, 23–25, 27–28, 77, 129.

  Between 1820 and 1914: Taken almost verbatim from Chua, Day of Empire, 248.

  between 1871 and 1911: Taken almost verbatim from ibid., 251.

  children of U.S. citizens: See Child Citizenship Act of 2000, 8 U.S. Code §§ 1431–33 (2012).

  one of only a very few: Eyder Peralta, “3 Things You Should Know About Birthright Citizenship,” NPR, August 18, 2015, http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/08/18/432707866/3-things-you-should-know-about-birthright-citizenship.

  France . . . New Zealand: Caroline Sawyer, “The Loss of Birthright Citizenship in New Zealand,” Victoria University of Wellington Law Review 44 (2013): 653–74; Linda R. Monk, “Birth Rights: Citizenship and the Constitution” (National Constitution Center, January 2011), 9, https://constitutioncenter.org/media/files/Monograph_BirthRights.pdf; see also Barbara Crossette, “Citizenship Is a Malleable Concept,” New York Times, August 18, 1996.

  Ivy League universities: Taken almost verbatim from Chua, Day of Empire, 257–58; see Geoffrey Kabaservice, The Guardians: Kingman Brewster, His Circle, and the Rise of the Liberal Establishment (New York: Henry Holt, 2004), 65–66, 156, 174, 259–67; Jerome Karabel, The Chosen: The Hidden History of Admission and Exclusion at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2005), 364–67, 379, 392; Dan A. Oren, Joining the Club: A History of Jews and Yale (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1985), 183–84, 272–77.

  The 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act: This paragraph is taken almost verbatim from Chua, Day of Empire, 258–59; see also Samuel P. Huntington, Who Are We? The Challenges to America’s National Identity (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004), 196, 223–25.

  increase in illegal entries: Douglas S. Massey and Karen A. Pren, “Unintended Consequences of US Immigration Policy: Explaining the Post-1965 Surge from Latin America,” Population and Development Review 38, no. 1 (2012): 1–5.

  In 1960 . . . In 2000: Chua, Day of Empire, 259; Huntington, Who Are We?, 223–24.

  in the U.S. Congress: “Faith on the Hill: The Religious Composition of the 114th Congress,” Pew Research Center, January 5, 2015, http://www.pewforum.org/2015/01/05/faith-on-the-hill.

  46 percent of Americans: “America’s Changing Religious Landscape,” Pew Research Center, May 12, 2015, http://www.pewforum.org/2015/05/12/americas-changing-religious-landscape.

  20 percent of the class of 2017: “2017 By the Numbers: Beliefs and Lifestyle,” Harvard Crimson, http://features.thecrimson.com/2013/frosh-survey/lifestyle.html.

  appointment of Neil Gorsuch: Daniel Burke, “What Is Neil Gorsuch’s Religion? It’s Complicated,” CNN, March 22, 2017, http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/18/politics/neil-gorsuch-religion.

  Billboard’s top 10: Billboard, “Artist 100,” week of December 31, 2016, accessed January 5, 2017, http://www.billboard.com/charts/artist-100. (in order from 1 to 10: J. Cole, Pentatonix, The Weeknd, Bruno Mars, Drake, Ariana Grande, Twenty One Pilots, Taylor Swift, Shawn Mendes, and Rae Sremmurd).

  Adele instead of: Maura Johnston, “Beyoncé’s Grammy Snub Isn’t Just an Oversight—It’s a Real Problem,” Time, February 13, 2017.

  “[Y]ou can go to live”: Ronald Reagan, “The Brotherhood of Man” speech in Fulton, MO, November 19, 1990, http://ec2-184-73-198-63.compute-1.amazonaws.com/wgbh/americanexperience/features/primary-resources/reagan-brotherhood.

  only one among all the world’s great powers: Some super-groups arguably exist among the world’s non-major powers. Canada, for example, is famous for its tolerance and multiculturalism. See Canadian Multiculturalism Act, R.S.C., 1985, c. 24 (4th Supp.). The question in Canada’s case, especially in light of Quebec’s distinctive French identity, is whether there exists a sufficiently strong, overarching national identity for Canada to qualify as a super-group. See, e.g., Nick Bryant, “Neverendum Referendum: Voting on Independence, Quebec-Style,” BBC News, September 8, 2014.

  “[O]ne thing is clear”: Barack Obama, “Remarks by President Obama at High-Level Meeting on Libya,” United Nations, New York, September 20, 2011, http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/09/20/remarks-president-obama-high-level-meeting-libya.

  140 different tribes: Ramazan Erdaǧ, Libya in the Arab Spring: From Revolution to Insecurity (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), 26; Peter Apps, “Factbox: Libya’s Tribal, Cultural Divisions,” Reuters, August 25, 2011, http://www.reuters.com/article/us-libya-tribes-idUSTRE77O43R20110825.

  “The degree of tribal division”: Jeffrey Goldberg, “The Obama Doctrine,” Atlantic, April 2016.

  “a failed state”: Richard Lardner, “The Top American General in Africa Says Libya Is a Failed State,” U.S. World & News Report, March 8, 2016.

  “failing to plan”: “President Obama: Libya Aftermath ‘Worst Mistake’ of Presidency,” BBC News, April 11, 2016.

  Chapter Two: Vietnam

  “Vietnam is too close”: James S. Olson and Randy Roberts, Where the Domino Fell: America and Vietnam, 1945–1990 (West Sussex, UK: Wiley-Blackwell, 2014), 3.

  “We will drive”: Nguyen Cao Ky, How We Lost the Vietnam War (New York: First Cooper Square Press, 2002), 22.

  “No war since the Civil War”: Henry Kissinger, Ending the Vietnam War: A History of America’s Involvement in and Extrication from the Vietnam War (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2003), 7.

  “We are humiliated”: Louis B. Zimmer, The Vietnam War Debate: Hans J. Morgenthau and the Attempt to Halt the Drift into Disaster (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2011), 2.

  “an utter, unmitigated”: “Time to Wave the Flag, McGovern Urges Democrats,” Telegraph (UK), January 26, 2004.

  “a piddling, piss-ant”: Ronald Steel, “Blind Contrition” (review of In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam, by Robert S. McNamara with Brian Van De Mark), New Republic, June 5, 1995, 35.

  “the best and the brightest”: David Halberstam, The Best and the Brightest (New York: Random House, 1972).

  overlooked the potency: See, e.g., William J. Duiker, Ho Chi Minh (New York: Hyperion, 2000), 123, 341–42, 570; Marilyn B. Young, The Vietnam Wars, 1945–1990 (New York: HarperCollins, 1991), 23–24, 178–80; Fredrik Logevall, Embers of War: The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America’s Vietnam (New York: Random House, 2012), epilogue; Thomas Friedman, “ISIS and Vietnam,” New York Times, October 28, 2014.

  “to understand that”: Friedman, “ISIS and Vietnam.”

  red or blue group: Yarrow Dunham, Andrew Scott Barron, and Susan Carey, “Consequences of ‘Minimal’ Group Affiliations in Children,” Child Development 82, no. 3 (2011): 793–811.

  “pervasively distorted by mere membership”: Ibid., 797–98, 807–8; see also Henri Tajfel et al., “Social Categorization and Intergroup Behaviour,” European Journal of Social Psychology 1, no. 2 (1971): 149–77.

  “group identification is both innate”: Adam Piore, “Why We’re Patriotic,” Nautilus, November 26, 2015, http://nautil.us/issue/30/identity/why-were-patriotic; João F. Guassi Moreira, Jay J. Van Bavel, and Eva H. Telzer,
“The Neural Development of ‘Us and Them,’” Social, Cognitive, and Affective Neuroscience 12, no. 2 (2017): 184–96.

  tended to “light up”: Piore, “Why We’re Patriotic”; Jay J. Van Bavel et al., “The Neural Substrates of In-Group Bias: A Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Investigation,” Psychological Science 19, no. 11 (2008): 1131, 1137.