Political Tribes

by Amy Chua

  will often be led by the better situated: See, e.g., Laurence R. Iannaccone and Eli Berman, “Religious Extremism: The Good, the Bad, and the Deadly,” Public Choice 128 (2006): 109–29; Shelley A. Kirkpatrick and Edwin A. Locke, “Leadership: Do Traits Matter?,” Executive 5, no. 2 (1991): 48, 49–50, 55; J. Michael Crant and Thomas S. Bateman, “Charismatic Leadership Viewed from Above: The Impact of Proactive Personality,” Journal of Organizational Behavior 21, no. 1 (2000): 63, 66, 69, 72; Jessie Bernard, “Political Leadership Among North American Indians,” American Journal of Sociology 34, no. 2 (1928): 296, 301–313; Ted Robert Gurr, Why Men Rebel (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2011), 336–37.

  Inspired by Sayyid Qutb: Gerges, Journey of the Jihadist, 35–37, 202–3; Paul Berman, “The Philosopher of Islamic Terror,” New York Times, March 22, 2003.

  “the head of the snake” . . . “Great Satan”: Gerges, Journey of the Jihadist, 22.

  “[T]he United States”: “Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders,” February 23, 1998, https://fas.org/irp/world/para/docs/980223-fatwa.htm.

  “simpletons who have deluded”: McCants, The ISIS Apocalypse, 128.

  calling for all Shias: Graeme Wood, “What ISIS Really Wants,” Atlantic, March 2015.

  “[T]he time has come”: Karl Vick, “ISIS Militants Declare Islamist ‘Caliphate,’” Time, June 29, 2014.

  “gather around your khalifah”: “This Is the Promise of Allah” (ISIS propaganda document), http://ia902505.us.archive.org/28/items/poa_25984/EN.pdf.

  They offer their members: George Packer, “Why ISIS Murdered Kenji Goto,” New Yorker, February 3, 2015; David D. Kirkpatrick, “New Freedoms in Tunisia Drive Support for ISIS,” New York Times, October 21, 2014; Yaroslav Trofimov, “Islamic State’s Scariest Success: Attracting Western Newcomers,” Wall Street Journal, February 26, 2015.

  “what inspires . . . is not”: Scott Atran, “Mindless Terrorists? The Truth about ISIS is Much Worse,” Guardian, November 15, 2015.

  “almost never kill”: Atran, Talking to the Enemy, 33.

  “The Spanish authorities”: Ibid., 52–53.

  Chapter Six: Venezuela

  “[A] trumpet tootles”: Rachel Nolan, “The Realest Reality Show in the World,” New York Times Magazine, May 4, 2012.

  largest proven oil reserves: CIA, “Country Comparison: Crude Oil—Proved Reserves,” The World Factbook, accessed May 11, 2017, https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2244rank.html.

  funded his opposition: Mark Weisbrot, “U.S. Support for Regime Change in Venezuela Is a Mistake,” Guardian, February 18, 2014; Mark Eric Williams, “The New Balancing Act: International Relations Theory and Venezuela’s Foreign Policy,” in The Revolution in Venezuela: Social and Political Change Under Chávez, ed. Thomas Ponniah and Jonathan Eastwood (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011), 257.

  turned to Russia and China: Editorial Board, “Latin America’s ‘Pink Tide’ Is Fading Fast,” Chicago Tribune, May 10, 2016.

  called President George W. Bush the “devil”: Ibid.

  Venezuela was not foremost: Williams, “The New Balancing Act,” 272.

  more international beauty queens: Matt Roper, “Butt Implants Aged 12,” Daily Mail (UK), December 12, 2014; Kate Briquelet, “Inside the Beauty Pageant Mills of Venezuela,” New York Post, January 25, 2015; see also Marcia Ochoa, Queen for a Day: Transformistas, Beauty Queens, and the Performance of Femininity in Venezuela (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2014), 7 (“Venezuela has produced eleven title winners in the Miss Universe and Miss World beauty pageants alone and winning entrants in a score of other international beauty pageants.”).

  two thirds . . . intestines: Roper, “Butt Implants Aged 12.”

  Irene Sáez, a Miss Venezuela: Elizabeth Gackstetter Nichols, Beauty, Virtue, Power, and Success in Venezuela, 1850–2015 (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2016), 141–45; Kathy Kiely, “A Beauty Queen Who Would Be Prez,” New York Daily News, October 13, 1997.

  Sáez was a six-foot-one-inch: Bart Jones, “Miss Universe–Turned–Politician Wows Voters,” Associated Press, February 11, 1996; Nichols, Beauty, Virtue, Power, and Success in Venezuela, 1850–2015, 141.

  “big mouth” . . . “because it’s African”: Cecily Hilleary, “Are Race and Class at the Root of Venezuela’s Political Crisis?,” Voice of America News, April 6, 2014.

  After sweeping to power: Amy Chua, World on Fire: How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability (New York: Anchor Books, 2003), 142–45; “Hugo Chávez Ramps Up Nationalisation Drive in Venezuela,” Telegraph (UK), October 11, 2010; Simon Romero, “Chávez Seizes Assets of Oil Contractors,” New York Times, May 8, 2009. See generally David Smilde and Daniel Hellinger, ed., Venezuela’s Bolivarian Democracy (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2011).

  political instability . . . led to billions: See Mark Weisbrot, “Venezuela in the Chávez Years: Its Economy and Influence on the Region,” in Ponniah and Eastwood, The Revolution in Venezuela, 195; “Consolidating Power in Venezuela,” New York Times, August 2, 2000.

  some spectacular successes: “How Did Venezuela Change Under Hugo Chávez?,” Guardian, October 4, 2012.

  in 2005, with the cooperation: David Sharp, “Venezuela’s Troubles Put U.S. Heating Oil Charity in Limbo,” Associated Press, March 21, 2017.

  Today, however, Venezuela: William Finnegan, “Venezuela, a Failing State,” New Yorker, November 14, 2016; Nicholas Casey, “No Food, No Medicine, No Respite,” New York Times, December 25, 2016.

  with criminal elements: Moisés Naím, “Nicolas Maduro Doesn’t Really Control Venezuela,” Atlantic, May 25, 2017.

  Grief-stricken parents are: Peter Walker, “We’re Living in the End of Times,” Independent (UK), December 16, 2016.

  highest murder rates: Ioan Grillo and Jorge Benezra, “Venezuela’s Murder Epidemic Rages on Amid State of Emergency,” Time, May 20, 2016; Jim Wyss and Joey Flechas, “Beauty Queen Murder Shines Light on Venezuelan Violence,” Miami Herald, January 7, 2014.

  life on Mars: Erik Hayden, “Chávez: Capitalism Killed Life on Mars,” Atlantic, March 22, 2011.

  thug-buffoon . . . threatening to spread: See Franklin Foer, “The Talented Mr. Chávez,” Atlantic, May 2006.

  “there is no racism” . . . “everyone is a mestizo”: Hilleary, “Are Race and Class at the Root of Venezuela’s Political Crisis?”; George Ciccariello-Maher, We Created Chávez: A People’s History of the Venezuelan Revolution (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2013), 153; Chua, World on Fire, 49–50, 142–44.

  Latin American society is: This section on pigmentocracy in Latin America is taken almost verbatim from Chua, World on Fire, 57–59.

  “beautiful, and not”: Magnus Mörner, Race Mixture in the History of Latin America (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1967), 24.

  “[v]ery handsome and”: Ibid., 22.

  “the Spanish Conquest”: Ibid., 22–23.

  Intermarriage, concubinage, and polygamy: Ibid., 25–26.

  Spaniard and Indian: This list was compiled by Magnus Mörner in ibid., 58–59. My discussion of pigmentocracy and the Society of Castes draws heavily on Mörner, especially ibid., 1–2, 21–27, 53–68.

  That the Spaniards: Ibid., 13.

  “pure white” . . . “impure, atavistically”: Ibid., 41–43, 60, 99, 140–41; Magnus Mörner, The Andean Past (New York: Columbia University Press, 1985), 181; David Bushnell and Neill Macaulay, The Emergence of Latin America in the Nineteenth Century (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), 5.

  one hundred thousand: Jesús María Herrera Salas, “Ethnicity and Revolution: The Political Economy of Racism in Venezuela,” Latin American Perspectives 32, no. 2 (2005): 74.

  more than half: Richard Gott, “Latin America as a White Settler Society,” Bulletin of Latin American Research 26, no. 2 (2007): 278–79.

>   “the constant” . . . to “whiten” Venezuela: Salas, “Ethnicity and Revolution,” 75, 78; Hilleary, “Are Race and Class at the Root of Venezuela’s Political Crisis?”; see also Gott, “Latin America as a White Settler Society,” 269, 284.

  After World War II: Hilleary, “Are Race and Class at the Root of Venezuela’s Political Crisis?”; Gott, “Latin America as a White Settler Society,” 287.

  “slowed the longstanding”: Clarence J. Munford, Race and Reparations: A Black Perspective for the 21st Century (Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, Inc.), 181.

  “[I]n Venezuela we complain”: Salas, “Ethnicity and Revolution,” 72 (quoting Hans Neumann).

  hid the fact: Ibid., 78, 86.

  80 percent: Reynaldo Trombetta, “In Venezuela 82% of People Live in Poverty—Where Are Our Friends Now?,” Guardian, April 5, 2017.

  “the most perfect”: Nichols, Beauty, Virtue, Power, and Success in Venezuela, 1850–2015, 141.

  pelo malo (bad hair): Jasmine Garsd, “‘Pelo Malo’ Is a Rare Look into Latin American Race Relations,” NPR, December 10, 2014, http://www.npr.org/2014/12/10/369645207/pelo-malo-is-a-rare-look-into-latin-american-race-relations; see Ochoa, Queen for a Day, 34–37.

  Many black, indigenous: Ochoa, Queen for a Day, 34, 37.

  they controlled not only: Chua, World on Fire, 142; Nikolas Kozloff, Hugo Chávez: Oil, Politics, and the Challenge to the United States (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), 8, 11, 20, 27–29 (oil); Fernando Coronil, “State Reflections: The 2002 Coup Against Hugo Chavez,” in Ponniah and Eastwood, The Revolution in Venezuela, 42, 45 (media); Gregory Wilpert, “Venezuela’s Experiment in Participatory Democracy,” in Ponniah and Eastwood, The Revolution in Venezuela, 100 (politics); see also David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race: Reflections on Racial Neoliberalism (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2009), 226; Barry Cannon, “Class/Race Polarisation in Venezuela and the Electoral Success of Hugo Chávez: A Break with the Past or the Song Remains the Same?,” Third World Quarterly 29, no. 4 (2008): 736–37.

  “In Venezuela there are”: Verbatim from Chua, World on Fire, 142.

  elected Hugo Chávez: See Miguel Tinker Salas, Venezuela: What Everyone Needs to Know (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015), 135.

  “the Indian from Barinas”: Larry Rohter, “Chávez Shaping Country to His Vision,” New York Times, July 28, 2000.

  “Hate against me”: Hilleary, “Are Race and Class at the Root of Venezuela’s Political Crisis?”

  with “thick mouths” . . . “He is one”: Taken almost verbatim from Chua, World on Fire, 142.

  called Chávez “El Negro”: Hilleary, “Are Race and Class at the Root of Venezuela’s Political Crisis?”; Ciccariello-Maher, We Created Chávez, 159–60.

  “Death to the Monkey”: Salas, “Ethnicity and Revolution,” 84.

  new constitution . . . Law Against Racial Discrimination: “Tackling Racism in Venezuela to Build a Society of Equals,” Telesur, March 20, 2015, http://www.telesurtv.net/english/analysis/Tackling-Racism-In-Venezuela-to-Build-a-Society-of-Equals—20150319-0032.html; Dan Kovalik, “The Venezuelan Revolution & the Indigenous Struggle,” Huffington Post, October 15, 2014, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dan-kovalik/the-venezue lan-revolution_b_5989882.html.

  “[t]he rich people”: Hilleary, “Are Race and Class at the Root of Venezuela’s Political Crisis?”

  “movement demanding that”: Ibid.; see also Ciccariello-Maher, We Created Chávez, 155–57.

  “his enthusiastic willingness”: Moisés Naím, “The Venezuelan Story: Revisiting the Conventional Wisdom,” Vcrisis, April 2001, http://www.vcri sis.com/?content=analysis/moises1001); see also Chua, World on Fire, 142.

  Like all demagogues: Taken almost verbatim from Chua, World on Fire, 143.

  “catere[ed] to” . . . “inchoate but”: Naím, “The Venezuelan Story.”

  the first president: Ochoa, Queen for a Day, 43.

  two oil tankers: Ibid., 53–55.

  first nonwhite Miss Venezuela: Ibid., 35.

  more than $8 billion: Chua, World on Fire, 144; “Consolidating Power in Venezuela.”

  about 95 percent: OPEC, “Venezuela Facts and Figures,” http://www.opec.org/opec_web/en/about_us/171.htm; see also Kozloff, Hugo Chávez, 7, 18.

  Although technically state owned: Taken almost verbatim from Chua, World on Fire, 144.

  left-wing academic: Coronil, “State Reflections,” 43; Christina Hoag, “Venezuela Faces Protest at Petroleum Company,” Houston Chronicle, March 1, 2002, http://www.chron.com/business/energy/article/Venezuela-faces-protest-at-petroleum-company-2067379.php.

  “a victory for democracy”: Juan Forero, “Uprising in Venezuela,” New York Times, April 13, 2002; Chua, World on Fire, 144–45.

  as is rumored: See Kozloff, Hugo Chávez, 27; Williams, “The New Balancing Act,” 257; “U.S. Papers Hail Venezuelan Coup as Pro-Democracy Move,” Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, April 18, 2002, http://fair.org/take-action/media-advisories/u-s-papers-hail-venezuelan-coup-as-pro-democracy-move-2.

  The coup was: Taken almost verbatim from Chua, World on Fire, 144–45; see also Ciccariello-Maher, We Created Chávez, 170; Kozloff, Hugo Chávez, 28–29.

  major U.S. newspapers: “U.S. Papers Hail Venezuelan Coup as Pro-Democracy Move.”

  returned Chávez to power: Ciccariello-Maher, We Created Chávez, 169–71; Coronil, “State Reflections,” 51–53.

  Except for the United States . . . “rather stupid”: Paul Krugman, “Losing Latin America,” New York Times, April 16, 2002; see also Julian Borger and Alex Bellos, “US ‘Gave the Nod’ to Venezuelan Coup,” Guardian, April 17, 2002.

  our influence in the region: Williams, “The New Balancing Act,” 267.

  In December 2002: Amy Chua, “Power to the Privileged,” New York Times, January 7, 2003; Weisbrot, “U.S. Support for Regime Change in Venezuela is a Mistake.”

  spearheaded by the country’s wealthy: Chua, “Power to the Privileged”; Coronil, “State Reflections,” 42–46; Kozloff, Hugo Chávez, 28–30.

  January 2003 op-ed: Chua, “Power to the Privileged.”

  “As a Venezuelan”: Antonio Guzmán-Blanco, e-mail message to author, January 8, 2003.

  “Race has never”: Rafael Echeverria G., e-mail message to author, January 8, 2003.

  “Having grown up”: Francisco Alzuru, e-mail message to author, January 8, 2003.

  The e-mail campaign: The anti-Chávez opposition controlled major media outlets. See Ciccariello-Maher, We Created Chávez, 173–74.

  now widely acknowledged: See, e.g., Ochoa, Queen for a Day, 32–37; Hilleary, “Are Race and Class at the Root of Venezuela’s Political Crisis?”; Salas, “Ethnicity and Revolution.”

  Similarly ethnically tinged: Chua, World on Fire, 72–74; Jonathan Watts, “Evo Morales Celebrates 10 Years as Bolivia’s ‘Indigenous Socialist’ President,” Guardian, January 22, 2016.

  “by half” . . . “A victory”: Mark Weisbrot, “Why Chávez Was Reelected,” New York Times, October 9, 2012; see generally Ciccariello-Maher, We Created Chávez.

  more democratic under: See, e.g., Weisbrot, “Why Chávez Was Reelected”; Wilpert, “Venezuela’s Experiment in Participatory Democracy,” 99–100, 122–23, 125; Daniel Hellinger, “Defying the Iron Law of Oligarchy I: How Does ‘El Pueblo’ Conceive Democracy?,” in Smilde and Hellinger, Venezuela’s Bolivarian Democracy, 28–30, 56–57.

  with autocratic leanings: Wilpert, “Venezuela’s Experiment in Participatory Democracy,” 120–21, 124–25; Naím, “Nicolas Maduro Doesn’t Really Control Venezuela,” Atlantic, May 25, 2017.

  By 2006, government: Justin Fox, “How Hugo Chávez Trashed Latin America’s Richest Economy,” Bloomberg, August 27, 2015.

  more than $55 billion: Marianna Parraga and Brian Ellsworth, “Venezuela Falls Behind on Oil-for-Loans Deals with China, Russia,” Reuters, Febru
ary 9, 2017, http://www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-oil-insight-idUSKBN15O2BC.

  Chávez imposed price controls: William Neuman, “With Venezuelan Food Shortages, Some Blame Price Controls,” New York Times, April 20, 2012.

  Oil production, drained: Mark Shenk, “Venezuela Oil No Easy Fix After Brain Drain, Asset Seizures,” Bloomberg, April 10, 2017, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-04-10/venezuela-oil-no-easy-fix-after-brain-drain-asset-seizures; Finnegan, “Venezuela, a Failing State”; Parraga and Ellsworth, “Venezuela Falls Behind.”

  massive grief among: Emilia Diaz and Juan Forero, “Poor Masses Mourn Chávez’s Death as Venezuela Braces for Who Comes Next,” Washington Post, March 5, 2013.

  “Exprópiese!” (Expropriate it!): Nolan, “The Realest Reality Show in the World.”

  Chávez joined Twitter: Samuel Burke, “Hugo Chávez Was First Tweeter-in-Chief,” CNN, January 26, 2017, http://money.cnn.com/2017/01/26/technology/hugo-chavez-first-twitter-president-venezuela-trump; Associated Press, “Hugo Chávez Rewards Three-Millionth Twitter Follower with New Home,” Guardian, June 1, 2012.

  everything from trips: Rory Carroll, “Hugo Chávez’s Twitter Habit Proves a Popular Success,” Guardian, August 10, 2010.

  might be secretly infecting: Tom Phillips, “Hugo Chávez Hints at U.S. Cancer Plot,” Guardian, December 29, 2011.

  global oil prices: Fox, “How Hugo Chávez Trashed Latin America’s Richest Economy;” E.L., “Why the Oil Price Is Falling,” Economist, December 8, 2014.

  plunging Venezuela into: Finnegan, “Venezuela, a Failing State”; Casey, “No Food, No Medicine, No Respite”; Grillo and Benezra, “Venezuela’s Murder Epidemic Rages on Amid State of Emergency.”

  In 2016, inflation: Carina Pons, “Venezuela 2016 Inflation Hits 800 Percent,” Reuters, January 20, 2017, http://www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-economy-idUSKBN154244.