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A Tribal War in Boston

Terrorism, like urban crime, is one of those things that you're not supposed to think about too much. It's fine to talk about your emotions after a bombing or a mugging. You can even share stories and eventually learn to laugh about it. What you cannot do is talk about where it comes from except in the vaguest terms of social conditions. Like pollution from industry or corruption from government, it's one of those toxic spinoffs of our modern society. It's just there and we don't much talk about it.

Islamic terrorism is considered a social problem in Europe. Ask an expert and they'll talk your ear off about unemployment, racism, overcrowded housing and the same long list of reasons used to explain urban crime. The United States is slowly coming around to that same point of view.

Forget the great debate between whether people kill people or guns kill people. The conclusion reached by most governments before your grandfather was born is that social conditions kill people.

The Tsarneav brothers are being talked about in the same way that most serial killers are. "They were so nice. What made them do it?" It's the empty repetition of a question to which no one really wants to hear the answer. "What could have made them do it?" isn't a genuine question, it's a ceremonial washing of the hands. A ritualistic statement that we couldn't have known anything was wrong. How could we? They were so nice.

Tamerlan Tsarneav slapped around one girlfriend, dragged another into a barefoot, pregnant and veiled arrangement, and went around telling everyone they were infidels. Sure he might have settled down at some point, picked up his membership card in the requisite front groups for the Muslim Brotherhood and limited his terrorist activities to donating to Islamic charities that just happen to do business in the middle of war zones. He could have stuck to beating his wife in the privacy of his home and told his neighbors that America would one day be destroyed knowing they would only nod and walk away humming, "But he's so nice".

The United States is full of moderate Muslims just like that. They are the people politicians point to as proof that not all Muslims are terrorists, just the ones who actually blow up things.

Tamerlan Tsarneav was indeed a social problem, but not the one most liberals think he is. He wasn't unemployment, racism or lack of parking spaces. He was the social problem we don't talk about because it's off limits. The empty space in the narrative. The one that terrorism comes from.

The Europeans would talk about integration. But what was there for Tamerlan to integrate to? A coterie of white academics looking to get jobs on climate change commissions? A rainbow coalition of minorities taking pride in victimization while demanding their piece of the pie? And who was he? American? What does being American mean? Chechen? Who are they? They're Muslims. They're killers. When being American got too hard, Tamerlan rolled the dice and they came up Chechen. They came up Muslim. And we all know the rest of the story.

Eurocrats worry endlessly about how many Tamerlans in London, Paris and Oslo roll those dice only to see them come up Pakistani, Algerian and Somali. But they can't talk about what's wrong with that.

Back in the Tsarneav homeland, clans fight each other to the death, wiping out entire families to the last child. Here is a brief description of one man's vendetta. "He wanted to kill off all the men in the other family, and he devoted his life to that goal. He would hide someplace where he thought one of his enemies might pass by, staying there for weeks at a time if necessary. In the end, he killed about 20 people."

That should sound familiar to anyone who sat in front of the television watching the aftermath of the Boston bombings. And here's another. "The oral tradition abounds in tales of feuds sparked by the theft of a chicken culminating in the death of an entire Teip." What is a Teip you might ask. A Teip is a Chechen clan. Everyone has one in Chechnya including foreigners. To have a place in the society, you must have a Teip of your own. Otherwise. "This man has neither a Teip nor a Tukkhum."

Where was Tamerlan's Teip in America? Americans don't talk about their Teips. Instead Tamerlan found the same Teip that so many other Pakistanis, Egyptians, Somalis and other Muslim immigrants find when they live in a non-Muslim country. Tamerlan's Teip, like Nidal Hasan's Teip, was Islam.

Tamerlan took possession of his Teip. And then he began to kill on behalf of his Teip. You can call it the Clash of Civilizations or a clash of clans. At the Boston Marathon, the Tsarneav brothers began killing the members of the Boston Teip or the American Teip in defense of the honor of the Islamic Teip. We can call this sort of thing terrorism, and it is, but it's also something much more primitive and much less calculated.

The Afghan soldiers murdering American soldiers often do it unprompted and sometimes even without any prior planning. They do it because in tribal cultures honor is complicated and murder is casual. Life is cheap, especially the lives of men without teips.

Americans were under the impression that Tamerlan was a member of Teip America. He wasn't. Teip America is fine for some some natives, but it was much too big for him. It had no shape or purpose. Nothing for him to claim possession of and defend. Teip America gave him everything for free and wouldn't even let him fight to take it. Teip America gave him the good life, but took away his honor.

But what does all this Teip talk have to do with the modern world? It is an article of faith that any number of people can come to this country and bring their diverse Teips with them, and aside from some picturesque native foods and unique post-colonial grievances, they all become part of the tapestry of Teip America.

Chechnya is a modern place now. Sure it has warlords, kidnappings and Sharia punishments, but who are we to judge them? And Tamerlan Tsarneav grew up in the United States. What could the crazy backward mores of his society, which we mustn't judge, have anything to with his killing spree? There are more relevant things that we could talk about, like race, class and the availability of parking spaces in Boston.

Even now the politicians begin trooping down to the local mosque to press the flesh with the "moderates" who are the last best hope for preventing another marathon massacre. But what is an American mosque really? Some are still mono-cultural, dominated by Lebanese, Turkish or Bangladeshi immigrants. Many however are more expansive. They are artificial Teips based on religion, rather than nationality or race. Their existence is innately Islamist.

The American mosque is an outpost of tribal Islamism. It's an artificial community that primes members of tribal cultures to identify with and defend a religious Teip. That is the system that the Saudis have invested a good deal of money into building because it provides them with an endless flow of cannon fodder.

We are not a melting pot or a beautiful tapestry of diversity. What we are is often something more prosaic. Clans. The clans may be broadly defined, but they are still there and if you doubt it, then go try an urban neighborhood that you are not meant to walk. The clan structure is weak and the leaders are often absent. Some clans are full of single mothers and itinerant male warriors. Others are traditionally patriarchal. Some clans form alliances based on language, geography or religion.

That is multiculturalism. It is a clumsy alliance of Teips pretending to represent all the Teips.
Multiculturalism, like most forms of liberal consensus, shut out any contradictory realities. But there are Teips here other than the coalition of community groups united to demand more money for social services centers. There are older Teips in America that come from the desert and the mountains. Teips that care nothing for building more LGBT youth centers and a great deal about honor and territory.

Tamerlan found his Teip in Islam. So have many Islamic terrorists and political Islamists. Their Teip is not one that we talk about. It is the Teip that is at war with all the other Teips. It is at war with the basic idea of Multiteipism that the entire broken system it is trying to topple over is based on. And the story is the same in Europe. It is the same in Canada. It is the same in Australia.

It is the same everywhere.

We can't talk about this of course because we are modern people and we know that's not how things work. We know that we are lucky to be living in a society with such rich diversity. Our diversity is our strength. The more divided we become, the stronger we will be. And if occasionally bombs go off or heads fly or planes crash into skyscrapers, we will walk away muttering, "But he was so nice." 

Comments

  1. You could almost call this essay, Tale of the Teip.

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  2. Grover Norquist, a noted tax fighter is now known by everyone who cares to know to be a major pro-Islamic figure. To further complicate this seemingly incongruent state of affairs, he is a major figure in the pro-Amnesty movement. People like Norquist and the Saudis who now see to be in charge of the United States intuitively understand that the best way to weaken America is to get rid of its traditional culture by replacing it with the quilt of diversity. The left that is coming from very different philosophical underpinnings understands this equally well. They would both want to immediately replace it by their respective ideologies, but they know that at the moment it's a bridge too far. So they've become allies of convenience.

    Back home, the Saudis are not fans of diversity, because they want everyone to be loyal to a single clan, namely the Royal family. The Wahabi sect is an instrument that fits the material they have to work with to cement the allegiance to the clan, as well as such other instruments as whatever money and fear are spread around, or whatever support (or looking the other way) is given to terrorism. But in the US their eager agents are quite supportive of multiculturalism until the one piece of the tapestry they care about will become the more equal among equals.

    Those who want the traditional America to survive cannot accomplish it by buying into the diversity agenda. They need to recognize that the traditional American culture is the most highly developed culture in the history of the world. They need to recognize that this is the clan they belong to, and that there is no choice but to fight the other clans for dominance. This is how the human societies evolved through hundreds of thousands of years. This is why humans tend to develop distinct languages so quickly, to maintain and identity that's not easily penetrable by "the others". So instead of demonizing "the fear of the other" as the left does, it needs to be embraced, but not as a fear but as a desire to win and survive.

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  3. Anonymous23/4/13

    People enjoy their delusions, delusions are easier than reality.

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  4. Thanks for the explanation, Teip, a word I never heard off. Yet why do other clan subdivided ethnic groups not restore to outside group violence?
    Chinese triades used to limit their violence to other Chinese not to non-Chinese in the society, Moluccan Indonesians who sided with the Dutch during the anti colonial war and after that war fled to Holland for decades caused no trouble even though they where a warrior tribe.
    The answer is once again Islam, the scourge of all ideologies bent on creating not only an all Islamic world but an unlivable world on top with continuous strife from all against all. And who is going to stop them from achieving their aim? American gun owners? For whom the ownership of the hardware became a substitute for real courage? Who cowered like sheep en mass inside their homes when the government officials barked that they should stay inside during the manhunt in Boston? Where did the "cowboy courage"from the last generation dissipate into?

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  5. There's another term for "Teip": Balkanization. Multiculturalism and government-enforced "diversity" are natural incubators for group warfare, especially when the groups are competing for government loot in the way of handouts and special privileges and even a protected legal status. Muslims are one group, illegal aliens (aka Mexicans, or future Democratic voters) another. And what entity encourages the proliferation of "Teips"? Uncle Sam, referee of divisiveness.

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  6. Anonymous23/4/13

    Diversity is our strength, but it is the overriding adherence to the American ideal that is supposed to trump all. We are a nation of persons with dual heritage. Our nation incorporates many aspects of the cultures from where people immigrate. There is nothing wrong with it. Don't conflate multiculturalism with a dual-heritage or why else are you proud of your Jewish heritage if not for pride in your dual-heritage?

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  7. This is fabulous, Daniel. If Americans don't understand Islam after reading it, they never will. I have tried to explain with a comparison to the Mafia and I believe that's very close but this is more clear and compelling.

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  8. AG "The Crocodile Hunter"23/4/13

    So we all know that Islam and Progressivism have many similarities, at least until a certain point. When it comes to the brothers Tsarnaev, how much influence did Progressives have on them that started them on the journey that ended with Islamist Supremacy? It isn't too far fetched that growing up in Cambridge Massachusetts that they may have had more than one inspirational far left teachers or mentors within the multicultural Cambridge community.

    Of course once turned on to Progressive ideology, it is safe to assume that things their religion teach were normalized by Progressivism, such as a hatred of America and Jews and a desire to "progress" it away from the Judeo/Christian values it was founded on.

    They were probably given a crash course on the evil of capitalism, the evil of US interference in the Middle East by Progressives. There educations were most likely also neglecting the vast brutal war-mongering history of Islam like most ignorant Progressives.

    So to what extent was Progress a motivating factor in these boys’ lives? Sure, the ending was radical Islamist Supremacy, but every journey begins somewhere.

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  9. @Elise Ronan

    Diversity is not our strength. It is true that many immigrants bring various talents and energy and contribute greatly. To that extent immigrants are good. Their various beliefs that differentiate them from the traditional American society are more often than not a weakness. Some of the most successful immigrant groups bring with them ideas about the government and its role that causes them to vote for people like Obama. These are some of the smartest of the smartest. So what good is that diversity? And people who come from third-world hellholes, if you disregard the energy and hunger for success that some (and only some) of them have, what is good about their diversity

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  10. Anonymous23/4/13

    IgorR-
    Obviously you missed the part in civics class where each immigrant group brought with them something of value to the USA. We are no longer a simple Anglo-Saxon protestant society, but one filed with the rich cultural heritages of Irish, Jewish, Asian, all forms of European, Hispanic and African cultures. BTW each in their own time were running from despotic hellholes. Why else did everyone come here (save those brought in slave ships). They came for freedom, liberty and equality of opportunity. I have yet to learn of any immigrant group that runs from a good life. That "smart" immigrant groups tend to vote for Obama, pray tell whom might you mean by that? So we should just not let in any immigrants unless they agree to vote Republican for the entirety of their lives and generations to come?

    The binding force as I stated above is the US Constitution (American ideal) as a guiding principle. But society grows, changes and develops as people mature.That is also why there are so many amendments to the Constitution. Just as a humanbeings mature as they grow and develop. No one said that that growth was easy nor without pain and consequences. Argument of purpose is also a good timber of whom a society happens or wishes to be.

    I find the problem that you are having to be what the elderly call "the good old days." There was nothing so wonderful about the good old days. Civil rights abuses, misogyny, racism, antisemitism etc. If you want to talk about traditional American values what would those be?

    Even the development of the Constitution belies your belief in a "golden time period." From the moment of our nation's birth there has been huge discord about the direction of this nation. That is the hallmark of democracy. Furthermore, every issue being played out now has actually been played before by this society only with different characters at the helm. Read some of the founding fathers, the federalist papers and the arguments between Hamilton and Madison. They will show you how un-unique our issues of today truly are. Then when you are done witht he founding fathers, open Paul Johnson's History of the American People.

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  11. Augustina23/4/13

    You are so right, Daniel. I just finished Carle Zimmerman's Family and Civilization. In it, he describes three family types: Trustee, Domestic, and Atomized.

    The trustee type family is a teip, or a clan, just as you describe. It is an ancient family type that resurfaces when there is limited civilizational control. It resurfaced in America under the Scots-Irish who settled in Appalachia, giving rise to the various Hatfiel and McCoy family fueds.

    The Atomized family is what the left so dearly wants. There is little to no family structure, divorce is easy, marriage optional. It is what has become of the modern family. The problem with it,is it presages the end of a culture not its flowering. When Greece declined in the fifth century BC, they had developed an atomized family. When the atomized family became prominent, Rome began its decline.

    We are in a civilizational decline. The lack of stable families results in the sort of feral societies you see in the inner cities.

    It is interesting to note that the Tsarnaev parents divorced right around the time the elder brother began to be drawn to Islam.

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  12. Anonymous23/4/13

    "full of moderate Muslims just like that. They are the people politicians point to as proof that not all Muslims are terrorists, just the ones who actually blow up things."

    not til they increase their percentages according the muzz bruzz saturation charts

    "The Europeans would talk about integration... They came up Muslim. And we all know the rest of the story."

    uhh, perfect!

    [and why aren't the demasses worried about the muzz colonizing America?]

    "Multiculturalism, like most forms of liberal consensus, shut out any contradictory realities."

    Merkel, Sarkozy, and finally, Cameron, altogether now,"Multi-culti DOESN'T work!"

    if we don't fight like heroes NOW, do we not have a 100 years war to return sovereignty to Omerica?


    Thanks for your great efforts, Mr.Greenfield

    danfan

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  13. Boston is a city witha village mentality run by "NEO-LIBS".
    "Neo-Libs" are those who dogmatically advocate the American defeat under essentially fraudulent intellectual pretenses. They will reflect about the Marathon Massacre; "Look how they brought so many people together!" And mean - well, deeply feel it. And in their deeply feeling it, we have further evidence how numb they've become (if one follows the brain and messaging through the neural system. (Writing as pedestrian, I am.)

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  14. @Elise Ronan
    The traditional American values I want to talk about are self-reliance, strict adherence to the Constitution, healthy suspicion of the government, really understanding what "fair play" meant. I'm under no illusion that there was not a lot of corruption back then, but there was a significant percentage of the population that instinctively believed what the founding fathers believed even if some of them were less formally educated.


    Of course each immigrant group brought with them something of value, how could they not? You are making the classical liberal mistake of promoting the benefits of something without equally considering the costs. FDR was elected with the help of the children of the turn of the century immigrants commencing the greatest destruction of the concept of America ever seen (until now). Immigrants elected Obama in the sense that if it wasn't for them he would have lost, need I say more? But I will.

    If you decide to pay twice as much for a car than the dealer wants for it, would the benefits of this car not be the same if you just paid the listed price, or even bargained a little? So talking about the benefits without discussing the costs can make just about any proposition that's not obviously harmful seem attractive. Immigration was essentially stopped in the '20s because of the havoc the immigrants were unleashing with their bombings, socialism, and anarchism. Ted Kennedy, whose life was dedicated to two things, abuse of women and the destruction of America, knew what he was doing when he reformed and reintroduced immigration in 1965 that was substantially based on diversity.

    The US Constitution was not a guiding principle for the Chechens, nor is it for the Somalis who get bussed around to polling places to vote as their Democratic machine masters tell them to, nor is it for the illegal invaders whose first act in the US is to violate the law only to be followed by identity theft. Certainly immigrants peopled America at one point, and without that who knows what would have happen? The industrial might and the ability to fight wars would have been different thus changing the course of history. But did all the valuable qualities they brought with them outweigh the harm their misunderstanding of the role of government in people's lives? I think not. Now that's only a part of the question, as groups believing in a murderous ideology are being imported en masse. Additionally, in the past immigrants who couldn't make it financially did not have any safety nets. Sometimes something like 30% returned home after not being to make a living. Immigrant always come for one purpose: a better life. "Freedom, liberty and equality of opportunity" may be a part of it, but if you know anything about how modern immigrants operate so is Section 8 housing, among various other types of assistance.

    Today immigration is poison. Sure, many hi-tech startups are started by immigrants. Sure we have all kinds of ethnic food. Sure Einstein was an immigrant. But it's my prerogative to want people who come in to share the values that made this country great. It is also my prerogative to sympathize with an older woman who started saying to me recently "Sometimes I can't recognize my country any more" before she shut herself up to comply with political correctness because she didn't know me well. Elise, I recommend you rethink your "I'd like to teach the world to sing" theory of immigration and instead adopt the old Apple advertising slogan, "Think different."

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  15. Anonymous25/4/13

    This last comment was very well-presented. It is discouraging to be facing the same, emotional leftist arguments after all this time. Every time a new, more horrendous event happens -- from Obama's stomping on the Constitution and ignoring court orders to a terrorist bombing at the Boston Marathon, I think THIS will wake them up. But it doesn't. It's like living in some crazy, Twilight-Zone kind of world.

    So many young people complain about the 50's and traditionalism. If you had grown up then, you would be overcome with grief at what we have lost. It's so easy to parrot what leftist professors and textbooks say, but when a person who was there makes a statement, listen. (And I mean ordinary people, not those with an agenda).

    I wish posters who complain about traditional America could live there for a day to see what we have lost.

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