When the tribe hijacks the idea of homeland. By Zakaria Nimr.
Translated from Arabic by Ibrahim Ebeid. February 23/2026
When the tribe hijacks the idea of homeland.
By Zakaria Nimr.
Translated from Arabic by Ibrahim Ebeid. February 23/2026
The crisis of nation-building is not a crisis of resources or geography, but a crisis of political and moral consciousness. States fail not only because of wars or poverty, but also when they hijack the idea of a homeland for the benefit of the tribe, and when the state transforms from a public entity to a private property shared by the clans and elites associated with it.
In societies that have not resolved their relationship with tribalism, the state is only a formality. The constitution exists on paper, and the institutions exist in name. Still, the real decisions are made outside it, in narrow circles of affiliation, where kinship precedes efficiency, loyalty precedes law, silence about corruption is considered wisdom, and objection is classified as treason. When the tribe enters politics, it does not produce governance, but rather quotas. It does not create stability; rather, it balances temporary terror. Every authority based on fanaticism is a fearful power, because it knows that it is not based on a social contract, but on fragile alliances that can explode at the first dispute over the booty.
In this reality, culture and science are not just slogans of development, but tools of political liberation. Culture exposes the logic of blind reverence, breaks the myth of the leader, and restores the citizen as an actor rather than a follower. Science, on the other hand, threatens the intention of failure, because it asks about results, measures performance, and does not recognize the legitimacy of lineage or personal history. For this reason, fragile authorities fear consciousness. The brittle authority is afraid of the free university, of the bold press, of the intellectuals who are not domesticated. Every critical question is a direct threat to a system based on indoctrination rather than persuasion, and on loyalty rather than competence.
History is clear on this issue: no modern state has succeeded in ruling by clan logic. The countries that came forward did so by de-sanctifying blood, linking power to the law, and linking rights to citizenship rather than ethnicity. Otherwise, it is nothing but a reproduction of failure in the name of identity. Social justice is not a moral discourse, but a political condition for stability. A marginalized person cannot be persuaded to belong to a homeland that treats him as a second-class citizen. It is not possible to build a permanent civil ladder under a state that rewards proximity and efficiency. When people feel that the state does not represent them, they look for an alternative, often the tribe or the weapon.
As for the talk about urbanization, it concerns the transition from the rule of individuals to the rule of institutions. From the logic of the sheikh and the leader, to the logic of law and accountability. From a state based on faces to a state based on systems. This transition does not take place automatically, but rather through a long intellectual and political struggle that requires courage to confront traditional structures rather than reconcile them at the expense of the future. The intellectual is not a neutral witness, but a party to the battle. It is either part of consciousness or part of justification. Either he takes sides with the idea of the state, or hides behind a gray discourse that equates the victim with the executioner in the name of balance.
Homelands are not built by compliments, they are not protected by silence, and they are not advanced by nostalgia. When we dare to call things by their tribal names, we build up in politics, science is a necessity, culture is an act of resistance, and the state is based only on citizenship. Every society that rejects this recognition chooses to keep circulating within the same circle, no matter how many faces or slogans change.
