GLOBALIZATION BEGATS TRIBALISM 

As the planet globalizes, groups tribalize.

The time I have spent with various so-called "primitive tribes", in retrospect, seems to be the modern day version of a university education - for the days of tomorrow.

As speed-of-light communications makes the farthest regions of the planet seem like they are next door, the most convenient and perhaps only security blanket is association with someone "of their kind". The "racism" today may be tomorrow's "tribal" virtue.

As business globalizes it too diversifies as regions demand different designs, perhaps genetically-implanted, perhaps to show "difference", when everyone and everything in the world begins to seem the same.

Even as this new magnet of globalization starts bringing "tribes" together, emerging technology guarantees that this again will change. Instantaneous language translators, already on the market offer to make languages transparent as instant translation, much like instant coffee, transforms long-term learning (brewing) into instant information.

Thus more micro-cultures are developing in a macro, but next-door geography. Instead of half-a-dozen major countries dominating the map, a patchwork quilt of hundreds of new "countries" is emerging. Seventy new countries have entered the UNITED NATIONS since 1950! Even countries that have not yet reached national stature are being accepted by the world media. Can that electronically-indelible image spread by satellites that recognize no national boundaries, be erased once implanted. Probably not. More people know more today about such once obscure segments of the U.S.S.R. (largest country in the world, 2 1/4 times the size of the second largest, Canada) as Georgia and Kirghiz. Two years ago how many North Americans knew there was another place called "Georgia"? How many even knew the U.S.S.R., was "Russia" plus (by 1945) 14 other republics?

Ironically, guess what country in the world has had the most experience dealing with "tribes"? South Africa, with two official national languages (English and Afrikaans) and eleven tribal tongues. They may eventually be the model the world follows. They already have numerous "countries" or "tribal homelands" all speaking a different language and unrecognized as "countries" by other world countries, but accepted for what they are by the Government of South Africa. The homelands governments control all public services, education, etc. in their "country".

Complexity is becoming common.

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