Word: tribalized
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...east from Alaska as the glaciers of the Ice Age melted. By 19,000 B.C., the Indians -- a short, hardy people who suffered from arthritis and poor teeth, among other infirmities -- had built primitive homes in cliffs along Cross Creek, a few miles from present-day Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. One tribal nation, the Cahokia federation, had the sophisticated skills to build a thriving trade center of 40,000 people, across the river from what is now St. Louis, Missouri, between A.D. 1000 and 1250. But by 1300, this metropolis -- the largest on the continent north of Mexico -- had been abandoned...
...dangers this internationalism presents are evident: not for nothing did the Tower of Babel collapse. As national borders fall, tribal alliances, and new manmade divisions, rise up, and the world learns every day terrible new meanings of the word Balkanization. And while some places are wired for international transmission, others (think of Iran or North Korea or Burma) remain as isolated as ever, widening the gap between the haves and the have- nots, or what Alvin Toffler has called the "fast" and the "slow" worlds. Tokyo has more telephones than the whole continent of Africa...
...subject of ethnic pride never arose. Dad was simply being practical. In the New York of his day, a tribal pecking order prevailed in many fields. Mario Cuomo, though a top student, couldn't find a berth in any major law firm. Except for the lowliest jobs, Wall Street, insurance and banking were also closed to those of Mediterranean or Slavic descent. A handful of legal and financial establishments were the preserves of high-caste German Jews, seldom hospitable to Polish and Russian Jews. The Postal Service was more ) egalitarian. The merit system allowed a Baratz to rise in rank...
...Khan's agenda -- war and atrocity -- is still pursued, although with less candor about the pleasure involved: some tribal or nationalist rationale ("Greater Serbia!") is proclaimed. Even after the cold war has ended as big-battle war seems to have become extinct -- the Gulf War perhaps a last set piece of tank warfare -- parvenu nations tinker in their basements with homemade nukes. Even more ominous is the global inundation of handy conventional weapons, a planetary democratization of firepower trickling down to Third World villages and the hip pockets of American schoolchildren...
Following a military coup in which Burundi's President was assassinated, tribal fighting has killed thousands. After the Oct. 21 slaying of President Melchior Ndadaye and four top aides, the army briefly seized power, but no group has taken firm control of the African country...