Religion

Which predates humans as such, if other primates are a guide.

Lots of genocides among people with fairly similar religions, but tribal/clan affiliations. Sometimes distinguished by language.

Find a difference. Build a boundary through it. Make sure that those on the other side and those on this side don't actually break down the boundary. Find a reason for them to see the boundary as a gulf, so that finally those on the other side aren't really quite human. In any event, they're evil.

That want what's yours. Even if you've never had it, you should. It should be yours. So you have to take it back. Keep them from getting your stuff. Your land. Your people. They want to tell you what to do--when you should be telling them what to do. We're the kingdom that's central to the world. They want to disgrace us, humiliate us, destroy our honor.

They're not just evil, they're a threat. They're stupider than you. Less than you. But somehow, they're going to outwit you, unless you're careful. Why, look, they already brought down one government. Then another. Those damned Westerners. The corporations out to steal out natural resources. How do those inferior to us keep outwitting us? It must be because of disloyal traitors in our ranks. They don't think like us. We should be prosperous, and to do that we, the Bright, have to stand in solidarity.

Why, the natural state of humans is one of peace and prosperity. Really, even in times of drought and destruction, it just takes a few hours a week to produce enough food, clothing, and shelter. That we're not Wakandans is because of a conspiracy to keep us oppressed. It's the Jews. No, it's the whites. The Communists. The Russians. Shit, we're surrounded by stupids who outwit us, if only we could take back what has always been ours but we didn't have.

Because you know, we deserve that stuff. How about we make sure we rule over them? It's the arc of history. Then we can make sure all roads lead to Rome--not in the interest of our gods, mind you, but because we can't let those nasty people rape our women and take our stuff like they did before. If we rule, we'll be benevolent. It's in our nature. We'll just be ruthless until we have our proper spot in the universe. Then, baby, benevolence all the way. So ... Fight the Gauls. Trounce the Teutons. Puree the Parthians.

What, you say, we do the same thing they do? Nonsense. It's different when we do it. We do it for good reasons. Those bad things so-and-so did? Listen, everybody makes mistakes. Plus half of the charges are made up. By our enemies. Some of the bad things we do, well, it's until we get power. And the sabotage! And the bad things our side actually did ... Listen, they were misguided. Their heart was good. But now they've changed. They've evolved, we've evolved. We were always better, now we're even betterer, awakenest. The people on that side of the boundary, it's what they're like. They do bad things. They can't change--or, worse, they *won't* change. They *like* seeing suffering. They hate, the loathsome subhuman creatures. Why, we shouldn't even have the respect for them that we do. So the only solution is to strike first. Otherwise they'll make sure your friends and loved ones suffer. So we need to rule. It's the Viking way. We're just better, and right makes might. We're right thinking. Them, they don't really value others like we do. And we'll make sure that they see that. BAMN. They lack a culture, we'll make sure that they have a wise culture, when we finish making it for them and share ours. Because we hate assimilation and love diversity--dammit, we all have to agree on that. If we tolerate the wrong things, what good's tolerance? We must tolerate those we admire and appreciate. That's true tolerance. And we forgive the righteous.

We will have our workers to have dictatorship over them, a righteous dictatorship of the wise; after all, who better or rule than those who produce stuff. Don't worry about the people in the hinterland growing the food--they're backwards, they trying to keep the food from us because we're better and they're jealous, in their stupid neandertal ways. We're educated, we're hip, we're urban and urbane! Don't let them get off their knees--kick them when they're down. A final solution, for us, the masters, that's the goal of this race, lest wrong thinking corrupt us. We're the best people, the ummah; we're God's chosen, they're the Canaanites; we're the one's God died for, not the heathen. We'll have a millennium of peace and justice on Earth, maybe the 4th reich? We're the ones who are going to really save humanity, and the world.

From them. Because our tribe is the greatest. (Now fling poo, prepare those atlatls, let the arrows fly, rattle sabres, launch fighters, send space weapon platforms aloft. Go us!)



Pride. Hubris. Control. Domination. Genocide. Tribalism, in a nutshell. And there are a lot of nuts.

The Roman Empire wasn't a religious empire; except for Judaism, people offered whatever to Caesar in a perfunctory way and were free to do what they wanted. And the Jews could do what they wanted without the token caesarean bit. The Egyptian pantheon had hundreds of gods because every village had their distinctiveness added to the Borg-like collective. The Babylonians didn't much care. Nor the Persians. Nor the Greeks.

The Xians did, but it took centuries for "caring" to yield widespread acceptance. The Muslims cared and got faster results. But since then, you know, not so many large religious conquests. The divides recently have been non-religious masquerading as petty schisms. Imperialism was built on oppression to fight oppression--lip service to Xianity, but you know, that took centuries and in many places, 600 years later, still not really done, it was really "we can't let those Muslims oppress us any more". Just look at India for an example--it's pure Xian. Not. Xianity's spread as much after colonialism ended in Africa as before. But Hitler, there's a religious movement. All hail your god, the master race. As for an actual deity, not so much. And there's the great Slavic god Vladimir IL, obviously from the Arabic "illah", and his acolyte, the Man of Steel himself, Stalin. And the pussy cat, Miao ... Okay, Mao. Look at the wonders that were the theocracy under Peron. Pinochet, forcing all to bow the knee to Jesus? How about that Maduro and his push for religion. Pol Pot?

Put those two pious nations, the USSR and Germany, together and you get genocide on a mass scale, not picayune genocide like the (religious?) Tutsi/Hutu genocide in Rwanda. Or the "religious" genocide in the Sudan, largely ethnic and cultural. Or the jihad Nigeria, yet another Fulani genocide, which always has the effect of increasing Fulani holdings at the expense of the unbeliever non-Fulani.

Saying it's religious misses more genocides than it includes. Saying it's tribalism handles all the conquests and genocides from Papua New Guinea in the 1700s, the Bantu expansion and San genocide; it handles the Muslim and Christian conquests; Rome; it handles the USSR and various Chinese conquests.

It's fighting the apparent battle based on superficial terms from the 1700s. In order to avoid facing even the genocides from the 20th century. Much less the likely genocides of the 21st. Nobody ever thinks their tribe's going to be the one that's an oppressor.

Again, tribalism. Everything else is an attempt to make one's fellow tribesmen look good and those in the other tribe look bad.