Dickson C. Igwe. Photo: VINO

Fools ignore history and repeat the tragedies of history. History reveals that tribalism in the form of anger in the scapegoating of minorities is always near the surface. Here in the Virgin Islands, we know the story well, even though this is a very tolerant community. Xenophobia is always a factor in this society, though many will deny it exists. Xenophobia is especially present in small island communities.

In the 1920s, it was the Jews in Germany and Eastern Europe, minorities, blamed for economic and social distress in the aftermath of World War 1 and the Great Crash of 1929. In Post-Independence Africa, tribal hatred has driven wars that have killed millions.

Today in Europe, the great enemy is Islamophobia. If civil war breaks out on the Western street, Muslims will be one of the minorities affected. Jews will be safe for the simple reason that the Jew today is in a much more powerful economic and social position than in the 1920s.

A sage mind stated that hate is easier than love. It is easy to blame outsiders for social ills. Dubious politicians understand that fact and use hate and division to rise to power.

However, history further reveals that the real reason for social hate is economics. Today, for example, manufacturing and industry have shifted to Asia from the West. This has disenfranchised millions of working whites in small towns all over the West, especially in the USA. The result is a tribe of angry white and semi-educated men looking to blame outsiders for every evil under the sun.

Now, the most critical vector of civil war is social division. In the old Yugoslavia, before the Civil War of the 1990s-The Balkans, there was relative peace for years after World War 2 ended. This was thanks to the Yugoslav Strong Man Josef Tito: a wily and cunning authoritarian.

After Tito’s death, there was a breakdown. Strongmen arose in the New Yugoslavia. These strongmen drove ethnic conflict and war with impunity. Parts of Yugoslavia became tribal and nationalistic and descended into ethnic warfare. Eventually full civil war broke out, and it was a very nasty and bloody affair. One hundred and thirty thousand Yugoslavians lost their lives, with 2 million people displaced.

There was genocide and mass murder. That similar vector appears to be taking place in MAGA USA today. However, powerful institutions such as the military and courts will prevent mass tragedy. Civil War in the West in 2025 will be unlike the old idea of civil war, owing to these powerful institutions that will act as a check on murderous excesses.

Instead, the war will be a war of movements, ideologies and organisations. Mass rioting, violent protests, attacks on minority communities by militias, and widespread assassinations. It will be as disruptive as any conventional civil war but more subtle and invisible.