For governments to deal with this system, there has to be a long-term process of change, based on education, health and economic well-being. In a number of societies, economic well-being and education have reduced the control of tribal leaders, and taken the good aspects of tribal systems and modernized with society. In general, the British understood that educating tribal leaders’ children, most of them in very modern educational institutions, ensured that the next generations would bring about change.

I am afraid that situations like Kenya cannot be avoided until an overall change has taken place in these societies. In others, such as Afghanistan, imposing change that ignores the tribal system will create reactions that will also be violent. In Pakistan for example, the traditional method of controlling the tribal system was to strengthen the tribal chiefs, who then brought about order. No that that’s no longer being done, it’s resulting in more chaos. Here lies the problem: at what point is the tribal leader strengthened so much that he may use that strength to resist change?

Thus the best that governments can do is create the conditions where people do not feel it worth their while to be violent and disruptive. There is nothing wrong with a tribal system; it’s only when it becomes violent that we have a problem. For this, the best that can be done is to change from within. Expecting democracy in a tribal system overnight will not happen, with or without invasions.