Cultural Dissonance
Sorry I’ve taken a while to write. I’ve been going through changes.
As I explore the intersection between Nigerian and British identity; I do often wonder if these identities can not possibly co-habit.
If it’s even possible to identify as both Nigerian and British?
If my very existence shouldn’t exist and if my internal cultural conflict and the pain it brings actually is worth championing at all?
I was at a friends house party yesterday and a Spanish guy told me I must feel like a foreigner all the time. Seeing as I’m not entirely British and I’m not entirely Nigerian. He then went unto say that actually, I must just feel like a Londoner — a mix of loads of different identities — and we discussed whether or not we loved that about London. We both concluded we do.
He was pretty hot too, so his heavily Spanish accented English questioning the validity of my existence didn’t irk as much as it should have. It still did however, but at least I listened and engaged, if not for any reason other than to stare at him lol.
It used to make me pretty angry.
I’ve had Nigerians from Nigeria in the diaspora tell me that they would never have a child like me. The idea of raising such a culturally muddy person disgusts them. The conflict, they pity. I get that and in truth, sometimes I pity myself.
However, I can’t help but think that, seeing as I do exist and seeing as I have no choice in doing so, that the idea of cultural “purity” is invalid?
Aren’t we all a mix of different cultures ultimately? Aren’t we all battling with inconsistencies, incompatible cultural frameworks? Isn’t this growth and route to wholeness in life, but a testament to how it can be successful and where the beauty of new identities form?
I guess throughout history, as a product of love, hate, war and peace, there have always been situations where cultures have clashed. Sometimes uncomfortably and some never came to being and some resulted in the diversity of societies we have today.
As I learn to love myself and as I navigate my own internal cultural battles; I can’t help but feel that I am worth existing, as are others, and it’s not something to be put down or dismissed, but rather embraced and celebrated.
There will always be people with a stronger sense of pure identity. I think this is grounded in elitism, but based on my experiences already, it’s also where I think insecurity breeds and festers and pulls people apart, rather than bringing them together. I think it’s this sense of purity that has led to much war and suffering and loss of vibrant, wonderful cultures, that we will never know we needed and sadly no longer exist, but to be studied and learned from.
I guess what I’m concluding is: I think we are all muddy.
I believe if more people embraced that they are an amalgamation of different conflicting identities, we’d be much happier. This intersectionality, for me, is worth fighting for and worth celebrating and worth existing.
I know now I won’t convince everybody, maybe not even a hot Spanish guy at a house party, nor a Nigerian born and raised in Nigeria, living in the UK with me, that I embody Nigerian identity.
I may never ever convince the Englishmen in the pub, that I too identify as British, even though I don’t appreciate a pint at the pub over small talk about the weather every Friday night after work.
I still exist though and so do many others. So, ultimately it doesn’t matter what they think, it matters what is.
It’s taken me a while to get here, but now that I am, it’s bringing with it some peace and I hope, with time, I’ll bring along some of these other identities along the journey with me.
Have a great week.
Being Britgerian
Funmi
