(Con) Fused identities
The search for belonging in a globalized world
What does it mean to be from Jersey? Do you have to be born here? Is there a certain number of years you need to have lived on the island? Some people on social media seem to have devised a particular set of criteria, ranging from quite hysterical to relatively benign. I certainly know what it is like to be measured as such. In my role as chairman of the Jersey Cares Refugee Aid Group and columnist for the Jersey Evening Post, I was sometimes attacked on the grounds that I wasn’t from Jersey. It was never really about the content of what I said, but rather, the indignation seemed to be directed at the fact that I was a foreigner, who dared to have an opinion.
That always puzzled me somewhat. Should I point out that I live and work here? Or that my wife was born and bred in the depths of Trinity? Perhaps I should mention my second son was born in St. Peter’s valley and my daughter in St. Saviour? On one occasion I was told to ‘go back to Syria.’
A lot of people were confused I suppose, struggling with their own identities, defining themselves in opposition to something else.
So what does it mean? I ask the question, because ‘identity’ is once again becoming a badge of allegiance, like so many times before in history. We see it deciding elections. Identity can exclude people, as well as include them as part of a group.
In recent elections in Italy and the Czech Republic we have seen the politics of exclusion, America First style. Political messages encouraged people to take back their identities and oppose those who are seeking to destroy them. These politics very nearly won the elections in the two largest economies of the continent: Germany and France. Only just did the mainstream parties salvage their projects, long past their sell-by dates and destined to be crushed in the future.
On Tuesday, the Dutch political landscape fragmented further, although far right politician Wilders failed to seize the momentum, at least for the time being. Perhaps a more dangerous force looms on the horizon in the nation that some people still call ‘tolerant’. Maybe their judgements have been clouded by the marijuana smoke that Holland is known for. ‘Tolerance’ has long ago ceased to be a characteristic of Dutch politics. Instead, the country has retreated into small-minded, arrogant xenophobia, although encouragingly, some of Holland’s ethnic minorities have started organising themselves politically, demanding full acceptance in the face of Wilders’ calculated cruelty towards them. Dutch white supremacists have a new crown prince however in Thierry Baudet, a self-styled intellectual, whose party recently posed the question whether black people are naturally less intelligent than whites, leading Foreign Policy to label White Nationalism as ‘the new Dutch disease.’
Like everywhere in Europe, the politics of exclusion thrives on economic inequality, ignored by policy-makers. The shit people experience, naturally has a tendency to ‘slide downhill,’ affecting the most vulnerable in the greatest possible way and encouraging the type of competition where one group of vulnerable people takes comfort in lashing out at an even more vulnerable group of people. This is of course encouraged by the billionaire-owned press, keen to deflect any socio-economic grievance away from the real issues, while fanning the flames of division.
Like in the 1930s, politicians everywhere are seizing the concept of identity, bending it to suit their purposes, but drawing on the very familiar concept of the external enemy, preferably operating amongst us; the immigrant or the evil foreign government. Wasn’t the poisoning in Salisbury a gift to the May government? It gave Boris Johnson a platform to play his favourite role of the provocative buffoon with a very bad impersonation of Winston Churchill, trying to sound tough, but way too posh to make any sort of impression in comparing Vladimir Putin with Hitler, but then going on to say that he by no means meant that Britain should boycott the World Cup in Russia this summer. Later, Johnson was reminded that during the 1936 Olympics, Russia (then USSR) did indeed boycott the Games, while the English team was encouraged to bring Adolf Hitler the Nazi salute. Ouch!
This was reckless populism at his finest, from a man who has experienced so much privilege, that he’s never really learnt that actions have consequences. For Johnson, these type of exchanges are all part of game, like in his fraternity days, when he used to ridicule the plebs. Suddenly the headlines are no longer talking Brexit, but instead, banging the war-drums and coming at Corbyn’s Labour from yet another angle. How much more blundering will the British public accept from the old boys network around Theresa May?
Changing identities
Have we not learnt that the substance of identity changes over time? Don’t we know by now that its meaning is constructed through interactions in society which produce shared assumptions about reality? This is what sociologists call the ‘social construct.’ There really is no such a thing as a fixed identity, no matter how much the Farages of this world will shout it from the rooftops, amplified by the Australian’s billionaire-owned press.
I thought Modern England was founded by French invaders who were originally from Scandinavia and the ‘English’ Royal Family’s real name is Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, something we might be reminded of when its latest offspring marries the American Meghan Markle, a descendant of African plantation slaves from Georgia. Ironically, the slave trade has contributed quite a lot to the wealth the royal family has managed to amass over the centuries. Meghan will be enjoying the fruits of the labour which kept her forefathers in shackles. Isn’t that cute?
Each year, thousands of people are born in England whose ancestors are from different places in the world. Are they English?
I think everyone will agree that national identity is difficult to define. Yet, in the public domain, we are often challenged to demonstrate our loyalty to this vague notion of identity. As if borders, decided upon through centuries of conquest or political manoeuvring, somehow flow through someone’s blood. I am not proud to be Dutch, or European, how can I be? Did I accomplish this through hard work and dedication? Don’t get me wrong, I feel very privileged to be born in this part of the world, rather than on the dusty, war-torn plains of Southern Somalia, but it’s not something I can personally claim credit for.
Research by the Ford Foundation shows that the most important determining factor in a person’s social position is the location in which he is born. This means that economic opportunity and personal security are handed out mostly by a lottery of birthplace. Location, location, location may be a catchy phrase for a real estate agent, it can also go a long way in explaining the ever-widening wealth divide in the world today. The search for more favourable economic circumstances has driven migration throughout human history. Our current migrant crisis is perhaps not so dissimilar to previous episodes of mass-migration. Walls or tougher measures will never stop this basic human drive. So while anti-immigration parties might be on the rise at the moment, their cause is a lost one, while the electorates they rely on are of age, clinging to a world which no longer exists.
It is hard to define belonging or identity in our complex modern world. Diversity can be frightening. I am reminded by Nietzsche, who said that “those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.” Do we possess the empathy and understanding to deal with inevitable changes?
