From the Globe to our Society
I was never heavily in touch with my Lebanese side when I was younger, and looking back now, I really wish I had been. I can’t speak Arabic, I can’t make kafta, I can’t dance dabke. Maybe if back then I’d identified globally as I do now I’d be able to do those things, maybe I’d even know how to cook traditional Italian pasta as my great-great-grandparents did back in Italy. In truth I’m just Brazilian by birth, my mother’s side is Italian and my dad’s Lebanese, and for a long time I struggled finding one culture to identify myself as. Was I Italian, Lebanese, both, or just Brazilian? But that had been my first mistake, trying to choose just one. I could be all of them if I wanted to. I could be a global citizen and be part of as many cultures as I want to. That is what being a global citizen means to me. While some might argue that only a national identity is needed for a diverse society, I believe that a global identity allows for a more diverse society by expanding our roots and beyond because the spread of knowledge and ideas can improve our society through the meshing of our own cultural backgrounds with that of others.
As an example, in Brazil, many people are decedents of other nationalities. I’m the perfect example, my mother’s grandparents immigrated from Italy at a young age and on my father’s side, his parents immigrated from Lebanon a few years before he was born. Consequently, that makes me Italian-Lebanese. And that is the case for many Brazilians. Back in the 1950s Brazil had high immigration rates from Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and still to this day being the international economic hub that it is, Brazil still has many foreigners immigrating there for work, family, and personal desire. Because of this, Brazil is one of the most diverse nations in South America. Countless nations are represented along the streets of Brazil, where knowledge, food, and customs are shared by people living in a single nation.
As a result, these Brazilians who have mixed or different cultures have their global identity shaped by their background. This allows for them to maintain their global identity in order to pass on the traditions, recipes, and language to their children, grandchildren, nephews, brothers, sisters, as well as neighbors, friends, coworkers, because while the distance to our origins may increase we must never forget them and do our best to keep them alive and continue sharing them with those around us and thus diversifying our society. In order to create this global identity we must look to our background, discover our true origin, and bring it into our own daily lives. This allows us to set aside our differences with others by embracing the diversity of our origins that while now are far away from us, we choose to keep them alive.
To put it another way, while people are in touch with their cultural backgrounds, be it Japanese, Italian, Lebanese, or any other culture, they embrace their Brazilian nationality without compromise. While the global citizens of Brazil are in touch with their roots and their backgrounds, the majority also live a relatively normal Brazilian lifestyle, and that is the true beauty of a global identity. This demonstrates a mesh of our global identity with our nationality. As we embrace our past, we use it to continue with the present. While we might be living in one nation, we are able to interact with the rest of the world and integrate various cultures in our lives even though the origin of those cultures are often times halfway across the globe, thousands of miles away from our current nation that we call home. This being said, the way I see it is that we do not have to solely choose one nation to call our own, with a global identity we can belong to many nations within the borders of only one country.
It is important to think about this because, have you ever heard of the expression, two heads are better than one? The same concept can be applied to the dilemma of global versus national identity. Why choose only one over many when many have so much more to offer over just one? By meshing our ancestors’ culture with the one of the country in which we are living in, we are able to utilize and bring in ideas from a greater pool of knowledge. This knowledge being, on a superficial level, cuisines, fashion trends, languages, but on a deeper level, we can begin to explore different ways of thinking and solving problems which could then lead to improvements within our nation’s society and community. Only by embracing a global identity are we able to access this outer knowledge not available within our own borders, that is why we need a global identity, not just so I can walk down the street from my apartment to get birria tacos for breakfast every now and then.
By contrast, people who only identify nationally choose to abandon or ignore their roots in favor of only identifying with one specific culture or community. That feels like such a waste of so much knowledge, ranging from cuisine to customs to ways of thinking. While identifying as just one nationality definitely facilitates the process of explaining your identity to others (been there done that) but in truth it is only a façade in attempt to hide their true identity whether it be in shame of their roots or for mere ignorance of the fact that their heritage has shaped their global identity. This nationalistic belief could lead to ethnonationalist societies which would in turn lead to a decrease in diversity within one country, thus limiting people from reaching valuable knowledge.
Here some may object not everyone in a nation has many cultures to create a global identity with. Some people are born and raised in one country with parents and grandparents and ancestors from that country, and that’s not something they can change. These people might feel as though they are trapped and can’t help but be drawn to a single national identity.
They are right, however this still does not mean that they cannot be in touch with other cultures from around the world and still create a global identity without solely identifying nationally. This is because a global identity isn’t just about where your parents are from or where you immigrated from, it’s about how you learn from and interact with other cultures around you or far away from you. This is how even those who come from various backgrounds may further expand their knowledge about other cultures around world aside from their own. This sharing and discovering of knowledge allows for those who don’t feel that they can associate with multiple cultures in accordance with their heritage to have a global identity and further diversify their society by sharing this newfound knowledge.
This will result in a conglomeration of various different cultures in just one country with people being in touch with their roots as well as others exploring different cultures outside their own. In turn, the society of a single country will be diversified and through the spread of ideas from across the globe, the society will have the ability to improve upon itself through the use of these ideas that would not otherwise be available if we, the members of society, did not identify ourselves as global citizens.
In conclusion, in order to shape our global identity we must reach out to our roots as well as expand our knowledge of other cultures in order to not only diversify our society but to bring forth new ideas from around the world that will help improve the state of our community and the global citizens that live in it.
