In the European Union there is an attempt to shift people’s primary identity from their particular country or region to Europe as a whole. The nation states of Europe experienced so many destructive wars with one another, (the most destructive and horrifying of them being the two World Wars of the 20th Century, which are still alive in the collective memory), that the E.U. was conceived specifically as an effort to build permanent bridges between the states. The existence of the E.U. is predicated on the promise of peace and prosperity, and for a long time this noble project (begun with the European Economic Community in the 1950’s) seemed to be succeeding. But now, less than 70 years later, there are some major fissures emerging along the fault lines of national identity. Not only is the United Kingdom engaged in a Brexit, but also Scotland is currently quite serious about wanting to leave the U.K. And though Spain is currently safely embedded in the E.U., many in Catalonia are passionate about independence from Spain. Not to mention that the two parts of Belgium (Wallonia and Flanders) are so much at odds with each other that they not long ago went 19 months without being able to form a national government that both regions could agree on. And there are other divisions in Europe simmering as well.
This is not to say, of course, that the U.S. and the E.U. are each doomed to break apart. Rather, I point to the difficulties inherent in both of the unions in order to highlight the fact that the issue of identity may remain buried for quite a long time before once again erupting. Elsewhere in the world there are even more dramatic examples, which have led to genocide and ethnic cleansing. After decades and centuries of living together more or less harmoniously, Hutus and Tutsis (Rwanda), Serbs, Croats and Bosnians (the Balkans), Sunnis and Shiites (Middle East), Sinhalese and Tamils (Sri Lanka) and so many other conflicts in so many other parts of the world suddenly exploded into murderous violence. A truce rather than peace.
So, if building bridges is not the answer then what is? Rather than looking for new answers to an old question, let’s ask a new question. Instead of seeking better and more sophisticated ways of negotiating the gulf between identities, let us explore the nature of identity itself in order to seek for clues to better dealing with its divisive nature. At the heart of identity is a distinction, which has hardened into a separation. Specifically, it is the delineation between inside and outside: inside my individual awareness vs. outside it, which eventually becomes inside my group vs. outside it. In other words, regardless of the particular level, whether it is individual, relationship, family, clan, organization, community or nation, a subjectivity is pitted against an objectivity – inside vs. outside.
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