In the Name of Identity: Violence and the Need to Belong

Rating:
Summary: Identity: a weakness, a strength.
Review: When I first moved to study in Canada I was fascinated by its diversity and multiculturalism. Being a culture enthusiast, I loved asking people about their identity and experience living in Canada. One common question I used to ask was: "Do you feel more Canadian or Indian/Arab/Latino/Russian/or whatever their ethnicity was)?" The length and depth of their answers would vary. But they all had one thing in common and that was some sort of an identity dilemma. I rarely got any definite answers, I heard a lot of "umm's" and it seemed to me that many people either did not know the answer or were unable to articulate it. Or, as I found out from reading the book, my question was possibly fundamentally flawed. Amin Maalouf begins his book by expressing his concern over the political correctness or rather incorrectness of the question that I have been asking many people. He says: "How many times, since I left Lebanon in 1967 to live in France, have people asked me, with the best intentions in the world, whether I felt "more French" or "more Lebanese." Questions like that bothered him because they require a choice to be made while he firmly believes that identity CANNOT be compartmentalized. "You can't divide it up into halves or thirds or any other separate segments. I haven't got several identities: I've got just one, made up of many components in a mixture that is unique just to me, just as other people's identity is unique to them as individuals." Amin Maalouf is Arab, French, Lebanese, Catholic, and a mixture of other "components" and he rejects to slice and dice himself up into multiple identities or to be put in situations that would require him to choose an either/or. Why do people always feel obliged to project one component of their identity over the other(s)? Why do they have difficulty acknowledging all the different factors that make up their identity? Why do many people commit crimes in the name of religious, ethnic, national or some other kind of identity? What is IDENTITY and how did the NEED TO BELONG to an identity shape our world? The author attempts to answer those questions throughout the book and he does an excellent job in doing so. His message is clear: people have to stop self-hating and start to fully accept their diversity because those who do are like mortar strengthening the societies in which the live and those who don't, end up being, many of the times, individuals who are prepared to kill for the sake of identity.

Rating:
Summary: Very Informative
Review: When you admit that Human Nature is the same among all peoples and that people tend to be violent when resources are scarce, and freedom lovers when resources are abundant, then you will appreciate the powerful words of Amin Maalouf.