Deadly identities!

Many people raise a problematic question about the subject of identity and belonging, the essence of which is: can a person carry or belong to more than one identity? The French-Lebanese writer Amin Maalouf addressed this question years ago in his widely celebrated book In the Name of Identity: Violence and the Need to Belong (known in Arabic as Deadly Identities), in which he examined the fragmentation of identities and explored how identity can turn into a danger and become deadly, as the title suggests. So when is identity a necessity, and when does it become a present danger?

First, regarding multiple identities, the matter is entirely plausible. A person moves through several identities simultaneously, and these are lived and felt most acutely by those who migrate to other societies and countries due to certain political, economic, and living circumstances. They carry the nationality of one state, belong to a different religion, and speak a second language. In this way, a person can be Arab, Muslim or Christian, Western, and global all at the same time.

Because the Western societies that attract immigrants are governed by law, any individual within them moves according to the law of citizenship and enjoys their full rights. At the same time, they are free to practise their religion, their language, and more — in their home and among their community — without isolation or transgression, and without carrying out or committing aggressive acts against anyone. It is precisely this isolation and these feelings that have produced the practices of terrorism and extremism that spread across Europe in recent years. This is where the danger of identities becomes apparent.

In his book, Amin Maalouf does not criticise the idea of identity itself, nor does he call on anyone to abandon their identity. Rather, he argues that identity becomes deadly when it is reduced to a single affiliation — one that calls on its holder to exclude others in order to survive, and to kill others because he cannot coexist or live alongside them.

A human being is not one thing and never will be. The problem begins when a person believes they have a single identity, which they see as the sole truth and to which they must pledge allegiance and choose above all else. At that point, identity transforms into a weapon.

Maalouf also explains why people become rigid about their identities, putting forward a profound idea whose essence is this: the more a person feels that one of their identities is threatened, the more fiercely they cling to it. This explains much of what we see today. When a people feel that their language is receding, their customs are disappearing, and their rights and history are being marginalised, they tend to defend them with greater force. That defence manifests as entrenchment behind their identity and their distinctiveness — an affiliation that transforms into a reaction to a sense of threat.