Lost National Identity
The topic has always been a daunting one to my mind, due to the lack thereof. However, it has come up at the last bloggers meeting that I’ve attended. And, upon my return home, a few thoughts came to mind, and it only tempted me to revisit this topic once again.
“What does it mean, for you, to have a national identity?” I asked, some didn’t hear it, some kept quite, some seemed to be thinking about it, and one person honestly said that they can’t possibly find an answer to that question. I realized that I stroked an open wound, and perhaps I write now to make up for it.
Without being too academic or pedantic about the topic, I’d say that, generally, the concept of identity is an evolving on. Locally, for (a simplistic view and) example, the Bahraini people (surely) have a uniquely individual identity, an another one that encompasses a larger group (be it professional, geographic, sectarian, and so..), and a grand national Bahraini one.
I’ve also come to realize that the smaller scope sets of identity do not necessarily, if at all, add up to the wider ones, at least on a personal level. I believe, regrettably, that that is exactly why the whole nation does not feel like “one” nation. Day in, day out, we are left disjointed; floating around to freely subscribe to a floating identity that only seems to be a shared one. It is never so, though.
Not only in Bahrain, but the result of this discontinuity in what ought to be a cumulative identity is having sub-group identities being more salient (on-line, if you like) than that of the more grand (national) identity. No wonder, then, that one is unable to define what it means to be Bahraini.
I may have rubbed off some pessimism off someone, but it only seems to me that the only things that we, as a nation, share in common are life-long debt, laziness, hopelessness, and the undying thirst for Vimto in Ramadhan.
5 Comments >>
ammaro.com
I think you got it spot on point with your last line. Bahrain used to have a sort of national identity some time ago, but that just seemed to break up over the past 10 or 20 years or so, as people became more and more separated, more and more different.
Oct 7th, 2007
Hasan
I was actually wondering recently whether Bahrain ever did have a single national identity. It is only recent that it has become an “independent” state, and so the whole concept of a Bahraini island-nation and its own national identity; what does that actually mean to us and did it ever mean anything to us?
Bahrain has been a trading post for centuries where many different cultures mixed; it still is quite evident that Bahrain has a very diverse culture compared to other countries nearby.
I sometimes think that enforcing a national identity on a country such as Bahrain might even be dangerous, potentially bordering on limiting freedom of expression and suppressing particular ethnic groups by forcing them to adopt something that they don’t necessarily associate themselves with.
The way I see it, a “national” identity is something very subjective and certainly not complete. If you are familiar with the Braudelian method of analysing History of a region, it is argued that History changes at three different speeds rather than a mere chain of cause and effect.
1. Geographic Speed (Long-term): the geography and geology of a region may potentially take over 100 years to change. An island may remain an island for a long time. A river will remain a river for a long time.. and so on.
2. Social Speed (Intermediate): Customs, Social Habits, Society as a whole can potentially change in as short as a few generations.
3. Political Speed (Immediate): Political changes, theoretically speaking, can change overnight and in a very short period of time.
The reason I mention this is to argue that society is not static and it changes over time. Maybe we’re just growing older and noticing how things are changing and when we’re old and grey and have kids of our own, we’d tell them, “Hey, when we were your age things were different,” and they’d probably give us the, “yeah whatever, we don’t care” attitude.
You’re right in a sense, though. Bahraini society is changing, and at a rapid pace. I guess it’s a product of the times we live in. As for it losing its national identity, well, I’m not sure that we ever had a single identity to begin with.
I’d like to hear your take on this.
Oct 7th, 2007
H.
Gladly, Hasan.
Surely, the process of societal change, as you depicted, is central to the hierarchical structure of identity (with individualized and private properties at the bottom, and grand societal and public ones at the top).
However, to have a national identity is by no means necessarily depriving citizens from their freedom or striping them off their desired identities. On the contrary, a national identity (in my personal view) ought to be one that is built and construed from the bottom up. If one would imagine a hierarchy of groups (in the most simplistic conception for ease’s sake) having a diverse set of qualities (e.g. hard-working, witty, uptight, lively, and so on) at the bottom of the hierarchy, while having less diverse (or more common) sets of qualities present as we go, from sub-groups to more inclusive ones, up to the top of the hierarchy.
Of course, it would not be possible to have a single quality that a whole nation is subscribed to, however, it is mostly evident that such a quality would transcend to a sort of “super-ego”, if you like. For example, not all citizens of eastern countries are hard-working or of a socialist nature, however, some would still think that ought to subscribe to such qualities as part of their national identity.
Perhaps Bahrain missed out on this process. Perhaps the only common quality that we have as Bahraini people to begin with, is that we’re all different.
The topic, perhaps, is very much entangled with other related issues. We could venture into stereotypes and prejudices, self-image, group dynamics, and into self-fulfilling prophecies.
Being only a twenty-something chap would barely qualify me to reflect on such a grand topic of national identity, but change starts with one agent, here, and now. Perhaps, although with overly optimistic wishful thinking, Bahraini will one day be known for possessing a positive national identity.
Oct 8th, 2007
Jay
Most of the above comments focused on the differences bahraini individuals have, and the loss of national identity. Why can’t this topic be handled the other way around, rather than “What makes me different than other people in the bahraini society”, can’t we say “What do we share?”? It might be simpler than that. Having all sorts of memories all over the island, living on the same ground, having to suffer the traffic on the Salmaniya crossing, the smell of crap near the Sanad fudds crossing, taking countless diversions to make it to Saar Cinema, and watching the next generation grow and working to make Bahrain a better place for them. As cliche as that is, can’t it be that simple?
Oct 24th, 2007
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