The yearning for identity
FOR renowned historian and political scientist Francis Fukuyuma, democracy is anchored on the individual, and his innate longing to be recognized. Recognize his dignity, and you ensure a thriving democracy.
His latest book, “Identity: The Demand for Dignity and the Politics of Resentment,” is compelling reading. Tracing the idea of identity to the Greek philosophers and their concept of “thymos,” or the yearning to be recognized, the author offers a broad sweep of ideas layered around the Greek concept of recognition of one’s dignity.
Fukuyuma argues persuasively that this yearning for recognition, as an equal or as a superior, is the foundation for the emergence and evolution of Christianity, the ideas that sparked the Renaissance, revolutions, and the concept of universal human rights. This has manifested in identity politics, a desire “for equal recognition by groups that have been marginalized by their societies.” Movements for national liberation as well as right-wing causes anchor their movements on identity and dignity.
Fukuyama’s book belongs to that category of non-fiction that seeks to provide an explanation for the rise of Donald Trump and leaders of similar mold in Europe, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia. It also sheds light on the emergence of groups like ISIS and how they exploit isolation and alienation to grow their movements.
Yet the book may yet offer insights into our continuing search for national identity, and whether we in the Philippines have defined for ourselves the sense of identity seen as a precondition to social cohesion and economic expansion.
As the author explained, “weak national identity” has wracked most countries, plunging them into constant internal armed conflict among warring groups clamoring for recognition of their identity and respect for their dignity.
“Other developing countries have remained more stable, yet remain beset by problems related to a weak sense of identity,” he writes.
“By contrast,” Fukuyama observes, “Japan, Korea, and China all had welldeveloped national identities well before they began to modernize…Part of the reason they have been able to grow in such spectacular fashion in the twentieth and early twenty-first century is that they did not have to settle internal questions of identity as they opened up to international trade and investment.”
These countries had their fair share of civil war and internal conflict, he writes, but “they could build on traditions of statehood and common national purpose once these conflicts had stabilized.”
Which brings us to the problematic proposition to break up our nation into several federal states.
As I wrote in my previous column, the economic impetus that would have dictated the development and propagation by the State of a common language – as part of a broader national culture – were clearly absent in the centuries of colonial subjugation.
We were consigned to more than three hundred years of economic underdevelopment by colonial powers who used hard power – military rule – and soft power – culture -- as tools to deny, even suppress, every effort to assert a sense of identity.
The revolt against Spain was a response to centuries of tyranny, but the proximate cause – in my view – was the unforgivable suppression of efforts to assert our identity as expressed in the achievements of Jose Rizal and other expatriates.
And even after the disparate regions united under the banner of revolt against Spain, the nascent Filipino republic – and the sense of identity as a people and nation – was abruptly interrupted by the entry of the United States to replace Spain as our colonial overlords.
Thus, we did not have “a shared belief in the legitimacy of the country’s political system,” which according to Fukuyama lays the foundation for a national identity.
“Identity can be embodied in formal laws and institutions that dictate, for example, what the educational system will teach children about their country’s past, or what will be considered an official national language,” he says.
But national identity also extends into the realm of culture and values. “It consists of the stories people tell about themselves: where they came from, what they celebrate, their shared historical memories, what it takes to become a genuine member of the community.”
Pray tell, what stories can we share, what sense of community will we rally around, when the intent of federalism is to undermine our unity as a nation, and divide us into federated states?
How disparate are we as a people? Abroad, we tend to congregate as members of groups centered on localities of birth, or ethno-linguistic groups. While we converse in Filipino and even English, we shift to our local languages when speaking to a kababayan, ignoring the discomfort of non-speakers in the group. We readily identify ourselves as members of our ethno-lingustic groups first, rather than proclaim our being Filipinos.
Even the constitutional mandate to grow a national language has been battered incessantly by those who argue for the supremacy of their own local languages and those who still cling to the mistaken and discredited belief that English will lead us out of our economic wilderness.
So again I ask, what shared traditions, memories, and aspirations will we celebrate, what identity will we uphold, when federalism encourages us to think and act as tribes?