POSTS
Who and what are you?
By hisham
Maalouf’s In the Name of Identity is a book that makes you say “uh-ha!” quite a lot.
Some gems:
“So am I half French and half Lebanese? Of course not. Identity can’t 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 to me, just as other people’s identity is unique to them as individuals.”
“Every individual is a meeting ground for many different allegiances, and sometimes these loyalties conflict with one another and confront the person who harbors them with difficult choices. In some case the situation is obvious at a glance; others need to be looked at more closely.”
“I talk of their being ‘pressed’ and ‘ordered’ — but by whom? Not just by fanatics and xenophobes of all kinds, but also by you and me, by each and all of us. And we do so precisely because of habits of thought and expression deeply rooted in us all; because of a narrow, exclusive, bigoted, simplistic attitude that reduces identity in all its many aspects to one single affiliation, and one that is proclaimed in anger.”
“A life spent writing has taught me to be wary of words. Those that seem clearest are often the most treacherous. ‘Identity’ is one of those false friends. We all think we know what the word means and go on trusting it, even when it’s slyly starting to say the opposite.”
“My identity is what prevents me from being identical to anybody else.”
“Identity is in the first place a matter of symbols, even of appearances. When, in any gathering, I see people with names that sound like mine, with the same color skin, with the same affinities, even the same infirmities, it is possible for me to feel that that gathering represents me.”