L’express.mu, Mauritius
Feb 17 2007

Identity and Violence

by Surendra BISSOONDOYAL

An individual does not have only one identity, but a multiplicity of
identities. Soap box orators and other rabble rousers harp on one
particular identity to bring out the worst in people, and this is
what leads to violence. Amartya Sen, the Economics Nobel Laureate,
has, in a masterly exposé in his book «Identity and violence», shown
how «the imposition of an allegedly unique identity is often a
crucial component of the `martial art’ of fomenting sectarian
confrontation».

We are, up to now, fortunate that we have not had to go through the
sort of violence that has in the past engulfed many peoples in
senseless sectarian killings, and which has not spared innocent
tourists and bystanders. But the danger has not been totally averted
and we will come back to this again. In the meantime we are daily
watching powerlessly the butchery between Sunnis and Shias in
Baghdad, the centre of a great old civilization. What makes us
despair is that both groups swear by Islam just as the Irish were
slaughtering one another in the name of Catholicism or Anglicanism,
ignoring their common Christianity.

`Religious’ appartenance has not been the only motive behind the
explosion of violent behaviour. Racial and tribal differences, as
between Tutsis and Hutus in Rwanda recently, have been responsible
for the genocide of millions of innocent people. Opinion leaders
throughout the world – political, social, religious – need to
understand that others can have different identities which should be
respected.

Top footballers playing for a particular team may have different
racial, religious or national identities but it is their identity as
players for a particular team, however temporary, that predominates.
However blind belief in the superiority of a particular identity can
be the source of violence, even in football, as we have seen in Italy
recently. And some people want to go back to the days when
`communalism’ infected the game in Mauritius! It is preferable to
have stadiums which remain empty rather than full of corpses.

What can we do to make people aware of the danger lying in wait for
us? The French Parliament passed a law at the end of 2006 making it a
crime to deny that Turks committed genocide against Armenians in
1915. Of course it is a heinous crime to commit genocide against
people whose perceived identity may not be to the liking of those who
massacre them. But such laws are only palliatives. Furthermore it can
be argued that the law passed by the French Parliament is politically
motivated to prevent Turkey from joining the European Union.
Massacres that have taken place throughout history call for a deeper
analysis of buman behaviour. Amartya Sen delves into the past to show
how ideas, discoveries and inventions have migrated from one place to
another and then in the opposite direction later.

George Sarton, the historian of science, was amazed when he
discovered that the decimal system and the symbol for zero had been
brought to Europe by the Arabs from India in the seventeenth century
but it took the Europeans one thousand years to adopt them and
discard the clumsy Roman numerals. And he exclaims: «Rivers and
mountains are easier to cross than the barriers in the mind of man.»

It is precisely in the minds of young children that we need to sow
the seeds of peace and understanding to fight the kind of intolerance
and violence that we see around us in everyday life. We condemn, as
we should, the acts of terrorism associated mainly with those who
swear by `their’ perception of Islam. But do not the U.S.A. and
Israel have a share of responsibility in such a reaction to what
Palestinians have suffered and continue to suffer since the creation
of the State of Israel?

We talk about the clash of civilizations. Should we not rather talk
about the clash of obstinate and obsessive identities which prevent
some people from seeing the positive side of others’ identities?
Akbar, the great Mughal Emperor of India, who was a Muslim, insisted,
as Amartya Sen recalls, «on the need for open dialogue and free
choice and also arranged recurrent discussions involving not only
mainstream Hindu and Muslim thinkers, but also Christians, Jews,
Parsees, Jains and even atheists». And that was in the 1590’s!

We should ourselves not forget the irruption of violence that
threatened our future before independence and more recently when Kaya
died in prison. Unesco has rightly pointed out that `learning to live
together’ should be one of the pillars of education today. But what
do we see instead? A cut throat competition which makes children
aware that some of them are more equal than others. Are we not sowing
the seeds of confrontation and violence from an early age?

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