Who do we think we are? National and religious identities #2

In the second in a series of extracts from the new edition of Faith in Politics? Richard Harries discusses both national and religious identities ...

Religion as a marker of identity

I now want to look in a little more detail at some of the pressures in our time that make this an issue of such importance. First, the issue of religion. What has happened and is still happening is that globalisation is making religion a marker of identity. We see this most clearly in countries like Indonesia, where people have moved from their traditional island or village communities into big cities to make goods for the Western market. In the village they had an identity as part of a traditionally ordered way of life. In the city, no such identity is available, and in gravitating to the mosque or church they find their identity as part of that religious community. There is nothing sinister about this in itself. Precisely the same occurs to British ex-pats living in Spain or the South of France. In Britain they may not have been great church-goers, but abroad they very often gravitate to one of the culturally English communities there, which may be the church – or for other people it might be the golf club. But of course in certain countries this situation can be exploited by extremists who want to stir up trouble, as in fact has happened in Indonesia in recent years. Indonesia was traditionally one of the most tolerant of Islamic countries but in recent years there have been some very ugly clashes between extreme Muslims and Christians. In Europe a related phenomenon was present in the break-up of the former Yugoslavia. This was a country on the border of Eastern and Western Christianity, so Serbia was Orthodox, but Croatia was Catholic. At the same time it was for a long time part of the Ottoman Empire, so there was a significant Muslim population in Bosnia and Kosovo. The wars there were certainly not caused by religion, but from time to time a war leader would play the religious card – because that was a way of getting the adherence of the community to which he belonged and which he wished to make militant.

In this country, again, there is a related phenomenon. Immigration has brought to our shores many people of non-Christian religions. Feeling lost in a new country, as we all do, it is natural to gather together around a mosque or temple, and the role of religion as a marker of identity is heightened. This obviously has important implications for how we go about trying to create a society in which people of different cultural and religious backgrounds feel fully included. In short, it is not enough simply to take into account their ethnic origin, which may be Pakistani, or Indian or whatever, because this might have become less important to them than the fact that they are Muslim or Sikh or Hindu.

I now want to look at racial and ethnic identity from a Christian point of view. They are not of course quite the same, but for my purposes now I can treat them in the same way because for each of us they are a given, a fact about us that we cannot change. John Sentamu, the Archbishop of York, feels strongly that there is only one race, the human race, and that is the only meaning we should give to the word ‘race’. It is easy to understand and sympathise with why he says this, because the concept of race has been too often used to exclude and oppress particular groups of people. However, there are a couple of points that suggest that a more flexible use of the word might be in order. One is that it has sometimes been important for people to affirm their race or some other aspect of their identity as part of a process of affirming their worth after a period of subjugation. A good example of this occurred in recent history in America, where the slogan ‘black is beautiful’ was embraced by Black Americans. Another related example is the gay pride marches in different parts of the world. People want to join with others in affirming an aspect of their identity that had previously been rejected in some way. This is obviously very different from a particular racial group in a position of power, asserting that power to exclude or oppress those of other, weaker racial groups.

Then, the fact that certain things about us are a given is, from a Christian point of view, an aspect of the doctrine of creation. God has created us as part of the world in all its aspects, not as wispy spirits or disembodied souls. We are embodied, and we are embodied as particular persons. I am born at a particular time of history, of a particular ethnic origin, in a particular cultural grouping. This is all part of the creation about which God in the book of Genesis says, ‘And behold, it was very good.’ Of course, many of us regard ourselves as cosmopolitan, or internationalist in outlook, and we claim to sit light on ethnic or national differences. But the fact is that these are part of what makes me me, and you you. As mentioned earlier, we are more likely to love wider humanity if we have first a proper love of ourselves and the local communities of which we are a part.

One crucial fact, of which we are probably more consciously aware than our forebears, is that identity is to a significant degree a human construct. Clearly, some things about us and the wider social and national groupings to which we belong are a given. It is a fact that I was born on a particular day in a particular city. It is a fact that I am white, getting on in years and male. There are some grey areas even here, of course. Some people find themselves born with a body that is physiologically of one sex, but emotionally and spiritually they feel, from an early age, that they really belong to the other one. So we have a certain number of trans-gendered people. Then there is the question of our sexuality, which is also important to our identity. Some people think that sexual orientation can be changed. Personally I believe that for the vast majority of people, this is neither possible nor appropriate. Some people, particularly in their early years, may be uncertain about their sexuality. However, most gay people did not choose to be gay, but discovered that they were gay. For them, their sexuality is a given fact about their identity.

So leaving aside a few disputed areas, we can say there are facts about our identity that are a given. At the same time, there are other things about us which are much more open to how we might want to understand and define ourselves. I like to describe myself as Welsh. My mother’s side are English, so I could equally well have chosen to describe myself as English. For a variety of reasons, I like to think of myself and describe myself as Welsh. This is a construct. It could have been different.

At a personal level, this kind of issue can be fun – at a national level it is of huge social significance. For example, historians now argue that British identity, far from being something that has been fixed and final down the ages, was in very large measure a creation of the eighteenth century, and was obviously linked to imperialism and the concept of British superiority. The year 1707, which saw

the formation of the United Kingdom of Britain and Ireland (which later became the United Kingdom of Britain and Northern Ireland), is regarded as the key date. Then, as Linda Colley has put it, Britain was an invented nation: Heavily dependent for its raison d’etre on a broadly protestant culture, on the threat and tonic of recurrent war, especially war with France, and on the triumphs, profits, and ‘otherness’ represented by a massive overseas empire.

Over the last two decades a good debate has been going on about British identity today, with all kinds of suggestions from political leaders, academic and government reports, think tanks and newspapers. In what does it or ought it to consist? If there is a lack of British identity today, how should we go about reconstructing it? One aspect of this has to do with multiculturalism. Recently there has been a reaction against the emphasis on multiculturalism which has been an assumed basis of policy for the last 30 or 40 years. Some are worried that the reaction against this may go too far, and may fail to take into account the fact that we are in fact a multicultural society, composed of people whose views will need to be taken into account if they are to feel any sense of identification with the nation of which they are citizens. Tariq Modood, who writes about these issues with knowledge and good sense, thinks that we do indeed need a civic rebalancing, but not an end to multiculturalism as such. He is suspicious about taking a set of values, like equality, liberty, enterprise and so on, as he thinks these are either platitudinous or too disputed to be of use, and that, as he puts it, ‘National identity should be woven in debate and discussion, not reduced to a list.’

That is fair, but of course the discussion has to begin somewhere, and where it should begin is with what our history and culture have given us. It is at this point that mention must be made of religious forms of dress like the burkah and the niquab. As indicated earlier, religion has become an important marker of identity, which is why this cannot simply be a matter of public indifference. A view has to be taken. This was done by President Sarkozy, who wanted Islamic religious dress banned in public

buildings in France. In Turkey, in principle a strongly secular state, but one in which Islam is very important, the issue of headscarves continues to be highly controversial. This is not an issue that can be considered as though every state was the same. What I would want to say about the British situation, is that they should be allowed in the same way that the Sikh turban is allowed and is now familiar. Like many others, I find the burkah and, to a lesser extent, the niquab unsettling. I don’t like it. But whether I like it or not, is not the point. A state that seeks to be inclusive of a variety of cultures, where culture and religion are sometimes closely bound up, will respect people’s desire to symbolise their faith in this particular way. But every society is different, and I do not think that this kind of attitude is necessarily the correct one for every other country in the world at this particular stage in history.

This is an extract from Faith in Politics? Rediscovering the Christian Roots of our Political Values  by Richard Harries newly updated and reissued for 2015, available in paperback and eBook priced £12.99.