What kind of heritage?

Representing the United States with disunity... (image by Andrew Shurtleff/The Daily Progress)

I'm Appalachian. I'm specifically from West Virginia, which 'sided' with the North in the American Civil War; regardless, I consider myself 'Southern.' Each of the above are layers of identity and heritage. Above those labels I'm an American which, though we consider it some kind of concrete identity, is really so diverse an amalgamation as to defy any sort of compact definition. If anything, America, as I was raised to ideally understand it, is composed of dissimilar peoples who have come together in the United States. Our similarity is based on and strengthened by our diversity. My personal identity is expanded though by further experiences I've had in other places and cultures. In other words, my identity doesn't come from existing in one place or only referencing that single place. Identity comes from an understanding of my place in the larger whole. It's both looking back and forward, not something static and based wholly on the imagined past. It's also tempered by an informed understanding of other people and their experiences. Neither my culture or my personal history have formed in isolation; before I can comprehend my own place in the story, I need to make the effort to properly 'read' that of others. Otherwise, I'll have only a narrow and weakly formed identity based on my internal monologue.

Recently, there was an incident in Virginia that involved a particular set of Americans protesting that their heritage was under attack. Heritage and identity are based on the stories we tell to ourselves and each other. The story that these (mostly white men) tell to others and themselves is that they are a now a minority at risk of dissolution. The elements of this story are made from a collection of objects and 'small h' histories reformed into a new narrative that drive them to this conclusion. The focus in Virginia was a memorial statue of a Confederate general from the Civil War. These monuments are peppered around the South as a lingering reminder of that period in our shared history; however, many are slated for removal as they are and have become increasingly a tool for these 'oppressed oppressors'. I'm tempted to speak about 'the current political climate' or to go off on the poor state of leadership in the White House; but, in some ways, these are indicative rather than causal. We have malicious and tawdry leaders because we, as a diverse group of peoples, have allowed ourselves to become so or have permitted that kind of energy to inform our narrative. I don't really believe the men violently protesting and carrying NAZI flags truly represent the spirit of the South as they think they do; they are more representative of an underlying and systemic disease in the culture that has produced them. They say they are the embodiment of a real America; they are instead an example of ignorance and a complete misunderstanding of what America essentially is. (Further I have to wonder if, despite his personal or political aims, Gen Robert E. Lee would have condoned fascists using his monument as a symbol of their cause!)

There was a physical clash between the protesters and counter-protesters on the weekend and a woman was killed (it's a wonder that more weren't in the presence of heavily armed angry men; I'm afraid it's only a matter of time before these situations spill into uncontrolled violence). The resolution of this is, in the main, not a question of taking up arms on either side, it goes back to our stories. These men don't need some recognition or revolution to satisfy their frustrations; we who oppose their views need not clamp down on their actual freedoms (that just re-enforces their narrative of perceived oppression). We need better stories―stories that are informed by a broader understanding of ourselves and others, stories that aren't based in the Shadow side of our past but have come through and out of it, stories that recognise the reality of now rather than the imagined 'then'. Without a better story, people fester in ignorance of both their own true heritage and that of others. The men protesting on the weekend shouted 'you will not replace us' as if there are hordes of people coming to America specifically to become bigoted disillusioned men. These men have so wholly separated themselves from an understanding of 'the other' that their comprehension of other people outside their own sphere is stilted and misread.

I'm going to digress for a moment. I said in the first paragraph that my identity doesn't come from referencing a single place; that's not to say that a sense of place isn't important. We all need to have roots in a place and/or be able to transplant ourselves into new soil. That's a needed skill as people move about freely (and, increasingly, unwillingly) around the world. What we must realise is that this transition does not mean that existing cultures must be eliminated or that we must lose our own identities. What it does mean is that I need to have a healthy understanding of myself, to be able to communicate that to others and welcome them into my own culture. It requires effort on both parties in the encounter. I am a migrant into another culture now; though Australia is in many ways an easy transition, it's required of me to make the necessary effort to integrate into this society. That does not mean I lose my own identity nor does should it require Australia to diminish itself in order to accommodate me. I think the shouting angry men in Virginia are still looking at the world in a Colonial way―that, with any influx of 'the other' there is an invasion of culture that supplants the native one. That's certainly still possible; however, not necessary for either the migrant or the receiving culture. It's also incumbent on the native culture to offer its best narrative for the newcomers to enter into (in the same way one must offer a rich soil for the transplant as it roots itself). This effort is even more important than ever as the volume and speed of migration increases round the world. Migration, within living memory, was in many ways a slower and more permanent life event. Now we can fly round the world in a day and visit 'home' several times a year; our communication is instantaneous and continual. There is little incentive to wholly integrate into another culture when the ties to ones own are so thorough and especially if the culture one has entered into doesn't offer a compelling narrative in which one can have a place. There is a much larger issue here that probably warrants more thought and writing―but if you want to look at the creation of 'the terrorist next door' don't place the blame wholly on radical preachers far away. Ask why the young man who did some terrible thing couldn't find a place in the story of the country his parents migrated to. Why was the story he was offered as a citizen of one society so weak that it could be so easily supplanted by some YouTube videos and a shady guy he met online?

Ask as well why the men carrying NAZI flags to a rally in Virginia can't find an identity other than that of hate and bigotry. Ask why they have created this kind of narrative as their own history and want to offer that as a way forward for America. How do we counter that failing? We must create better stories and speak them with both both conviction and humility.

Where are we again?

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From the Centre outward...

I’ve had several conversations in the past months with Australians whose families have been here for generations as well as more recent immigrants. I’m noting that Australia, and this is really generalising, does not offer a strong sense of common cultural identity. There just isn’t a critical mass of shared history, art, language and literature that acts as an underlying core for people to hold. In contrast to, say the UK, which can look back at a thousand years of 'place'; regardless of who people are or where they come from they can have some sense of place in where they have arrived. This just isn’t apparent in Australia; the Aboriginal past is so completely wiped from the culture that even Aboriginal people struggle to grasp it—so that’s not a viable thread (and would not really be for the majority of people living here anyway). The Colonial history doesn’t offer much in the way of a positive underpinning to society either. I sense that, for the majority of white Australia, there is this general unease over one’s identity. It’s as if there is a projected form over the envelope of who they are that doesn’t quite fit. 

There is this great fear of ‘the other’ that I don’t think would be so prevalent if people had a stronger sense of their own identity. People seem wary of the perceived dangers posed by immigrants who have other ideas about culture and society; I just wonder if there was a much more lively sense of cultural identity if that fear would diminish. 

Part of the issue with that may be the lack of integration the last few generations of immigrants have been offered here. I regularly meet Greek immigrants that came here forty and fifty years ago who are still struggling to speak English. I was recently part of an interview panel at work where several (quite capable) candidates could simply not communicate with us. One had been in Australia well over a decade. All over Sydney, there are suburbs that are almost wholly one ethnic group or another that keep to themselves in their own cultural enclaves. Even the public schools, in which parents can actually be quite self selecting, some are often almost wholly one ethnic group or another. That is going to inevitably lead to ‘otherness’ and potentially toward a situation of conflict; it’s ultimately a fractured state if the citizens are unable to have a cohesive shared set of cultural markers. If people can't, at a basic level, even communicate in a common language, there is going to be disenfranchisement and lack of societal engagement. 

I don’t think that means that anyone needs to lose the originating culture; there are plenty of examples where forcing that issue caused overt damage over generations. Immigrants must be allowed to identify ‘from’ and have a clear sense of personal and familial history. But if we cannot identify the ‘in’, we remain adrift and unconnected. Both are part of one’s identity; it’s not either/or. One can be simultaneously ‘from’ a place and ‘in’ another. The first identity is not lost to take up the second—nor must the influx of ‘other’ diminish a culture unless it has lost its moorings to begin with. You can’t code switch if you don’t have the material to work with from one cultural set to the other. 

Welcome home and carry on

If Australia isn't a distinctive place that welcomes the newcomer as 'The People of Australia', it will be lost—not that the culture we have now will be inundated by others, but there will be a more serious loss of soul from lack of cohesion. It will be the loss of a shared sense of place. Many people will come from a multitude of cultures, of other distinct places and, in lieu of a presented and shared civic culture, be obliged to shelter in enclaves of cultures without a connecting thread. Or, worse, people will flee here with a damaged sense of identity, from war or distress, and be able to find no solid ground to land upon.

A couple months ago, I had a frank discussion with a Lebanese man who has been here for thirty years. I asked him if he feels Australian now; he thought for a moment and said,

“Yes, I do—but I will always be Lebanese, I have that to hold to as my own identity. I’ve lived here and raised a family here and, for what it is, I feel Australian. It’s more difficult for my children. The children of immigrants grow up in a home that is neither the old country or the new. They are somewhere in the middle and don’t always know which way to turn.”

I later spoke with another Lebanese man who has been here for eight years. There is an ongoing discussion about 'what is to be done' with young men of Arab descent who  become radicalised. The government wants to treat it as a law enforcement issue. The ‘public’ say that Islamic schools and mosques are to blame. I think that neither address what’s happening. This is mostly occurring in second or third generation youth. The second fellow I spoke with said, ‘What do these kids know about Islam? There isn’t a strong enough Muslim culture here to give them any kind of real grounding in it. They don’t have that as an identity and they can’t fit into white Australia either so they are looking for something that lets them know who they are. That’s what ISIS is pumping out!” He showed me some pictures of his brother back in Lebanon; he’s a corporal in the regular army. Lebanon is, of course, fighting off incursions by ISIS all round. His brother said that the ISIS fighters are from all over the place but they share this ‘we are in this together for the cause’ kind of mentality. I just wonder how many of those young men are from places where their parents immigrated to a generation ago; how many of them could not find a place there and who are now looking to prompt the crisis that gives them a sense of identity.

I also wonder what difference it makes that one can now so readily choose an identity. Perhaps we haven’t evolved enough culturally to be able to do this smoothly. It’s only within the past few hundred years that people have been able to do this en masse (it’s been so much accelerated over the past century and looks set to be the norm by either choice or force in the coming one). It’s not something that one used to have much say in; one’s identity was a given—something formed over generations. A sense of place that offered stability of mind and social structure; that’s all increasingly cut adrift. Even if one became an immigrant, because of the limitations of travel and economics, that reception and absorption was gradual. We are going to see migrations now that are exponentially larger and faster than ever before. I wonder what that’s going to do to both the existing societies in place and those who come into them? I was reading this morning an account from the Iraq War; when the country began to fracture after the American invasion. People began to flee to the relative stability of Syria; I wonder how many of those families seeking asylum in Europe now are doubly displaced? How does one maintain identity in the midst of that?

The layers of ourselves

There are obviously many layers down through that to explore; those are just some initial musings and I realise that there are numerous complexities that I'm not addressing here. I'm observing this all from a quite narrow urban view; I'm also aware that there are obviously people  in Australia who have a wholesome healthy sense of self-identity! I'm just commenting on what happens at the edges and as an immigrant myself. Having a core sense of identity that can be shared with the people around me is paramount; equally so, a respect for the history and cultures that everyone brings must be fostered as well. My reflection on this is because I sense we haven't quite found the way to do this—and it's a skill we need to develop quickly. 

I say all that, not from a fear of losing my own identity or a lack of it, I’m simply wondering about this sense of a collective loss around me. Perhaps I am looking back at a time when I did feel more ‘a part of something’ and now I’m having to better define my own identity as an individual. I can see the benefits and pitfalls of both situations. I have lived abroad for a decade and, in some ways, feel more at ease in places where I am obviously distinct and apart. Again, I think this comes from having a healthy sense of one’s own identity; however, there is a flip side this also allows me to step aside out of conversations and engagement with the adopted culture. I always have an excuse as the outsider. I’m exploring the reasons behind this for myself; I need to understand if I’m moving from something or towards. I can easily feel immersed and at ease almost anywhere now but that does not mean I am of that place. I’m just wondering where my heart is and where it needs to be. Where that is, I’m not sure I can wholly answer on my own. It’s a question that I am accountable for but it involves the hearts of 'the other', the land under my feet and perhaps some larger measure of destiny than I have the scope to comprehend.