In The Name of Identity.

As I sit here in Starbucks, sipping a coffee, there are four people in Iraq awaiting almost certain execution.
Right now. They are alive. Right now. Right this minute, they are waiting.
Their immediate crime is that they have travelled to that country on a peace mission, in an effort to help the people there in any way that they can. One American, a Briton, and two Canadians. Their scheduled execution has been postponed to sometime early tomorrow, and any chance of rescue or reprieve is highly unlikely.
The captors probably fully realize the blatant innocence of these four people. They are only carrying out this action to make a point, a point that has nothing to do with the four people PERSONALLY. These prisoners represent, however, a leverage point.
A way of getting a point across. A way of making demands.
They will pay the ultimate price for this point, and for these demands.
I have no intention of making any statements here about the rightness or wrongness of the situation in Iraq (in general). It is far beyond me to know the details.
But the above mentioned real life / real death situation, playing itself out right now as I type, has me thinking of an amazing book I read a while ago.
It’s called In The name of Identity: Violence and the Need to Belong. It’s written by Amin Maalouf.

Early on, the author tells us, "All the massacres that have taken place in recent years, like most of the bloody wars, have been linked to complex and long-standing 'cases' of identity." (p.33).
The need to belong.
The need to identify with a certain group, be it ethnical, linguistic, racial, political, or religious.
The main reason I think so highly of Maalouf’s book is that I feel it accomplishes exactly what it sets out to do, which is not so much to change the world, as to set out prerequisites for change, and to theoretically elucidate and practically illustrate why the world is in the shape that is in today.

"What shape is that?" you may justifiably ask.
"Misshapen," Maalouf might answer. "Distorted."
Not what it ought to be. And more importantly, not what is could be. This is not a book about despair, or about resignation to fate. It is not a backward look at problems, but a forward glance, a look into the author's sense that "the future will be what we make it." (p.98). It speaks to the responsibility inherent in all of us, no matter who we are, no matter where we live, to begin to identify with a concept of planetary solidarity, as opposed to regional and ideological exclusion.
I think it would be safe to say that Maalouf argues that such a radical paradigmatic shift is not only essential to the maintenance of "humanity" it is also the only thing that can ensure our very survival.
I challenge anyone who does not agree with Maalouf's emphasis upon the importance of identity, to read any one chapter of this book, and then pick up any major newspaper of our day and age. Better yet, turn on the evening news, tonight. Sad to say, but this book is front page news... every damn day! In its PRE-9/11-ness, (written in 1996) this book is a prophetic scroll unearthed. Hence, in its POST-9/11-ness, it is impossible to exaggerate its importance.
For me, a great benefit of reading the thing, was to see the history of Christianity and Islam in a way that I had never considered before. Wow!
Also, while not being in any way an outright condemnation of democracy, Maalouf outlines several reasons why the West's unquestioned veneration of democracy ought to be tempered with a realization that there are vantage points other than (and higher than) Mount McKinley's, from which Western ideals are looked upon, by other people of this earth.
One of the most crucial questions this book forces the reader to ask themself is this: "To what extent is the global culture, as it develops daily, essentially Western or even specifically American?" (p.114).
This is a short book. Easily readable. You will enjoy it, trust me... you will wish he wrote more, not less!
You owe it to yourself, if you are a thinking person, to think about reading this book. And then, after thinking about it, do it.
"Life is a creator of differences." (p.20).
"I dream not of a world where religion no longer has any place but of one where the need for spirituality will no longer be associated with the need to belong." (p.96).
I can't dream of a worthier dream being dreamed by any dreamer.

Peace.
Somehow... somehow, and I know not how... but I ask it anyway, wish it, will it... peace be with those four tonight.

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