Globalized identity-Deep Hates
The politics of identity is one that had been marred by blood, violence pictures of genocide throughout recent years. The Holocaust or the “Final Solution of the Jewish Question” brings to mind the death of millions of Jews. Nazi officials and German Policemen tortured and executed Jews with no regards for human lives and dignity.
In times of a globalized world, groups of people and varied cultures have held out on fast to their roots to form a sense of collective identity. Such identities help them find a place and strata to occupy in the community, it gives people a sense of collectivity as opposed purely to nationalistic views. Personal identifications are marked with race, religions are commonly required to be proclaimed in official documents while our genealogies are held in official records.
It is true that such identities help masses to distinguish themselves and help societies to organize itself at a micro level. Yet this distinction can be made arbitrary and be misused. While Adolf Hitler’s roots for his hatred towards the Jews cannot be pin-pointed, history tells us that his atrocities cannot be ignored. Up to 7 million Jews were persecuted during World War 2 for no rhyme or reason, purely murdered in cold blood due to racial differences.
Thus the question to be asked is” Is race and religion needed in the social context of our current society?”. Why is there a need to proclaim our races jarringly in our pink identification cards. It is this very distinction that caused the 1994 Rwanda Genocide. In the post-colonial era, the distinction between the Hutuks and the Tutsis used to be a economical one. This meant that the Hutuks who were mostly herdees and farmers could transcend their Hutuness by accumulating wealth and become a Tutsi. Yet the Belgians who colonialized them sought to impose their own culture into Rwanda by classifying its people into ethic group, namely also the Tutsis and the Hutuks. The Belgians even bought identification cards for every Rwandan. When the Belgians left Rwanda, the Hutuks who were awarded the power took out their anger, hatred and revenge on the arbitrary Tutsis.
Maybe our socio-political climate will now allow us to remove race from our identities. By doing so, this could well eliminate then probability of racial biasness and conflicts. In certain parts of Indonesia, ongoing conflicts between Christians and Islamists still claim innocent human lives.
That leaves us with national identities. Surely conflicts do take place between nations. Most recently Russia imposed its military might on Georgia. Yet that conflict lasted just a mere 5 days compared to the Rwanda genocide that lasted a hundred days.
Conflict between countries are harder to organize that civil in-fighting. The mere scale of logistics will prove to be a deterrent in organizing such warfare. On the other hand, mere machetes proved to be incredible killing weapons during the Rwanda Genocide. Secondly, countries that proceed with aggressive military stance towards another country will face criticism and boycotts from other countries and NGO’s. That is certainly the case of the 2008 South Ossetia War. Russia was heavily criticised and blame for the conflict.
To minimise conflicts in a globalized world, distinctions and categorizations must also be minimized. Let’s do away with terms of “otherness” and marginality of certain people. Gays and lesbians, race or religion. Lets give the human race one lesser excuse to start a war.
