Defending Identity by Sharansky Natan

Author:Sharansky, Natan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Published: 2011-02-28T00:00:00+00:00

IDENTITY STRENGTHENS DEMOCRACY

In the free world, different attitudes toward identity and democracy are reflected in different attitudes toward the crucial questions facing us today. The American model suggests how identity and democracy can be closely allied, in a structure of overlapping identities in which a deep shared commitment to individual rights creates mutual respect. It is different in Europe. Whether the approach has been multicultural, as in Britain and the Netherlands, or assimilationist, as in France, or largely exclusionary, as in Germany, the attitude remains one in which democracy and identity, far from confirming one another, are seen as contradictory impulses. The zero-sum European model, where identity’s gain is democracy’s loss, remains true today. Unfortunately, European ideas of democracy have left no room for strong identities, and certainly not for different identities each expressing and affirming their own ways of life.

Like a rich mosaic of bright hues that slowly fades into one drab color, European countries, which have done so much to enrich the world with their unique cultures and traditions, are becoming a shell of their former selves in the name of abstract democracy. Europe’s loss is no one’s gain. In abandoning their traditions and past, the people of Europe will be cut off from the very things that imbue life with purpose and meaning.

But even if Europeans do not place great value in maintaining the particular, Europe’s zero-sum view of identity and democracy poses an even more basic question. Can a democratic society that does not make room for identity, let alone nurture strong identities among its citizens, long survive?

Nationalism—the diabolic impulse according to post-identity theories—has been a powerful weapon in defending the free world against aggression. Roosevelt, Churchill, and De Gaulle in extremis gave their peoples hope and strength by appealing to history, tradition, and national values. They each drew on their nations’ unique past to help secure its future. De Gaulle, as the voice of a free France, declared: “Our only aim, our only interest, is to remain to the end Frenchmen, worthy of France.” Churchill reminded his countrymen that beyond “all parties, all creeds, all classes . . . there is one bond which unites us all and sustains us in the public regard, namely that we are prepared to proceed to all extremities, to endure them and to enforce them; that is our bond of union in His Majesty’s Government.” And in his third inaugural address, nearly a year before Pearl Harbor, FDR, citing George Washington’s First Inaugural address, was already appealing to America’s past to mobilize the national will for the battle that he knew lay ahead:The destiny of America was proclaimed in the world of prophecy spoken by our first president in his First Inaugural of 1789: “the preservation of the sacred fire of liberty and the destiny of the republican model of government are justly considered.” If you and I in this later day lose that sacred fire—if we let it be smothered with doubt and fear—then we shall reject the destiny which Washington strove so valiantly and so triumphantly to establish.

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