What defines a country? What is it that makes a person a citizen of a particular nation? What does it mean to be Turkish, or Russian, or German, or American? What are the boundaries of a national identity?
Is it just the place of your birth? Is it the seal on the front of your passport? Is it the flag that is displayed outside your home? Or is there something bigger involved in the concept of national identity?
When thinking about what it is that makes up a national identity an additional question could be raised. Does identity even matter? If it does matter, how much does it matter in relation to the other identities that each individual carries?
The late political scientist Samuel Huntington in the introduction to his book Who Are We? framed these questions around two terms. The first is the concept of substance or what a national identity means, what are its components. The second is the idea of salience or the importance or weight that the national identity has for its citizens.
In the American experience these two concepts are continually in flux. Huntington’s book addresses what he saw as an “identity crisis” for American identity. There has been a continual process of revising and re-negotiatiating the idea of what it means to be American. There are a number of angles from which you could examine the process in which American identity has been shaped.
Throughout its history the identity of the United States has changed based on the influx of immigrants. Initially immigration flowed largely from Christian Western European countries. There were shifts of greater migration from Asian countries. The most recent shift is to the greater numbers of Spanish speaking immigrants. Each of these groups has contributed to the reshaping of American identity.
Another approach for analyzing the shifts in identity is to examine the moral debates within the society. Currently, issues of reproduction, sexuality and the definition of marriage are re-shaping the national identity. Previous issues such as women’s rights and the Civil Rights movement have greatly reshaped the identity. The moral debates, which boiled over to civil war, over the morality of slavery could be included in this context as well. These moral debates within society contributed to a re-defining of the national identity.
The shifting of national identity can also be approached through analyzing the place of religion within society and public life. This approach is done in a compelling way in the God in America documentary series that was led by Boston University professor of Religion Stephen Prothero. The American identity has been profoundly re-shaped through the process of continually making space for religious groups of differing beliefs. By no means was this process smooth or without conflict. Beginning from the freedoms for dissent between various Protestant Christian denominations. The story expands through incorporating Catholicism, Judaism, Atheism, Mormonism, Islam, New Age Spirituality, and a host of other religious groups into what it means to be American.
All of these processes of negotiation and re-definition have impacted the substance of national identity. In societies where the saliency of identity remains high these debates over the substance of identity are often tense. There are a variety of ideals and concepts of identity in conflict but the process can bring about a beneficial outcome.
The question could be raised if these are signs of weakness of national identity. Does this process of a changing narrative of citizenship represent a departure from what it means to be a member of this society?
I would answer with a resounding no. The process of allowing for national identity to include the individual identities of a variety of people is one of the strengths of democratic societies and leads to the flourishing of meaningful individual lives. The role of governments and states is to organize this in such a way that citizens are able to flourish and not to dictate to them what this must look like.
The differences of citizens and the intra-cultural debates over what is part of national identity are not a sign of weakness but one of strength. The ability to engage in negotiation with those whose beliefs may differ from yours is a sign of the strength of your own identity.
In Turkey, there are a number of identity debates going on. The salience of identity remains strong. It is the substance of the identity that is up for debate and the ability to respond to these challenges in ways that produce a stronger society – rather than a polarization of society will bode well for the flourishing of the population in the days to come.
