The Redhunter

Time in the Gulag

Some say that strong identity and democracy are incompatible. Many intellectuals insist it it so. Sharansky is convinced that this is false and that just the opposite is true. Identities, he says, vitally important to us not only as individuals but as democratic nations. The main message of Defending Identity is that identity is the ally of freedom, not it's antithesis.

Authoritarian regimes repress ethnic and religious identities not in accord with those prescribed by the state. Democracies allow multiple identities along these lines to flourish. The Chinese totalitarians are threatened by the Falug Gong and Tibetans, whereas the tolerant Indians do not persecute any of their minorities (the issue of the "Untouchables" and the problem of caste is somewhat different).

The formative experience in Sharansky's political life that has formed the basis for much of his thought was the nine years he spent in the Soviet Gulag. The gulag, he says, was a laboratory where he discovered truths and tested ideas against the harshness of the prison system. His time there convinced him that identity and freedom were inseparable.

In prison Sharansky discovered, or rediscovered, his Jewish identity. In it he found the strength he needed to get through his time there. Far from dividing him from non-Jewish prisoners who also had strong identities, it enabled him to join them in a common struggle. Most of these identities were religious; Pentecostal, Catholic, Baptist, or national-ethnic; Crimean Tatar, Ukrainian. It wasn't the details of their particular identities that mattered, just that they were strong ones. It was those with weak identities who had the most trouble adjusting or adapting to prison life.

Further, the various identity groups didn't 'come together' to defend each other's goals. Far from it, for each acted in it's own interest. They defended each other not because they believed in each others causes, but rather because they came to realize that if the government could persecute one group for it's beliefs, it could persecute any of the others as well.

Trouble in Europe

Many or most native Europeans have lost most sense of identity. Christianity is dead or dying. Nationalism is perceived as a throwback and the cause of world wars. Guilt over real or perceived historical injustices has caused the crisis of confidence, resulting in a loss of identity. Identity in Europe must be uniform, and everyone must have the same identity, which is to say no identity. The loss of identity in Europe has helped lead to the erosion of democracy. It's a long subject, but for example they do not have freedom of speech in most parts of Europe as we have it in the United States. The structure of the European Union is also such that it has become a rule by bureaucracy, not elected leaders.

The Muslim immigrants who have swept into Europe in the past few decades have no crisis of confidence. They have very strong identities and are not shy about them. In many or most cases, their values and identities are in fact antithetical to Western notions of liberty and tolerance.

The result is a clash; the natives want democracy without identity, and the Muslim leaders want identity without democracy. As a result, identity and democracy are seen as opposites. In reality, he says, you can't have democracy without identity.

Assaults on Identity

There have been two major assaults on identity since the start of the 20th century; Marxism and post-modernism. The Marxists wanted to subjugate all identity that was separate from their own vision of the communist utopia. The post-modern movement inherits much from Marxism, but while the goal of the latter is to strengthen class consciousness as the only acceptable identity, the former seeks to weaken all identity, especially one's own.

The post-moderns see the wars and assorted social problems of the 20th century as stemming from nationalism and religion. Their solution is to transcend these identities and merge everyone into a global community. In this view, since identity causes problems, eliminating them would result in a world without conflict.

The problem, of course, is that you can't get rid of all identities at once. If just a few aggressive ones are left, they will dominate, sometimes to the point of eliminating democracy. We are seeing the start of this in Europe, where the natives are helpless against the strong identity of an aggressive, radical, Islam.

Multiculturalism is a form of post-identity. Unfortunately, the muliculturalists (along with "diversity," and uber-tolerance it's twin sisters), favor some identities over others, which adds to the problem. Western nationalism is bad, but third-world national movements are good. Christianity is frowned upon and only tolerated if it of the left-wing variety, but the most fundamentalist Islam is just another lifestyle choice.

One problem with the post-modern liberals is that when they look at problem areas of the world, such as the Middle East, they "look for explanations not in ideology but in grievances because the belief in absolute values is rejected and the idea of Western guilt plays a central role." As a result, post modern thinkers see the solution as an end to settlements and the establishment of a Palestinian state rather than in changing the ideology of the jihadist mindset of Fatah or Hamas.

Types of Identity

Sharansky opposes the attempt by the French government to ban the wearing of the veil in schools because it contradicts their "enormous tolerance toward the coercion and repression that daily transpires in many Muslim areas within that country." In other words, rather than oppose all coercion, they are being selective, with the result that they are preceived as opposing a Muslim expression of identity. And no democracy, Sharansky says, should repress identity unless it is harmful to that democracy.

He also does not object to the use of hyphens by immigrants to describe themselves. While it is popular on the right to criticize the use of "Italian-American," "Arab-American," or "African-American," he sees it as a positive expression of identity that compliments rather than threatens democracy.

Just as ethic identity does not threaten democracy, neither does religious identity. In our current age the secular left is doing everything it can to remove religion, or at least Christianity, from the public square. But if religion is to be an identity, it cannot be banished in this manner. Indeed, all of American history shows that public expressions of religion compliment, and do not threaten, democracy.

Again, this is not to say that all identities are acceptable. Mormons were made to disavow the practice of polygamy in order for Utah to be accepted into the Union. Giving this up reduced or changed a part of their identity.

Where we have failed in America is to incorporate Native Americans and African American identities. On the other side, surveys universally show that Muslims in America feel their identity is more respected than those in Europe.

The Special Case of Israel

Because Israel is a state created out of nothing (no the land wasn't stolen), it is a unique laboratory with which to study the subject of identity and democracy. Further, the Jews who emigrated there from Europe were naturally quite traumatized, so it would be interesting to see how they handled the subject of identity. Would they embrace their historic Jewish identity, or abandon it?

The surprise answer - to me, anyway - was that they abandoned it. The question of identity was an aspect Israeli history that I'd never considered. I'd always assumed that Israeli Jews were, if anything, even more cognizant of their history and traditions than those of the diaspora. It turns out that at least for the first thirty or so years of Israel's history nothing could be farther from the truth.

It wasn't supposed to be that way. Theodore Hertzl, the Austrian Jew who founded the modern Zionist movement, envisioned an Israel that embraced classic Jewish heritage. Although he himself was mostly secular, he envisioned an Israel of diverse Jewish beliefs and cultures, but all rooted in the past.

The actual founder of Israel and it's first president, David Ben-Gurion, had a completely different vision. A socialist, Gurion had little use for religion. His socialist ideal "was of a person who disconnects himself from his past - a past that is seen as two thousand years of humiliation and slavery - and takes fate into his own hands." It all very much paralled the "New Soviet Man" concept. Ben-Gurion's equivalent was the Sabra, or "new Jew," borne of the "Jewish dust." The past was mostly meaningless, and a new identity for Israeli Jews would be forged. Not just words, this ideology was taught in the schools as state dogma.

This started to change when over one million Jews emigrated from the Soviet Union, mostly in the 1970s. Having been deprived of their identity in their former communist country, they were anxious to get back to their Jewish roots, and not about to adopt another "new man" as an identity. It was this group to which Sharansky belonged.

Long story short, the new immigrants kept their Jewish identity and changed Israel in the process. Rather than segregate themselves, they became fully part of Israel. The result is an Israel structured more along the lines of the "mosaic" of identities envisioned by Hertzl rather than the "melting pot" of multiple identities into one. According to Sharansky, it has all been a huge success.

Defending the Nation-State

Israel is important because "for the believers of post-identity, Israel has become equated with the colonial sins they are intent on expiating." Almost thirty years ago, I remember a college professor tell us that Israel was illegitimate because it was founded on Judaism, a concept that according to him was anachronistic in the modern world. Without realizing it I had run into my first post-identity thinker.

The worst and most important of the post-nationalist and post-Zionist thinkers are Eric Hobsbawm and Edward Said. Most arguments against nationhood and Israel can be traced back to one or both of them.

Zionism, nationalism, and identity are for Sharansky tied closely together. All three are for the most part good (there are always unhealthy exceptions) and combined produce democracy. Weaken one and Israel collapses. For other countries, weaken the other two and democracy collapses. The concept of the nation-state is itself vital in establishing identity. As discussed above, a weakened sense of statehood is one reason why Europe is in trouble.

The justification for a Jewish Israel is that that's what the majority of Israelis want. This does not mean that the rights of minorities cannot be protected. Further, it does not mean a theocratic state per se, but rather one that embraces a Jewish heritage, a somewhat different concept.

Further, the survival of Israel as a predominantly Jewish state is crucial not just for it but for the entire world. Israel is an island of democracy in a region of dictators, religious fundamentalists, and terrorists, and a sense of Jewish identity is vital to its own survival. As a democracy surrounded by totalitarian neighbors it is a beachhead of freedom, something we should want to spread. Therefore it is vital that Israel survive as a Jewish state.

Peace or War

For life to be of any value it must be lived freely. The peace of slavery is no peace worth having. To live freely you must be able to have your identity. It is this freedom, then, that liberates, not simply the absence of war.

As mentioned above, many in the West today see identity as the cause of war, they thus seek to suppress it in the name of peace. Four hundred years ago John Locke wrote in "A Letter Concerning Toleration" that the attempt to impose one religion was what was leading to wars in Europe, and his recommendation was to let everyone believe what they wished. His views were adopted, but today we have come full circle.

Weaking identity may seem to lead to a happy society of no conflict between identity groups, but in reality leaves it defenseless against anti-democratic groups with their own strong identities. People without strong identities tend to be sheep and not resist when a group with a strong one comes into town.

Nowhere is this better illustrated than in the so-called "peace process" born of the 1993 Oslo Accords. As Sharansky tells it

The so-called Oslo peace process took place between two societies moving in directly opposite directions in terms if identity. Israeli society was being pushed in the direction of cosmopolitanism. Palestinians, under Arafat's corrupt dictatorship, were going through a crash course in hatred of Jews, Israel, and Zionism and making the rejection of the Jewish-Israeli identity the basis of their own. The hope for peace became predicated on a rejection of Israeli identity and a rejection of Palestinian democracy. On one side stood democracy without identity. On the other stood identity without democracy. The explosion was inevitable.

And indeed not only has the so-called peace process gone nowhere, but Palestinian society has not become any healthier.

Many people do not take radical Islam, or other such movements, seriously. We're told that ok they can blow up a few buildings, but the idea of them taking over Europe or the West is preposterous. "They'll integrate peacefully" is the line we've all heard.

Part of the problem is that most of those who believe this are of the post-modern mindset who have no identity themselves. "Multiculturalism," "diversity," and "tolerance" are not identities. As such, these people have a hard time understanding the power that strong identities can have on others. The result is that they think that if only Israel will stop building settlements the Palestinians will abandon all that talk about jihad. They don't understand that it is not issues that motivate them, but an ideology driven by a strong identity.

My Take

I'm not sure that Sharansky has it all right, or that he's thought through every nuance or complication as well he might of. Further, I'm not certain that the experiences of his own life, or that of Israel, are directly transferable to the United States or the rest of the world.

But the book has caused me to rethink my own assumptions about identity. It is fashionable for us on the right to criticize the use of a hyphen when describing one's identity; "Italian-American," Irish-American," African-American" and the like. This is a debate where I am sympathetic to both sides. I suppose the hyphen business is all a matter of degree and emphasis, and whether it's used for identity or to seek political advantage.

Malcolm X is not someone who gets much sympathy from conservatives. And there is much to criticize in his life. But in recent years I have become quite sympathetic to his adoption of "X" as a last name. After all, his African heritage had not only been stolen, it was quite ignored in the public educational system and culture at large. It was quite acceptable for those with Irish heritage to have a St. Patrick's Day parade, but how dare you think there was anything about Africa to celebrate.

Let's be honest, we all have a tendency to think that our own identity is good and certain others are bad: those crazy fundamentalist Christians, or those gay people and the way they dress, or maybe why does he have to wear his business success on his sleeve? Sometimes it's ethnic, sometimes religious, and sometimes political. But I think we all tend to view certain identities as good and others as bad.

Further, there is much about identity that Sharansky does not address in the book. What are proper and improper expressions of identity? Good v bad identities are also barely expressed. It 's one thing to have your own identity, but to what extent is everyone else expected to publicly acquiesce to it? For example, if a religious minority within a country wants their holidays off work with no penalty, that's one thing. It's quite another though if they insist everyone else recognize it also and government and business close down.
How far do concessions go?

In the end, though, this is not a scholarly tome It is a 232 page treatise that serves it's purpose well. Sharansky has a powerful life story, and Israel is at the center of the conflict between democracy and tyranny, between modernity and fundamentalist Islam. As such, his is too important a voice to ignore.