The Alternative Muslim Identity

Re: # 46
Indentity at many levels. at the mundane level is what you suggest like religion, like your ID cards etc. These are mere administrative tools for pigeon holing people for administrative purposes.

On the other hand your identity is dependent on who you are : you principles in the first instance. And it is this, which in the form of your personality/character gets projected onto the society around you. It iis this which gnaws at you when something occurs which is opposite of what you think is right. Your Id card doesnot gnaw at your insides when something goes wrong e.g there are many pakistanis (all carryng the pakistani passposrt (id card)) who felt that it was wrong to pilot a plane into a building, just as they are many who rejoice.

i know it has been said before that identity has little to nothing to do with religious beliefs, but when asked by a professor to list all the things that he/she is (a verb indicating location, identity etc.), more than a few put down their religion as part of their identity. the pakistani passport, hellow, a big huge identification card in itself has us indicate what our religion is (and if we`re talking about idiots. . well. . ) as part of our identity.

it helps to make a distinction in this case between religion and faith. . .the two are used interchangeably, and have been, but there is a distinction to be made. and as an institutionalized system, a religion is what many identify with.

Where do we go from here? I have no clue

That about sums up the essay/article. This is a classic piece of navel gazing. As Hire Purchase or was it wheel of Time said keep the desire to seek guidance from religion to a minimum. Right and Wrong are not dependent on the tint of glasses you wear, they are independent. So piloting a plane loaded with people into big towers full of people is wrong (doesnot matter what religion you follow).

polka dots #48

my giving the passport as an example was to indicate how people want to pigeon-hole us, and forgive me, but the asking for one`s religion in a passport (or even on an id card) is not done for administrative purposes. not in pakistan.

i appreciate your pointing out the obvious all the same. :)

#49 thanks you ana, just for the reply here
Roll out the barrel, We`ll have a barrel of fun
Roll out the barrel, we`ve got the blues on the run
Zing Boom Terrara
Join in a glass of good cheer
Now it`s time to roll the barrel
For the gang`s all here

*groan* i will remember never to call you polka dots again (even though i like polka dots), but if it inspires you to roll out that tune. . . LOL

#51 Polka Dots are nice. Ona totally different tac - I saw a guy wearing a pink shirt with white polka dots yesterday that really threw me of my stride as I was crossing the road near the Nat.Hist. Mus .....

Does everyone see why the word ‘identity’ is dangerously loaded and treacherously misleading when used to describe properties of human beings; why ‘attribute’ or ‘aspect’ would be a much better choice?

Some time ago, I wrote up an excruciating analysis of three different gradations – nominal, descriptive, prescriptive - in which personal attribute designators commonly appear. Masochists who wish to wade through a stultifying exercise in pedantry may
click here.

#54 you did enjoy giving that link didnt you Cantor_set_1? You are a sadist.......

alephnull:

it probably was masochistic and/or pedantic. i don`t see a whole lot of interactors responding to that, in agreement or disagreement.

identity is a loaded word. but so are a lot of words/objects etc. that we give meaning to. oh yeah we could use ``attribute``, ``qualities``, ``characteristics`` ``aspects`` -- all these synonyms, but at some point words, and language are just as treacherous as the humans who use it.

and if we were to use aspect, then obviously there are multiple aspects to us as persons, and those aspects can be nuanced as well. what then, i wonder, is the problem with using the word ``identity``? and as kaalchakra said, why do some of us relish in our constant enrichment of ``identities``, while some dread (i add deny) its very prospect.

oso #54

I knew that was coming. To answer your question – not particularly. These discussions tend to go round and round in circles. Classification tends to help me – your mileage may vary.

ana #55

The problem is that ‘identity’ indicates complete specification of an entity down to the last detail, indicates A = B. Look up the etymology. To say ‘my identity is X’ is to indicate that I am X first, last and foremost, nothing else and nothing but. So IMO ‘identity’ ought only to be used to refer to a person’s human totality, to the sum of all his or her characteristics and attributes. Different aspects ought never to be called ‘identities’ to avoid confusing the attribute with the totality. It’s fatal to have such a misleading word at the center of the debate.

Then of course there are those attributes that carry with them the assertion that they capture the person in every detail, aim to prescribe what his behaviour ought to be. Need I mention the worst offenders? This is where fascism begins.

Ana:
#55

Arey yaar baat yay hai labels just make me cringe. I’m all for learning about where we stand vis-à-vis certain issues i.e. religion, politics, abortion, etc. but the minute someone tries to box me in (as you have pointed out) as a result of my views, I always see that as a narrowing of my world. I don’t want to be called progressive because of my stance on one issue while on the next day called conservative because of my stance on another issue. Identity has to be something larger than that…..don’t you think?

#56 precisely - pigeon holes...you want to put everyone in some bin so that you can handle the situation. But these are collective properties we are talking about here. These collective properties only come about because we clutch to some form of an ideology ....

rather than using our principles to project our characteristic, we let the collective set be our descriptive. That is theissue here. The vision of leemings and cliffs comes to mind.

in #56 you say ``So IMO ‘identity’ ought only to be used to refer to a person’s human totality, to the sum of all his or her characteristics and attributes. Different aspects ought never to be called ‘identities’ to avoid confusing the attribute with the totality.``

This is often taken to its logical conclusion, when someone suggests that they are a muslim, or a hindu, or a tory, or a marxist. There seems to be a direct one-to-one map imposed on the collective of the individual`s characteristics, and the collective characteristics (attributes) of the bin.

This is why I extended the example of ana`s id (and passport) in #48

#58 - the first paragraph got chopped for some reason....

and let this ideology be first up in projecting our image. Hence, we are asked to uphold all of the basic tenets ofthat ideology. It could be possible that we, as individuals, subscribe to a subset of these collective characteristics. And that is the nub of the problem.

The overt collective is always the way forward in small backward societies. take the high way of the collective or you get socially lobotomised.

alephnull #56

i was thinking as i wrote my response to you that indeed identity is this amassing of attributes, aspects, and i can see where you`re coming from on this. but as dots pointed out, there is the issue of the collective. people are talking ``identity politics``. now thaaat is loaded. :)

i don`t know `bout the word ``totality`` there is a sense of finality to that. an absolute. if we are to say as you suggest that identity should only refer to a person`s ``human totality``, that seems to bring some closure when in my opinion, identity should be fluid, rather than fixed, and open rather than absolute.

but i don`t want to get into a circular argument here. perhaps we`re somewhat on the same page on this, and i`ve misunderstood your use of the word totality.

but yes, we do seem to hold one of these aspects up and use it to define the rest of us, as individuals which i have found problematic throughout my not-so-brief life. i understand how fascism begins. but then again, it has also been important in history, to focus on a particular aspect of a person`s identity, especially when that aspect in its collective has been dehumanized.

miriam #57

i know what you mean about this labelling business. i`ve struggled with it myself. does pro-choice mean pro-abortion and all that. i`ve marched with the ``pro-choicers`` but i am against abortion. to me, there is a difference. but you get labelled as one thing by one group and another thing by another. . . and i don`t know if you understand punjabi, but at some point it becomes a question of ``meiN keRay paasay jaawaaN, meiN manji kithay DaawaaN`` (with all apologies to the late munawwar zareef if i`ve misappropriated this) -- which roughly translates to ``in which direction should i head, where should i set my bed.``

labelling and putting in boxes involves to some extent this crapload of ``if you`re not for us. . .`` and that should not be. it is one thing for me to continually be vigilant of how christians are treated in pakistan. it is quite another for some pakistanis to understand me as saying that all non-christian pakistanis are against christians. it`s simply not the case. and the question of ``meiN keRay paasay jaawaaN`` needn`t come up, if we don`t treat our beliefs, our qualities, our attributes whatever the heck we want to call them as static things.

as usual i express myself badly on a monday morning on an empty stomach, but just wanted to tell you i hear you. we are like this only, and we are much more in ``this only``.

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