Identity And Its Politics ( I) : Between Proponents and Critics

By

Muhammad Shakir

shakirmuhammad@yahoo.co.uk

 

 

     ...identity. It is superbly fluid, adaptable to almost any argument or conclusion.

     But deployed without sufficient care, it can mask banalities with profundity or

     lose its users, like Orwell’s hapless speakers, in the infinite cultural representations

     of a runaway world.

     (John MacInnes, BJS, 2004)

 

Apart from the social scientist, whose method simply seeks to be empirical and evaluative; and the philosopher, who raises wide-ranging fundamental questions; most of the interlocutors in the discourse of ‘identity politics’ have been proponents and ideologues on one side, and their critics on the other. Sometimes, however, the critic and the philosopher are the same, just as the ideologue and the philosopher also sometimes coincide.

 

All those who have studied this socio-political phenomenon situate it within a modern context. In fact, according to Wendy Brown (1995), a key condition for the possibility of  its contemporary existence was institutionalized liberal democracy -  the spine of modernity. It has also been noticed that the two – identity politics and liberal democracy – exist in a state of perpetual tension. In the light of this observation it is not difficult to see why the voices of the politics of identity have become louder, with all the its unsavoury consequences, since the re-instatement of democracy six years ago. Now, as before, the politics of difference has been played in an atmosphere suffused with mutual perceptions of ‘marginalisation’. More on that later.

 

It was in this atmosphere of cries of marginalization, particularly the one coming from politicians, traditional rulers, journalists and social commentators who are invariably Muslims from the geo-political region of the country called the ‘North’ that Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, the Kano-born Muslim critic, wrote a series of articles criticizing their politics of identity. Their position was that since President Olusegun Obasanjo, a Christian from the ‘South’, came to power, he had deliberately and consistently short-changed them in appointments to federal political positions. This perceived injustice achieved its most blatant form in the composition of members of the National Conference which was skewed in favour of Christians and ‘Southerners’ to the detriment of Muslims and ‘Northerners’.

 

Sanusi’s first article was a defense of the fairness of the controversial composition of the ‘Confab’ and particularly the leadership, in the person of Rev. Father Matthew Hassan Kukah whom the Northern Muslim challengers felt was far from being a neutral participant with no vested interests. He was seen to be there to serve a Christian agenda. This first article, surprisingly, didn’t provoke as much furore as expected. The next two, which were actually two parts of one essay have caused a much greater expenditure of energy. With a delicious heading ‘Identity, Political Ethics and Parochialism : Engagement with Ja’far Adam’ to which the content was faithful, it generated a controversy which has left several write-ups in its wake. Unfortunately, because Sanusi’s critique of identity politics ‘devoid of moral content’ was mixed with scathing remarks attacking a certain Northern Muslim cleric named in the title, who had actually thrown the gauntlet, the vital issues he raised were not properly addressed by the rejoinders. The baby was thrown away with the bathwater in a manner that echoed Nietsche’s saying that one often contradicts an opinion when what is uncongenial is really the tone in which it was conveyed. I personally contributed a piece which was a sort of a word of caution.

 

Of all the articles that purported to engage Sanusi two stand out because of their meretricious veneer of intellectualness and seriousness. Kabiru Banu az Zubair’s article loudly titled ‘The philo-sourpuss and his so-called engagement’ has been adequately reviewed by Ibrahim Ka-Almasih. The second, in two parts, and titled ‘Identity, Values and the Thesis of Muslim Marginalisation : Engagement with Sanusi Lamido’ was written by my dear friend Ibraheem A Waziri. It contains some issues and claims worth exploring and which we shall attend to as this essay unfolds.

 

Now, before I proceed to my main task I think it would be pertinent to give a kind of overview of the history, philosophy and sociology surrounding identity politics with relevant references to our local situation. This should help us to know where the critic is speaking from as well as provide us with a conceptual framework for appreciating the position of the proponents.

 

Historical and philosophical perspectives

 

According to Cressida Heyes (2002), even though the writings of intellectuals from Mary Wollstonecraft to Frantz Fanon intellectually adumbrate what is now known as ‘identity politics’, literature that actually uses the phrase, with all its contemporary baggage, emerged in the late eighties. Also, many of the terms and referents have appeared in the context of the emergence, in the second half of the twentieth century, of large scale political movements – second wave feminism, Black Civil Rights in the US, gay and lesbian liberalism, and the American Indian movements. The fundamental arguments are the same deployed in other places and contexts.

 

The advent of identity politics has been associated with a corpus of philosophy with which it co-exists in a symbiotic, and more or less dialectic, relationship. As stated by Heyes (2002) : The social movements are undergirded by and foster a philosophical body of literature that takes up questions about the nature, origins and futures of the identities being defended. Some of the titles mentioned by Sanusi in his article are in this genre.

 

The Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor (1989), as reported by Heyes (2002) argues that the philosophical discourse of the merits of identity politics are about the nature of subjectivity and self : an emphasis on its inner voice and capacity for authenticity – that is the ability to find a way of being that is somehow true to oneself. For many proponents of identity politics this quest for authenticity includes a yearning for a golden past, a search re-tracing the trajectory of history. In this connection Heyes quotes Taiaiake Alfred (1995) in his defense of a return to traditional values : Indigenous governance systems embody distinctive political values, radically different from those of the mainstream. Western notions of domination (human and natural) are noticeably absent; in their place we find harmony, autonomy, and respect. We have a responsibility to recover, understand, and preserve these values, not only because they represent a unique contribution to the history of ideas, but because renewal of respect for traditional values is the only lasting solution to the political, economic, and social problems that beset our people.

 

This, in my understanding, roughly corresponds to the position of proponents like Ibraheem Waziri which he vaguely utters in the statement “the question of identity is a question of worldview”. Another relevant passage from Waziri in this connection is : There is a myth that calls for a need in our society to change our worldview to something some people consider most befitting in the 21st century. This can also be deduced from : Different groups or people have different ways of reading the world; hence different ways of pursuing their identity in those shared “Who” universal values. For example, Muslims have Qur’an as their way of reading, interpreting and understanding events and circumstances in the material world, and they believe it to be the only way that will lead them to rhyming with those “Who” aspects of identity as defined by Sanusi.  Of course critics are apt to point out that this is the attitude of those who seek to evade the ravages of modernity, a real and present force, an unrelenting phenomenon; and not the method of those who want to realistically grapple with the challenges. It is also pertinent at this juncture to note that this equating of identity to ‘worldview’, a complex and different entity, stifles analysis. At best it is a proposition, a novel one for that matter, and not analysis in which name it was offered. We may also remark that if identity is a matter of ‘worldview’ or ‘paradigm’ which, according to Waziri, is a way of interpreting or ‘reading’( Waziri’s preferred term) ‘events and circumstances in the material world’, what happens when these ‘events and circumstances change? The consequence of the process of interpretation remains the same?

 

Also to be noted is the fact that Sanusi himself does not advocate a wholesale jettisoning of heritage but a critical intellectual engagement with it in light of present challenges : The task of the intellectual is not one of blending into the opaque consciousness of the tumultuous mob around him, his voice drowned in a cacophony misdirected protests. His task is to remind them of who they are and what they ought to be. Our values are not to taken from conduct of our adversaries but from the great heritage of our people.

 

The problem with the politics of identity, according to Heyes, is that while the public rhetoric of identity politics both served useful and empowering purposes for some (e.g. women, Blacks, gays, lesbians), it belied more subtle philosophical understandings of what political liberation requires.

 

Ultimately, it is not a matter of whether one is for or against identity politics, since the notion of identity has become indispensable to contemporary political discourse, but because of the troubling implications it has for models of the self, political inclusiveness, and our possibilities for solidarity and resistance (Heyes, 2002).

 

It is this last point that underlines the analytical, philosophical, or if you like, critical attitude of people like Sanusi, especially its consequences for society and social science alike. In Nigeria, where it is often a matter of life and death for citizen and country alike, the importance of dispassionate critical analysis cannot be exaggerated.

 

The primary line of fracture between proponents and critics, which yields what amounts to a liberalist critique, is the accusation, as stated by Heyes (2002), that the politics of difference has appropriated the language of authenticity to describe ways of living that are true to the identities of marginalized social groups while egalitarian doctrines press the notion that each human being is capable of deploying his or her reason or moral sense to live an authentic life as an individual.

 

Obviously this has consequences for ethics and criticism which are as fundamental as are far-reaching. More on this later.

 

Sociologic perspectives

 

In the 17th and 18th centuries i.e. before sociology really came to its own, the dominant view of identity was historical – an individual’s identity was static, remaining unchanged throughout life.

 

However since sociologists have started to grapple with the concept of identity, a number of perspectives have emerged. This are not necessarily mutually exclusive but rather complementary to one another and all converge on the recognition that identity is formed against a social background and is thus deployed and interpreted in a social context. That is, identity is a social construct, and all notions to suggest that identity is innate is rejected. This seems to undermine the ‘essentialist’ claim sometimes made in the name of identity. To give a practical illustration in the Nigerian context : consider a child separated at birth from his Yoruba Christian parents from Esa-Oke in Osun State and brought up in the household of the emir of Kano. Can anybody deny that such a child would grow up to become a Hausa-Fulani Muslim like any of his cohorts?

 

The spectrum of sociologic perspectives ranges from the structuralist to the interactionist. Most sociologists probably fall in the middle of these two and discursively segue from one framework to another in their engagement with complex and perplexing social phenomena. Along these two are the Marxist and the poststructuralist (or postmodernist) views.

 

Simply put, structuralists argue that man is the product of society i.e. society shapes humans in its own mould, while interactionists (e.g. G.H. Mead) emphasise the creative potential of human individuality i.e. humans shape society in their own mould. If structuralists view the process of socialization as the driving force behind the categorization or labeling of people into particular structures of cultural identity, then interactionists indicate that, even though identity is ultimately socially constructed, the capacity for it is already ingrained in us.

 

For Marxists, social class is the primary source of identity and self-image while postmodernists hold that identity is no longer fixed but is continually being changed – individuals are free to select identities based on their capacity to deliberately decide upon the social milieu in which an identity develops.

 

Cooley’s “looking-glass self”, and Ervin Goffman’s dramaturgical approach which employs an instructive theatrical metaphor, both offer insights into the sociological notion that identity is, indeed, a social construct. Considering that it is as much a matter of how people see us as how we see ourselves, we can discern a psychological component which means that it is ultimately a ‘psycho-social’ phenomenon.

 

To conclude this part I would like to highlight the other critiques of the politics of identity.

 

Further challenges to the politics of identity

 

Since when it became a social movement for political action accompanied by philosophical underpinnings, identity politics has been constantly pummeled by critics ranging from liberals and Marxists to poststructuralists.

 

Heyes (2002) tells us that many Leftist commentators see identity politics as something of a bete noir, representing the capitulations to cultural criticism in place of analysis of the material roots of oppression. And, identity politics, for these critics ( i.e. Marxists, both orthodox and revisionist; and socialists – especially those who came of age during the rise of the New Left in Western countries) is both factionalising and depoliticizing, drawing attention away from the ravages of late capitalism toward superstructural cultural accommodations that leave economic structures unchanged.

 

Again, we can see the connect between what has been articulated above and the views of intellectuals like Sanusi Lamido. This also reflects the view of Dr Yusufu Bala Usman and Alkassum Abba as they chastise people that selfishly exploit the politics of difference to the detriment of Nigerian nationalism.

 

Poststructuralist challenges to identity politics are, philosophically speaking, far more sophisticated and nuanced, and almost otherworldly to the novice. They have, in turn, been accused from a practical point of view of a characteristic ‘indeterminacy of meaning’ which, as stated by MacInnes, subverts their ability to reach conclusions. In the words of Heyes (2002) poststructuralists charge that identity politics rests on the mistaken view that a cohesive, self-identical subject can be identified and reclaimed from oppression. The arguments and counter-arguments around this point are beyond the scope of this essay.

 

Finally, in my opinion, it is a lack of appreciation of this intellectual backdrop to the debate that made Waziri to employ the invidious neologism of ‘academysticism’ to describe Sanusi’s approach.

 

 

13/06/2005

 

Tottenham

London

ENGLAND