by Surendra BISSOONDOYAL

An individual does not have only one identity, but a multiplicity of identities. Soap box orators and other rabble rousers harp on one particular identity to bring out the worst in people, and this is what leads to violence. Amartya Sen, the Economics Nobel Laureate, has, in a masterly exposé in his book «Identity and violence», shown how «the imposition of an allegedly unique identity is often a crucial component of the ?martial art? of fomenting sectarian confrontation».

We are, up to now, fortunate that we have not had to go through the sort of violence that has in the past engulfed many peoples in senseless sectarian killings, and which has not spared innocent tourists and bystanders. But the danger has not been totally averted and we will come back to this again. In the meantime we are daily watching powerlessly the butchery between Sunnis and Shias in Baghdad, the centre of a great old civilization. What makes us despair is that both groups swear by Islam just as the Irish were slaughtering one another in the name of Catholicism or Anglicanism, ignoring their common Christianity.

?Religious? appartenance has not been the only motive behind the explosion of violent behaviour. Racial and tribal differences, as between Tutsis and Hutus in Rwanda recently, have been responsible for the genocide of millions of innocent people. Opinion leaders throughout the world ? political, social, religious ? need to understand that others can have different identities which should be respected.

Top footballers playing for a particular team may have different racial, religious or national identities but it is their identity as players for a particular team, however temporary, that predominates. However blind belief in the superiority of a particular identity can be the source of violence, even in football, as we have seen in Italy recently. And some people want to go back to the days when ?communalism? infected the game in Mauritius! It is preferable to have stadiums which remain empty rather than full of corpses.

What can we do to make people aware of the danger lying in wait for us? The French Parliament passed a law at the end of 2006 making it a crime to deny that Turks committed genocide against Armenians in 1915. Of course it is a heinous crime to commit genocide against people whose perceived identity may not be to the liking of those who massacre them. But such laws are only palliatives. Furthermore it can be argued that the law passed by the French Parliament is politically motivated to prevent Turkey from joining the European Union. Massacres that have taken place throughout history call for a deeper analysis of buman behaviour. Amartya Sen delves into the past to show how ideas, discoveries and inventions have migrated from one place to another and then in the opposite direction later.

George Sarton, the historian of science, was amazed when he discovered that the decimal system and the symbol for zero had been brought to Europe by the Arabs from India in the seventeenth century but it took the Europeans one thousand years to adopt them and discard the clumsy Roman numerals. And he exclaims: «Rivers and mountains are easier to cross than the barriers in the mind of man.»

It is precisely in the minds of young children that we need to sow the seeds of peace and understanding to fight the kind of intolerance and violence that we see around us in everyday life. We condemn, as we should, the acts of terrorism associated mainly with those who swear by ?their? perception of Islam. But do not the U.S.A. and Israel have a share of responsibility in such a reaction to what Palestinians have suffered and continue to suffer since the creation of the State of Israel?

We talk about the clash of civilizations. Should we not rather talk about the clash of obstinate and obsessive identities which prevent some people from seeing the positive side of others? identities? Akbar, the great Mughal Emperor of India, who was a Muslim, insisted, as Amartya Sen recalls, «on the need for open dialogue and free choice and also arranged recurrent discussions involving not only mainstream Hindu and Muslim thinkers, but also Christians, Jews, Parsees, Jains and even atheists». And that was in the 1590?s!

We should ourselves not forget the irruption of violence that threatened our future before independence and more recently when Kaya died in prison. Unesco has rightly pointed out that ?learning to live together? should be one of the pillars of education today. But what do we see instead? A cut throat competition which makes children aware that some of them are more equal than others. Are we not sowing the seeds of confrontation and violence from an early age?