ETHNIC IDENTITY

The problems of writing identity expand with each day. I keep hearing stuff. There is a discourse concerning identity. There is an identity theory that keeps rolling along the airwaves. It is just a matter of grasping it and performing it. Just a matter, how simple is that?

Since the advent of sign human beings - and perhaps even other species - have been making marks to record or pass on bits of information. Things they have seen, felt, heard and smelled. It begins with scratches and drawings on any number of surfaces and objects using a variety of implements to make their mark.  The important word here is their. It is not just any mark, but the maker’s mark. It is their signature. It is an identifying sign.

The scratches and drawings evolved and became the symbols used for expression and communication, as did the variety of implements used to create the symbols and the surfaces on which they were displayed. In almost every instance the maker of the scratches and drawings put their mark on or near their creation as a means of identification and in due course in exchange for some consideration. The history of the laws of copyright is long and full of bitter struggle. Nonetheless the writing of identifying symbols and signs is as puzzling as ever.

Of course the writing of ones own identity is not just a question of creating a single sign. It is a contextual matter. It is a combination of signs and symbols dependent on one’s sense of place, place attachment and a number of other ‘affiliations’, including race, religion, economics, politics, etc.

Bearing this in mind, I heard today, on Radio 4, the following question:

“It is all right to place one’s religious and ethnic identity before citizenship identity?”

What’s the sign for that?