Identity and Control

As far-fetched as the idea of a “new world order” of global control may be, there is some truth to the notion that the integration of societies and the globalization of culture have brought the world closer together. Although it is unlikely that a cartel of malicious schemers designed this global trend, the effect of globalization on local societies and national identities has nonetheless been profound. It has undermined the modern idea of the state by providing non-national and transnational forms of economic, social, and cultural interaction. The global economic and social ties of the inhabitants of contemporary global cities are intertwined in a way that supercedes the idea of a national social contract—the Enlightenment notion that peoples in particular regions are naturally linked together in a specific country. In a global world, it is hard to say where particular regions begin and end. For that matter, in multicultural societies, it is hard to say how the “people” of a particular nation should be defined.

This is where religion and ethnicity step in to redefine public communities. The decay of the nation-state and disillusionment with old forms of secular nationalism have produced both the opportunity and the need for nationalisms. The opportunity has arisen because the old orders seem so weak, yet the need for national identity persists because no single alternative form of social cohesion and affiliation has yet appeared to dominate public life the way the nation-state did in the 20th century. In a curious way, traditional forms of social identity have helped to rescue one of Western modernity’s central themes: the idea of nationhood. In the increasing absence of any other demarcation of national loyalty and commitment, these old staples—religion, ethnicity, and traditional culture—have become resources for national identification.

Consequently, religious and ethnic nationalism has provided a solution in the contemporary political climate to the perceived insufficiencies of Western-style secular politics. As secular ties have begun to unravel in the post- Soviet and post-colonial era, local leaders have searched for new anchors with which to ground their social identities and political loyalties. What is signifi cant about these ethno-religious movements is their creativity—not just their use of technology and mass media, but also their appropriation of national and global networks. Although many of the framers of the new nationalisms have reached back into history for ancient images and concepts that will give them credibility, theirs are not simply efforts to resuscitate old ideas from the past. These are contemporary ideologies that meet present-day social and political needs.

In the context of Western modernism, the notion that indigenous culture can provide the basis for new political institutions, including resuscitated forms of the nation-state, is revolutionary. Movements that support ethno-religious nationalism are therefore often confrontational and sometimes violent. They reject the intervention of outsiders and their ideologies and, at the risk of being intolerant, pander to their indigenous cultural bases and enforce traditional social boundaries. It is thus no surprise that they clash with each other and with defenders of the secular state. Yet even such conflicts serve a purpose for the movements: they help define who they are as a people and who they are not. They are not, for instance, secular modernists.

Understandably, then, these movements of anti-Western modernism are ambivalent about modernity, unsure whether it is necessarily Western and always evil. They are also ambivalent about globalization, the most recent stage of modernity. On one hand, these political movements of anti-modernity are reactions to the globalization of Western culture. They are responses to the insufficiencies of what is often touted as the world’s global standard: the elements of secular, Westernized urban society that are found not only in the West but in many parts of the former Third World, seen by their detractors as vestiges of colonialism. On the other hand, these new ethno-religious identities are alternative modernities with international and supernational aspects of their own. This means that in the future, some forms of anti-modernism will be global, some will be virulently antiglobal, and yet others will be content with creating their own alternative modernities in ethno-religious nation-states.

Each of these forms of religious anti-modernism contains a paradoxical relationship between forms of globalization and emerging religious and ethnic nationalisms. One of history’s ironies is that the globalism of culture and the emergence of transnational political and economic institutions enhance the need for local identities. They also promote a more localized form of authority and social accountability.

The crucial problems in an era of globalization are identity and control. The two are linked in that a loss of a sense of belonging leads to a feeling of powerlessness. At the same time, what has been perceived as a loss of faith in secular nationalism is experienced as a loss of agency as well as selfhood. For these reasons, the assertion of traditional forms of religious identities are linked to attempts to reclaim personal and cultural power. The vicious outbreaks of antimodernist religious terrorism in the first few years of the 21st century can be seen as tragic attempts to regain social control through acts of violence. Until there is a surer sense of citizenship in a global order, religious visions of moral order will continue to appear as attractive, though often disruptive, solutions to the problems of authority, identity, and belonging in a globalized world.