Identity, Communication, and Syria

                When I was a sophomore in high school, I went on a trip with the choir to London, England.  I went expecting things to be basically the same as they are in the United States, but with accents.  After all, both are post-industrial countries that speak English, so how different could they be?  But, meeting so many Londoners and witnessing their culture in action surprised me and made me consider my own United States American identity.  This is one of many ways for intercultural communication and identity to influence each other.

                In Intercultural Communication and Contexts, authors Martin and Nakayama discuss three perspectives with which to approach identity and communication and how they interact.  According to the Social Science approach, “identity is created in part by the self and in part in relation to group membership” (Martin & Nakayama, 2013, p. 171).  We come to understand ourselves based on our cultural backgrounds.  We form individualized, familial, and spiritual identities in varying degrees based on our backgrounds.  According to the Interpretive perspective, we form our identity primarily through communicating with others.  It introduces the avowal process, the way we see ourselves, and the ascription process, the way others see us.  The Critical perspective suggests that we form our identities based on social and historical forces.  It is similar to the Interpretive approach, but emphasizes the roles of context and conflict in identity development.

                The identities we form involve many different facets, which can be subject to changing social forces.   For example, sexual identity is much more important to people than it used to be, as the homosexual minority gains a voice.  Other identities include gender identity, age identity, racial identity, ethnic identity, religious identity, class identity, regional identity, and national identity.  Differences in national identity in particular are at the root of the United States’ increasing interest in the civil war in Syria.

                At the end of WWII, the United States praised itself for its involvement. It established a position as a beacon of freedom and prosperity. This national identity as the world’s police came under fire with the Vietnam conflict, and now that the war in Syria has drawn so much attention, the national identity is doubtful once more. Should we intervene? Why now, after two years? With the World Wars, “when the war was over, it was over -- clear objective, clear outcome, good guys win, roll credits” (Wong, 2013). The Syrian conflict doesn’t offer a clear objective, and this creates a lot of tension against our old national identity as the “good guys”.

              

Political identity also has a presence in this issue. Though the Cold War is over, Russia has made it clear that U.S. intervention would be seen as a threat. Russia “hates the idea of ‘international intervention’ … because it sees this as Cold War-style Western Imperialism” (Fisher, 2013). Within Syria, political identity divides the rebels and those who support the regime. On both sides, members are willing to turn to violence. This violence has displaced over six million people, two million of whom had to seek refuge out of the country (Memmott, 2013).


Religious identity plays an important role in the conflict itself. The current regime was established to favor Alawite Muslims. The Sunni Muslim rebels are attempting to rectify this monumental imbalance of power. They began with peaceful protests, but the violent response escalated cross-religious tension into all out civil war (Fisher, 2013).

                With national, political, and religious identity at the core of the conflict, it’s no wonder the Syria issue has become so widely-discussed; these identities in particular often cause the greatest tension.  Personally, I don’t see intercultural communication slowing down too much in a general sense because of this.  Wars happen all the time.  I find it very fortunate that we can discuss the issue with Russia at all, considering that mere decades ago we almost blew each other sky high.  I think that such differences in identity are very important in understanding ourselves, and growing and adapting as the political climate shifts.  If our identities never confronted such poignant issues, they would stagnate and we might become restless or apathetic to self-improvement.  I think the we (meaning the United States) should continue to carefully discuss the options with our allies, the UN, and even those opposing our involvement.  I don’t want to see us get into another war, and if we are careful, we can help the situation in Syria without killing any more of her civilians.

References

Fisher, M.  (2013).  9 Questions About Syria you were too Embarrassed to Ask.  The Washington Post.  Retrieved from http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/08/29/9-questions-about-syria-you-were-too-embarrassed-to-ask/

Martin, J.N., & Nakayama, T.K. (2013). Intercultural communication in contexts (6th ed.) New York, NY: McGraw Hill. 

Memmott, M. (2013, September 3).  2 Million Syrians Are Now Refugees and More are ‘On the Way’.  Retrieved from http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/09/03/218471534/2-million-syrians-are-now-refugees-and-more-are-on-the-way

Wong, D. (2013, September 11).  The 6 Weirdest Things We’ve Learned Since 9/11.  Cracked.com.  Retrieved from http://www.cracked.com/blog/the-6-weirdest-things-weve-learned-since-911_p2/