Group identity politics and the American Creed
Francis Fukuyama’s essay, Identity and Migration, appears in the current (no. 131, 2/2007) issue of Prospect Magazine. He points out that group identity politics played little or no part in the lives of nations during the making of the modern world. But now the rise of group identity politics is threatening to undo the values that are the foundation of the civilization of the Western world.
Groups previously confident and assured of their place in the nations of the world now feel themselves threatened by a sea of modernity. "When emigrating to western Europe one’s identity as a Muslim is no longer supported by the outside society." As a result groups, more and more, in their own defense, are asserting themselves, and in a few instances, violently, as, for example, the radical Islamists, aka terrorists, living among otherwise peaceful Moslem populations in Europe and in the Middle East.
It used to be enough to protect the individual from the power of the state. No more. Now groups of individuals sharing values, languages, and traditions, want not only protection but special status for themselves and their beliefs. When this special status is not forthcoming, as in the dictatorial regimes of the Middle East and elsewhere, or even in the secular societies of Europe and America, extremists within these groups will attempt by force and terrorism to have their way.
The West has allowed large scale immigration of Moslem populations, both from the near and the far East but has not known how to assimilate these populations. Instead the West, in particular Europe where the largest numbers of immigrants are Moslem, has, without insisting that the newcomers adopt the West’s own values, allowed a kind of multi-culturalism that has satisfied no one.
As Fukuyama says: "Multiculturalism—understood not just as tolerance of cultural diversity but as the demand for legal recognition of the rights of racial, religious or cultural groups—has now become established in virtually all modern liberal democracies."
The American creed is based on a few basic values, such as equality (understood as equality of opportunity rather than outcome), liberty (or anti-statism), individualism (in the sense that individuals could determine their own social station), populism and laissez-faire.
Group identity politics threatens these values. What we have most to fear from these groups, that themselves feel threatened, is the loss of what makes us what we are. Fukuyama is very clear on this point:
"Liberalism cannot ultimately be based on group rights, because not all groups uphold liberal values. The civilisation of the European Enlightenment, of which contemporary liberal democracy is the heir, cannot be culturally neutral, since liberal societies have their own values regarding the equal worth and dignity of individuals. Cultures that do not accept these premises do not deserve equal protection in a liberal democracy. Members of immigrant communities and their offspring deserve to be treated equally as individuals, not as members of cultural communities. There is no reason for a Muslim girl to be treated differently under the law from a Christian or Jewish one, whatever the feelings of her relatives."
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