It may not be appropriate to separate identity from citizenship, which, in its fundamental sense, is the relationship between an individual and the homeland to which they belong. This relationship entails constitutional rights and legally established duties, among other responsibilities.
Positive citizenship, however, is not limited to a citizen’s mere awareness of their rights and duties. It also involves a commitment to exercising them through an independent personality capable of making decisions in the best interests of the homeland and its citizens.
The application of the concept of citizenship throughout society and across all institutions fosters a set of values, principles, and practices that shape an individual’s character. These, in turn, are reflected in how individuals behave toward their peers, their state institutions, and their homeland.
As for the concept of belonging to one’s homeland, it may be described as an intellectual and emotional bond with the nation, extending to encompass a connection with its land, history, people, present, and future. This bond serves as a driving force that motivates individuals to work diligently and participate constructively in advancing their homeland and enhancing its standing.
This sense of belonging is also linked to citizens’ pride in their history and their faith in their future. Such sentiments do not emerge on their own; children and young people acquire them through their families, schools, universities, and workplaces.
Belonging to one’s homeland does not depend on abstract concepts alone. Rather, it is rooted in lived experience between citizens and their homeland. When citizens come to feel, through their everyday experiences, that their homeland protects them, provides for their basic needs, and offers them opportunities for growth and participation with fairness and recognition, their sense of belonging becomes firmly established. They express this belonging through work and constructive contributions to their homeland’s progress and prosperity.
Simply Put, the Homeland Is Not a Land Without a People
It is not merely a set of drawn borders. The people are the soul of the homeland.
A people can find themselves expelled from their land, as numerous examples throughout history demonstrate.
A human being is a soul inhabiting a body. When that soul departs, the body dies. Likewise, every nation possesses a soul embodied in its history, culture, and civilization. When that nation inhabits a land, it creates a homeland.
I recently read a debate about the very concept of the homeland, prompted by an article written by a Sudanese writer. He argued:
“In Quraysh, the priest would say to the worshippers of an idol: ‘The idol demands a cow from you so that it may grant your request!’
“Of course, the idol does not speak. The one who wants the cow and benefits from it is the priest!
“If the priest told people that he wanted a cow for himself, no one would give it to him. The trick, therefore, lies in creating an idol that people worship, revere, and are willing to die for.
“The priest then assumes the role of speaking on behalf of the idol, urging people to sanctify and glorify it. When he asks the idol’s worshippers for something in its name, they willingly hand it over to him, delighted by their offering. Indeed, they even await his announcement that the idol has accepted their gift!
“Before the Second World War, Hitler declared in a speech that he would create a god for the Germans to worship on Earth in place of God Almighty. That god would be the German homeland. They would die for it and sacrifice themselves for its glory and greatness!
“The homeland can turn into an idol worshipped alongside, or in place of, God. Like the idol, it does not speak. Those who speak in the name of the homeland are politicians, who assume the role of priests serving the idol.
“When they call upon people to make sacrifices for the homeland, what they are really asking is that people sacrifice themselves for the politicians and for the preservation of their power over ordinary citizens.
“The people who worship the homeland are happy to oblige.
“They die for the homeland and are given the title of ‘martyrs of the homeland’ by their masters. Yet those masters do not die for the homeland, nor do they send their own children to die for it. The tragedy is that some will even do so when their love of power has become dearer to them than their own children.
“You constantly hear grand expressions such as ‘the state treasury,’ ‘state property,’ ‘state lands,’ ‘the prestige of the state,’ and ‘the head of state.’
“Everyone dies to prevent the state from falling. The state, the state, the state, the state!
“Yet no one asks themselves: What is the state? What is this abstract entity that you have elevated to a sacred status, attributing everything to it?
“An entity that supposedly also has the right to take everything away from you: your lives, your dignity, and your daily bread!
“What is this sacred idol that demands people go hungry so that it may be fed? That they practice austerity so that it may live in luxury? That they die so that it may live? That they be humiliated to preserve the prestige of the state?
“The truth is that they deliberately blur the distinction between the homeland and the state.
“If the people are sacrificed, and the hopes and aspirations of their children and young people remain unfulfilled, the homeland dies. All that remains is the land itself, standing alone without its nation, like a body from which the soul has departed.”
At this point, I must clearly distinguish between what the writer means by “the state” and the concept of the “homeland” with which I began this article. The homeland, as I see it, consists of the land, the people, history, and a shared collective memory. The state, by contrast, is the administrative, political, and institutional apparatus that is supposed to serve and protect the homeland, not replace it or speak in its name as though it were a sacred idol. Confusing the two is precisely what enables centers of power to appropriate the sanctity of the homeland for their own purposes.
This brings us to an important question: Does preserving national identity, for example, conflict with the reality that different cultural and religious identities coexist within the same homeland? And are others now exploiting these differences?
In Egypt, for instance, there are differences in the temperament and speech patterns of Nubians in the south, coastal communities in the north, and the inhabitants of the oases. Differences also exist from one governorate to another. Yet all these communities share a single Egyptian national identity.
This is a legitimate question because some people seek to erase identities that are already woven into the fabric of the homeland, driven by a desire to make everyone culturally uniform. Such thinking reflects a narrow perspective and an inability to appreciate the bigger picture: the beauty of diversity within a single national entity.
There are also those who, on a broader and more violent scale, seek to erase the identities of entire peoples and everything that constitutes them, as Zionism is doing to the Palestinians, and as has happened to the Kurds and others. Important as these cases are, they fall within the broader context of colonialism, settler expansion, and the desire to impose power and eliminate those regarded as enemies.
Throughout history, the leaders of different religions have attempted to spread their own faiths while insisting that other religions must disappear, believing that they alone possess absolute truth and that everyone else is absolutely wrong. This has led to wars and killings, driven by an inability to coexist, practice tolerance, and recognize that God created us as peoples and tribes so that we might come to know one another—and that, had He willed it, everyone on Earth would have believed.
The beauty of humanity lies in the diversity of cultural identities among different groups of people. This diversity enriches humanity and gives it vitality. As our knowledge and understanding mature, it remains our responsibility to learn how to live together—not merely to coexist, but to enjoy one another’s company and learn from one another.
A young philosopher once said to me:
“I find it puzzling that, on the one hand, we strive to create a global citizen, while on the other, we confine that same person within the borders of their own country. Is that not a contradiction?”
I replied:
“The natural development of human beings contains no contradiction here. Rather, it embraces difference and diversity, which express creativity and variety without being mutually exclusive.
“All humanity shares the same fundamental origins and the same biological process through which genetic traits are passed from one generation to the next. Nations also share many human values that remain universal regardless of where we live. These are the very values we seek to instill in children in the West and the East, the North and the South: honesty, integrity, trustworthiness, love, and many others.”
She asked:
“First of all, what is the definition of identity, so that our discussion can have a meaningful foundation?”
I replied:
“Identity is a term used to describe a person’s understanding of themselves, their expression of individuality, and their relationship with the group around them.
“Identity encompasses the totality of characteristics that distinguish one thing from another, one person from another, or one group from another. Each of them carries multiple elements within its identity.
“The elements of identity are dynamic. Some may become more prominent at a particular stage of life, while others may take precedence at another.
“Personal identity defines an individual through their appearance, name, characteristics, sex, nationality, age, date of birth, and place of birth. Collective identity, by contrast, refers to the fundamental characteristics shared by a group of people that distinguish them from other groups.
“Members of a group share essential characteristics that have shaped them as a community, along with a collective history and a genetic heritage that may not be visible but nevertheless exists. They may differ in other respects, yet these differences do not prevent them from belonging to a coherent group.
“The elements that can shape a collective identity are numerous. What matters most is the coherence of these elements and the acceptance of varying degrees of difference without hostility.”
