Identities in Peace: Ties that Bind and Differences that Divide
“All conflicts are identity conflicts…” — John Paul Lederach, Conflict Transformation Class, 2005
Growing up in Australia, identity was always a perplexing matter for me. My parents had emigrated from Hong Kong soon after the formal abolition of the White Australia Policy under the Whitlam Labor Government. As the only Chinese kid at school, my early school memories included being teased for being ‘Ching Chong’ and outwardly funny comments about small eyes. Unbeknownst to my parents, I secretly wished for blond hair and blue eyes to fit in like everyone else.
Ironically, upon graduation and relocating to Asia for work, the reverse happened when locals kept asking why I looked like everyone else but spoke like a foreigner. Quickly I learnt to disguise my identity by adopting colloquial slang. Over the process of time, new social identity demarcations adopted from work and family replaced identity conflicts of the past. Today, just as my hometown Australia has become a welcoming cultural melting pot, no longer do I view differing aspects of identity as being mutually exclusive or incompatible, but as a celebration of diversity.
It came as a surprise therefore, when these memories resurfaced during our recent class on Identity and Storytelling. Our professor Dr Dicky Sofjan, had asked a simple yet provocative question, ‘When you wake up in the morning, who do you see when you look in the mirror?’ We were to answer in priority of gender, ethnicity, religion, nationality, social class etc. The resulting range of responses led me to a deeper opportunity of thought not only as to who we represented to others and self, but also whether and how it had influenced our chosen areas of work. What stories of the past still influence our present identity?
Upon reflection, I concluded that identity is an ongoing dynamic process, not static nor fixed, but represented by different spectacle frames through which we perceive the world. Whilst most have come to terms with our current frame of identity, the reality is that our past frames still influence our views of the world, how we project ourselves, and how we react to others. This further affects how we see and judge ourselves and others within the collective.
Like snapshots of memories, these frames do not simply vanish over time but become filters that act to crop away, dim, tint, or highlight information presented before us according to preselected lenses. Problems arise when biasedness contributes to negative judgement of situations causing us to choose one course of action over another. Unless we can objectively reframe and resolve unmet basic needs such as past rejection and fear causing such slants, our vision will be forever distorted, which affects not only ourselves, but also those we lead, and those causes we champion.
Our effectiveness as peacemakers relies on the neutrality of the frames that we put on. How well we understand our own identity determines whether we perceive others either to be allies to build bridges, or opponents to be conquered. Constructive win-win resolution requires deeper understanding of underlying needs that drive behaviours and identities of others and self. Only by allowing ourselves to explore alternative points of views outside of what we are accustomed and defined, will we create positive and sustainable peace.
Christina Cheng – Australia
Rotary Peace Fellow – Class 32
