While the bigger questions such as our raison d’etre and existence make thinkers around the planet engage in discussion that brings history and culture to life, there is a more important question that intrigues me.

Our identities are our visual and sensory barcode amongst the array of humanity. Traits specific to our upbringing and cultures have found themselves evolving who we are. However, what is our identity? What defines who we are? Is it the tangible artifacts such as a flag or a national anthem or is it the common belief in a supreme being and links to a type of lifestyle? In the creation and acknowledgment of a national identity, the idea that there be more commonalities than differences amongst the people, seems to play an important and natural component.

It can be argued that while there exist so many diverse cultures across the earth’s massive landmass, the fact that their histories have evolved from the same point of origin, defies the struggle for self-determination. Looking at the real estate around the world, will give the onlooker a good idea as to whose efforts have been initiated by which individual. When names such as “John Hancock” and “Trump” and “Sears” become avid descriptions for landmarks, man’s overwhelming desire to make his “claim to fame” be known publicly screams painful desperation for self preservation.

In considering the possibility that the amount of philanthropic work that is initiated around the world, one cannot overlook the strong link individuals maintain with the desire to be remembered. The entire concept of “Corporate Social Responsibility” is all about giving back to a society when it will make an indirect impact to the stock value of a company.

People fight for freedom of a group of people from oppression, leaders that sit far from the frontline, strategizing policy and diplomacy, also do so in the name of preservation.

Where does this desperate need for individual identity come from and how come we aren’t more human and global in our approach? One can’t recall where the Dutch Nun who found her calling in the slums of Calcutta, splashed her name around the walls and parks of the city in exchange for her services.

Back in early 1940’s, when Mohammad Ali Jinnah, the eventual founder of Pakistan, was struggling to realize his dream of a land for the Muslim population in India, the thought that he would be one of the first and few to be the leader who negotiated a land for his people, must have crossed his mind. But the fact that the ideology of the country is based on religion and the cultural heritage that we share with India is so far from the ideology, provides the basis of an extremely confused identity that has evolved over time.

In such a situation, what determines the identity of a people? The young country is pushed into a circumstance they don’t understand, being forced to look back at a historical past that they are told doesn’t belong to them, uninterested in a future governed by political ambitions of a select few. What objectives unite people such as these? And in the absence of unity, does the group actually qualify to be representing a nation of their own? Do the actions of a disconnected people honor the reasons for earning that freedom to begin with?

The different ethnic groups, communities and societies struggle for the right of self determination. While the people fight for what they believe is their right to freedom and live as they feel fit, the governments seem to be content to engage in politics. What is to become of such countries? Will they ever give up their identity? By the time the idea of a global unity will be an eventual result of our strife to rectify centuries of abuse on entities upon which there is no bearing of physical boundary or demarcation, one can’t help but wonder how such different, disconnected identities will be able to come together.

While it is true that the internet and citizens’ media are changing the landscape and bridging gaps in the understanding that people have of one another, you have to admit that dialogue taking place at the grassroot levels, amongst people who will probably never physically interact with one another, can only be successful in the virtual world.

We might be able to become optimists to find commonalities in all the differences that we have, however we tend to overlook how high we have built walls to protect our differences in the name of individuality and self preservation – How ironic is the situation that most people will not begin to preserve and struggle until they feel threatened by the onslaught of the generalist phenomenon.

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