The thorny question of who you are

Defending Identity: Its Indispensable Role in Protecting Democracy
By Natan Sharansky with Shira Wolosky Weiss
PublicAffairs $26.95 (£15.99)

When Natan Sharansky was in a Soviet prison his wife, Avital, who had left for Israel, sent him a message saying she had decided to cover her hair.

It was a difficult moment. Sharansky had previously told Avital he was uncomfortable about her assuming the garb of a Jewish Orthodox married woman. This time, he decided that if this was her new religious identity he would have to respect it.

Freed after nine years, and permitted to follow Avital to Israel, he stood up for other women covering their hair, opposing France’s ban on headscarves in schools. Muslim girls were expressing their identity and he had learnt during his gulag years how much identity mattered. The prisoners who stood up to the KGB were those with the surest sense of who they were, whether Latvian nationalists, Orthodox Christians or Pentecostals.

Many democracies are deeply confused about identity, making dangerous mistakes over how much citizens owe to the state and how much to their ethnic or religious groups, Sharansky argues in this thought-provoking book.

Like those on the American right, Sharansky directs his greatest ire at the Europeans, whom he accuses of lacking a sense of purpose to match that of their Islamist enemies, both internal and external.

But, unlike the other critics, Sharansky’s allegation is not that Europe simply caves in to Islamist demands. As shown by his support for headscarves, his argument is more complex.

Sharansky says that postwar democratic Europe dedicated itself to universal notions of human rights, assuming that colour, religion and culture would cease to matter. Faced with an influx of immigrants, this post-identity Europe struggled to integrate the newcomers.

Britain and the Netherlands opted for multiculturalism: all ways of life should be respected. What really happened, he argues, was that both countries, infused with post-colonial guilt, res­pected all but their own. When Dutch film-maker Theo Van Gogh was murdered and London suffered a murderous attack on its Underground, the establishments struggled to respond.

France adopted a different strategy, insisting all citizens become resolutely French. In state schools, any sign of dif- ference – headscarf, crucifix or skullcap – was to be abandoned at the gate. Shar- ansky is as little taken with the French approach as with the British or Dutch.

The French road leads to hypocrisy, he says. “French Muslims are coerced to act one way while thinking and feeling another.” In any case, identity is vital, giving people ties to their past. Casting it aside is seldom healthy.

Arriving in Israel, he criticised the prevailing idea of citizenship there too. Theodor Herzl, modern Zionism’s founder, imagined a country where pioneers would hang on to their old cultures while creating something new. David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister, had other ideas, insisting Jews ditch their diaspora baggage: Poles, Moroccans, Germans and Iraqis would simply become Israelis.

The arrival of the Soviet Jews challenged this. The newcomers were determined to hang on to their Russian heritage, forming their own political party with Sharansky as chairman.

The right way to tackle identity, Sharansky says, is American. In the US, you can become American without forgetting what you were. You can be Irish-American, Italian-American or Jewish-American. A central culture of democracy demands your loyalty, but outside that you can be who you like.

This is where Sharansky’s polemic loses its drive. It was easier for the US. As Sharansky says, the settlers displaced the native population, which meant no incoming group had a better claim than any other.

What should Europeans do? They are old societies, which makes their task more complicated than Sharansky allows. For all their confusion, the host cultures still dominate. Sharansky says Europe should allow immigrants to retain their identities but insist on basic rules, such as non-violence. He underestimates the extent to which not just Gordon Brown, UKprime minister, but also many Muslims are already calling for just this.

In Israel, Sharansky is not easily categorised. He resigned twice as a government minister – once because he thought Ehud Barak was conceding too much to Yassir Arafat at Camp David and once because of his opposition to withdrawal from Gaza. Yet he provides an empathetic rendering of the Palestinian narrative, writing that “they keep the keys from the houses of their grandfathers in Haifa, Lod and Jerusalem under their pillows”.

His prescription for Israel is that it should hold firm to its Jewish and democratic identities. His failure to explain how it can retain both qualities without relinquishing the occupied territories is just one way in which this otherwise stimulating book fails to satisfy.