Jul 20, 2018
Hyphenated Identities
As the world debates the issue of whether “Africa Won the World Cup” what issues does this raise when it comes to the questions of identity and citizenship in broader terms?
I was thinking about this a lot, but Trevor Noah’s recent piece on it and his reaction to the French Ambassador’s response to him prompted me to write something about this topic.
Throughout this World Cup, many people around me in Kenya and on the internet have been making comments about the “Africanness” of the French team. Some say it in a positive way and others do not.
Even when it came from people close to me, I did play along, but I found that by taking their “Frenchness” away from them, was doing much of the same to them that the Alt Right in France are doing and have been doing for a long time (As Trevor rightly points out). And honestly, it’s been going on since the colonial period.
Ferdinand Oyono, in his seminal work, “Houseboy” (1956), brings up this issue as the main character Toundi says, moments before this death and after much suffering at the hands of society, “What are we blackmen who are called French?”.
As a teenager, I studied the French language and was very interested in different aspects of French culture and especially the issues of identity for migrant or diaspora communities because the question of belonging really hit home for me as a Kenyan of Indian origin.
For my Extended Essay as an International Baccalaureate student, I wrote about the riots of 2005 in France that were sparked by the deaths of French teenagers who had their origins in some of France’s former colonies. The research of this project brought to light for me some of the tough plights of 2nd and 3rd generation citizens or even just French citizens who were not white. Especially in terms of unemployment, crime and overall treatment by the rest of society.
So, even when my family was echoing what people, especially Africans were saying around the world about how the French team is African. And additionally and quite justifiably pointing out the hypocrisy of shunning immigrants, but celebrating their achievements as their own, I was skeptical about how I should react. I even pointed how it bothers us when people classify us as Indian or “mhindi”, excluding our Kenyan identity.
I believe that it’s not good to assert an identity onto someone if they haven’t laid claim to that identity because you’re disallowing them the right to define themselves.
However, I love how Trevor Noah puts it when he brings up the idea of hyphenated identity. We need to not exclude people’s identities from each other. We are stronger because of our diversity and not in spite of it.
When we take on a stance of you can only be one or the other, this takes us directly back to colonial policies. In fact, the French Assimilation Policy asserted that anyone could be “French”…as long as they rid themselves of everything related to their origins and cultural identity.
My issues with identity are a work-in-progress. I used to see myself as “Kenyan”, plain and simple. It took leaving the country to learn how I was perceived in the third person and became more conscious of my own place in society. I experienced what Franz Fanon describes as third-person consciousness; seeing myself as an object in the eyes of others with specific criteria and prejudices that I was being measured against.
I used to get annoyed when people would just see me and assume that I was just Indian or Pakistani. I used to get annoyed when I was met with disbelief about my nationality. I once got so pissed off, I asked someone if they expected me to tape my passport to my person for people to believe me.
I grew up with a lot of Indian culture and it’s strongly part of my identity — Bollywood movies (mainly how I learnt Hindi/Urdu), Indian food (my mum is an amazing chef! The best if I can say so myself…) and just traditions and culture that are part of everyday life. Furthermore, my mum was born and brought up in India although my dad’s family has been in Kenya for many generations. This meant that this part of my identity was as much ingrained in me as my national identity, if not more.
I began to question why I was rejecting such an essential part of myself. It didn’t make sense.
Later, I came to realize that it was how I could justify my “Kenyanness” to other people — rejecting my other half — my “Indianness”.
It was honestly such a tough existential crisis to face and dissect as I’m sure many many people around the world have experienced and faced much more serious consequences — sometimes physical and sometimes fatal.
I now refer to myself as Kenyan-Asian or Kenyan-Indian and have tried to come to terms with what both those entail. Identities are ever-evolving and as Stuart Hall said
“ Identities are formed at the unstable point where personal lives meet the narrative of history. Identity is an ever-unfinished conversation”.
I understand that having a hyphenated identity means that you are saying there’s an identity that’s unhyphenated, pure and original. However, I must protest that denying significant parts of ourselves is not the way to go either.
It is important that we have these conversations with an open mind rather than focusing on “winning” the argument.
I hope we can move to a place where we can have a truly pluralistic society that appreciates and thrives on diversity. In the meantime, we should all look inward and reflect on ourselves and the unique space we occupy in society, especially becoming conscious of the ways in which our identities can have or be excluded from privilege and power. As Trevor said, context is everything.
Sometimes, I can be a POC and sometimes I’m considered white. As crazy as it sounds, it’s all about context. People, Place, Power — they’re all interconnected.
What are your opinions on this? Would love to see some responses.
