Is There a Canadian Philosophy?: Reflections on the Canadian Identity

Chapter 2. Nationalism and the Politics of Identity

CHAPTER 2 Paul Fairfield NATIONALISM AND THE POLITICS OF IDENTITY While not an altogether new phenomenon, political argu­ mentation in recent times has increasingly opted for a dis­ course of collective identity over traditional liberal discourses of utility, the common good, and individual rights. Consider­ ations of collective identity—whether articulated along national, ethnic, linguistic, gender, or other lines—and de­ mands for recognition are increasingly displacing vocabular­ ies of universality, neutrality, and, perhaps most of all, individuality.l Political disputes between proponents of indi­ vidual freedoms and collective interests, or between the re­ quirements ofuniversality and particularity, are in themselves nothing new. What is new is the manner and extent to which the vocabulary of identity, and specifically collective identity, has found purchase in contemporary political debate as well as the number of collectivities employing it. Frequently aided by narratives of domination or threatened extinction, and abetted by a growing sense of entitlement, identity groups of various descriptions have asserted that the liberal doctrine of the primacy of universal human rights fails to award proper recognition to particular identities and the shared ends that characterize them. From liberalism's communitarian critics to the political correctness movement to the new nationalisms currently sweeping Eastern Europe and indeed much of the world, the voices of particularity have become increasingly 89 IS THERE A CANADIAN PHILOSOPHY? numerous, self­assertive, and at times acrimonious. Increas­ ingly, political demands are advanced on the grounds of who "we" are, whether the "we" in question designates cultural communities, the nation, or what have you. Identity groups typically speak ofbelonging, tradition, and ways of life as political values—values of public no less than of private importance—of the first order since it is these that provide persons with an understanding of themselves as moral agents and citizens. Public policy, they argue, must recognize such values in order for the members of these com­ munities to possess rights of citizenship equal to those ofwhat are called "dominant cultures." Collective ends must coexist with individual freedoms, or even override them under certain conditions. The politics of identity is one of collectivities claiming rights to legal and other institutional measures as means of achieving their distinctive and shared ends. By far, the most prevalent identity movements on the con­ temporary scene are nationalistic in character.2 From Quebec to Northern Ireland to Eastern Europe, nationalist senti­ ments have either displaced entirely or coexisted alongside a human rights­based philosophy. Nationalist demands for rec­ ognition typically assume the form of a collective right of self­ determination, whether this be the right to form a separate nation­state or an autonomous region within an existing nation. According to the nationalist worldview, the human species is naturally divided into peoples each of which pos­ sesses a collective right of self­determination. This right finds proper expression only in a nation­state in which a people may determine its own fate without subordination to other peoples. Failing this measure, peoples will forever be divided into dominant majorities and oppressed minorities, cultural winners and losers, the latter of whom are permanently ban­ ished to the margins of political life and condemned to strug­ gle for collective survival. In perhaps no nation in the world are issues of nationality, identity, and recognition more pressing at the current time than the one with which this volume is concerned. Political 90 NATIONALISM ANDTHE POLITICS OF IDENTITY observers might well turn some attention to the nation ofCan­ ada for the lessons that may be learned from its continuing efforts to cope with these issues. Identity politics has been rath­ er the fashion in virtually every region and institution in this nation for a considerable period, the secessionist movement in Quebec being the most longstanding and familiar. Canadian governments in recent decades have been compelled to re­ spond in one fashion or another to claims advanced by a grow­ ing number of identity communities from Quebec nationalists (or, to use the current term, "sovereigntists") to Aboriginals and other ethnic and religious minorities, and others.3 In each instance the political vocabulary is the same: collectiveidentity requires recognition by laws extending beyond the protection of individual rights to reflect the shared aspirations of a com­ munity. In treating allpersons alike, these groups assert, liberal universalism subverts particular identities by treating all per­ sons as if they shared a homogeneous sense of selfhood, one that in fact merely reflects...