The crisis that can be community

A few days ago, it was reported that a Russian "Bear" bomber - one of those old prop-driven behemoths that they built at the onset of the Cold War - approached Canadian airspace.  In a display of typically-Canadian self assurance, Peter MacKay went on to make a bunch of lame-o macho statements about how our "world class air force" turned the plane around on a dime, and how they better not try that again, etc.  Russia responded with the casual indifference that one would expect in light of such accusations on the part of a Canadian defence minister: a brush-off of the claims of airspace infringement, accompanied by an assurance that all proper diplomatic channels were being utilized.  

Despite the surface vanity of it all, I'm not surprised that it made the news in Canada and abroad.  Aside from the obvious questions that immediately come to mind - firstly, how the heck did a 55-year old tin can reach Nunavut, and secondly, how did the CF manage to get two fighters up there to meet it - this episode stirred me up in a couple slightly more abstract ways. Whether one considers the increasing amount of Russian shows of military force around the world - Harper & Co. aren't fabricating that one - or the sensationalist Canadian media response, it becomes evident that both governments are utilizing one of the most powerful weapons in history: nationalism.  

Now, it's important to point out that this type of allegiance to one's nation is so deeply engrained in human nature, that it would be arrogant to write it off as a wholly negative force.  On the contrary, I'd say that it can be a positive source of self-identity.  However, it also has the potential to morph into more isolating, inflammable phenomena such as patriotism, populism, and even racism.  If being united with others by nationalism can be characterized as a type of community - as I believe it can - then letting it take certain forms represents a loss of any positive nature that that community once embodied.   

Let me expand on that a little.  I'm currently reading Becoming Human, a print account of Jean Vanier's contribution to CBC's "Massey Lecture" series in 1998.  Vanier is the founded of L'Arche, a worldwide network of communities that exist to foster societal inclusion of, and care for, people that live with intellectual disabilities.  It's not hard to imagine, then, that Vanier fully recognizes the benefits of sharing communal bonds with people of a common vision or mission; in Becoming Human, he describes how the residents of the L'Arche communities are united by the simple desire to express love towards lonely people, and realize that they have just as much to offer to humanity as anyone else.  By inviting people to live at L'Arche, the organization is allowing them to experience the type of belonging that is, according to Vanier, a basic human need, as essential as food, water, or oxygen.  

However, Vanier also acknowledges that communion can take on forms that are exclusive, volatile, and encourage feelings or superiority over others.  I've quickly come to realize that the author is keen to identify key dualisms in human nature, and he succinctly summarizes the positive and negative potential of community as such:

There is an innate need in our hearts to identify with a group, both for protection and for security, to discover and affirm our identity, and to use the group to prove our worthiness and goodness, indeed, even to prove that we are better than others.  It is my belief that it is not religion or culture at the root of human conflict but the way in which groups use religion or culture to dominate one another. (Becoming Human, p. 35)

Although Vanier doesn't explicitly address national identity in his analysis, I don't think it's too far-fetched to draw a parallel between the type of cultural belonging that he speaks of, and our conceptualization of nationalism.  Just as he implies that the basic desire to "identify ourselves with a group" can be corrupted into segregation, I believe that the sense of belonging and unity that we naturally derive from being Canadians, Italians or Laotians can devolve into evil, base impulses such as racism.  Whether one looks at the rise of Facism in Europe in the 1930's or the genocide in Rwanda in the 90's, the conflicts that took place can characterized as community gone way, way wrong.  

"Belonging is a beautiful but terrible reality."  Vanier makes this statement in the middle of an elongated analogy, in which he compares the development of the relationship between a child and his/her parents with the experience of individuals integrating into community in general.  In this passage, he seeks to point out that as well as having a potentially damaging impact on people outside of the group through devices such as degradation and exclusion, communities can also end up harming the individuality of those within them.  Although the relative weakness of a child can be an opportunity for parents to influence them in loving, nurturing ways, it can also create a situation where they're, in the words of Vanier, "crushed or manipulated".  In the same way, nationalism that morphs into patriotism and populism can begin to devalue the unique individual nature of the people within the nation.

Unfortunately, I see the world polarizing into an east-west dichotomy in recent years, and I believe it's largely due to this sort of corrupted nationalism, the type that idealizes the culture and history of communities, and closes them out to others.  As long as presidents, foreign ministers, and everyday Joes continue to search for differences between people around the world instead of emphasizing similarities, some of the biggest communal groups that exist in human society - nations - are going to be a perennial source of conflict and strife.  

All quotes in this post were taken from Chapter 2: Belonging of the book form of Jean Vanier's 1998 Massey Lecture, "Becoming Human" (Toronto: House of Anansi Press, 2008).  Contact me for specific quotation references.