I grew up in a country where fundamentalist versions of Catholicism and nationalism dominated much of life. They significantly shaped my early development and it has taken a good part of my adult life to come to terms with them.
As a result, I have developed considerable scepticism about both, to the point that I have largely rejected them. This does not in any way reduce my sense of myself as Irish or as someone who recognises the importance of the spiritual in life.
I lived through many of the dark days of violence and brutality in Northern Ireland, much of it inspired by reckless nationalism mirrored by a bigoted unionism and British recalcitrance. The results are now written in a history that threatens to simmer on.
The pain inflicted on Ireland by that Catholic fundamentalism (in defiance of its professed faith) has taken decades to be partially addressed and consigned many, many thousands of women (and men) to lives of misery and desperation.
This experience generates intense personal antibodies within me when I see nationalism and a religious ‘faith’ being invoked to claim the high moral ground or to defend intolerance, jingoism or even racism.
Both fundamentalisms have recently been harnessed to promote prejudice, division and even violence in the US, India, the UK, Brazil, Hungary and others.
Malta is by no means immune to the tendency.
Many sections of society (not just politicians) seem satisfied (even compelled) to fan the flames of nationalism and intolerance to defend and promote agendas and interests.
As a result of working in countries such as Ethiopia, Rwanda, Australia and South Africa, I have become a committed internationalist with many of its attendant values and perspectives. In an era of climate change, COVID-19, regional conflict, regular and irregular migration, narrow and fundamentalist nationalism is, at best counterproductive and routinely destructive of human well-being.
The pattern is evident in attitudes to foreigners, Muslims, Mexicans, Roma and so on, or anyone who does not fit neatly into a dominant definition of ‘national identity’. It also denies the reality that all of us have more than just one ‘identity’.
And it is revealing itself in the most vicious manner in current agendas of racism in many regions and countries including many of the most so-called ‘advanced’.
The attitudes, values and crucially actions this worldview incubates severely limit human development, waste opportunities and restrict possibilities society at large urgently needs.
These fundamentalisms frequently make a virtue of national or religious prejudice and foster ‘us’ and ‘them’ versions of life, history and culture.
In short, by promoting intolerance they weaken tolerance, a most basic premise for shared living on this planet and in these times. It is a fact that the world is now pluralistic, diverse, multicultural and deeply inequitable. In this reality, the history and life of some is fraught with danger and a struggle for many basic rights achieved freely and easily by others.
These realities need to be understood and recognised as a part of accepting who each person is and what makes each of us unique.
The principle as well as the practice of tolerance pivots around the belief that differences among people should be acknowledged, respected and valued. We urgently need to learn to express pride, confidence and self-esteem in who we are individually and collectively without denying the value and dignity of others, even those with whom we strongly disagree.
Our dominant and often popular fundamentalisms inhibit this and prevent us from relating to people as individuals rather than simply as representatives of groups. It also blocks us from expressing empathy when people are mistreated or discriminated against because of their identities.
Just as Ireland and the Irish (myself included) have had to learn some hard lessons around identity and belonging, so too do the Maltese. It’s urgent that we put aside our fundamentalisms.