Some Thoughts on Need for Belonging

I immigrated to Israel in 1969 for personal reasons and not because I wanted to belong to the Israeli nation, or to the Jewish nation for that matter. The sense of wanting to belong to the Jewish/Israeli nation started many years later after I started studying Jewish history and later Israeli history. At first, I felt a belonging to the Israeli nation and a sense of pride in it. Later, I started my democracy studies and that process was an eye-opener for me.

During my studies, I learned about the different democratic systems and human and civil rights. I learned about the extent that a country can deprive its citizens of democratic rights. I started seeing the manipulation in the use of terminology in writing and broadcasting. My work also contributed to see the differences and nuances in terminology.

My next encounter through my good friend Miriam was Karl Popper and his philosophy of life -- his small adjustments and readjustments, his view that mistakes are good as you can correct them and that you learn through them. His 'Open Society' made me realize to what extent I was brought up in a closed society, which sort of served as a safe haven. No challenges in a closed society as traditions and rules and regulations make it easy to behave.

All the papers I wrote during the course of my studies (B.A. & M.A.) are on different subjects but all focusing on democracy from bottom to top, perhaps smmbolizing my own growth from bottom to top, my own progress from a safe haven to facing challenges. I wrote about civil society, rights for Kurds, people leading their leader, unemployment, etc. Looking back, it seems that I always started with the underdog and explored the conditions under which it can pave its path to be the master....

And now comes multiculturalism. I want to write about nation-states and multiculturalism.
Under what conditions can nation-states be multicultural?
or better still
Under what conditions can nation-states balance multiculturalism with sovereignty?

Why am I writing about this?
Because, everywhere I look I see differences, variety, and diversity of people, beliefs, color, race, and creed. I do think that regardless of their differences, most people strive to live harmonious lives. On the other hand, most also want to feel a sense of belonging to a nation, society, and community. The more the impact of globalization is felt everywhere in our identities, the more there is a search for individualism and to describe ourselves through an identity. This is why multiculturalism interests me. In this global village with multiplying cultures, how can a democratic nation-state maintain sovereignty? Will it impose its own uniform national culture on all its citizens to maintain social order? Will it give more rights and recognize and promote all the cultures it contains with the hope that its content citizens will recognize its sovereignly willingly and not go against it? Or will it, let the citizens decide for themselves to what extent they want to promote their multucultures.