Ana Cristina Gil
PhD in Portuguese Culture
Department of Modern Languages and Literature
University of the Azores
Portugal
anagil@uac.pt
Cultural Identity and Globalization
This essay intends to explore the connection between two major concepts:
identity and globalization. My perspective is fundamentally cultural, therefore I chose to
acknowledge the role of art, namely literature, in the, most of the times, uneasy balance
between national, regional, cultural identity and the inevitable phenomenon of
globalization. José Saramago’s novels are a very good example of how contemporary
Portuguese literature has been questioning the concept of identity in these several levels,
especially in what concerns Portugal’s identity – in the past, in the present and in the
future.
IDENTITY
The concept of identity is multidimensional in many ways: on the one side, in
order to define someone’s identity it is necessary to consider a whole diversity of
factors (for example, name, age, place of birth, mother language, occupation, etc.); on
the other side, this concept comprehends a variety of typologies that goes from the
individual, to the regional and the national.
To define one’s identity is to consider the originality of the object; it is to find
the elements that make objects different from each other; in other words, what makes
them unique. In any case, identity always consists in a set of elements, thus it is a
complex concept: if I want to define a nation’s identity, for example, I have to assemble
diverse factors that considered together make that nation unique, such as territory, State,
Constitution, oficial language, religion, art, history, myths, ethnicity, among any
possible others.
1
Therefore, identity implies not only the object in itself, but also the awareness of
the differences between the object and other similar objects; so identity implies alterity,
the confrontation with the other, as we can see in the words of William Connolly:
“An identity is established in relation to a series of differences that have
become socially recognized. These differences are essential to its being. If
they did not coexist as differences, it would not exist in its distinctness and
solidarity... Identity requires difference in order to be, and it converts
difference into otherness in order to secure its own self-certainty”1.
So we can conclude that the contact with the other is essential to self-knowledge.
Identity is thus a dialectical concept that implies the confrontation with the difference to
reach the essence of being. When trying to know the other, I am re-elaborating the
image I have of myself; I develop my self-knowledge as I try to explore the essence of
the other.
Modernity and Post-modernity share the thematic of the quest of the lost unity
by the divided self and this explains the central place identity occupies in our times.
See, for example, the case of Fernando Pessoa and his multiple fictitious personae in
Portuguese literature – Ricardo Reis, Álvaro de Campos, Alberto Caeiro, Bernardo
Soares, Vicente Guedes and many other heteronyms under which names he wrote a
complex literary opus. In contemporary societies, this quest for identity has to involve
the awareness that there is a multiciply of groups which are apart and distinct from the
mainstream: ethnic, religious, sexual minorities that claim equal treatment and respect
for their cultural specificities. This is the root of multiculturalism. The cultural
relativism (a concept developed in the 19th century and in the first half of the 20th
century by anthropologists such as Edward Burnett Tylor and Franz Boas) reinforced
this new perspective by defending the equality between different cultures: according to
these intellectuals, the hierarchy between cultures is abolished, there are no inferior or
superior cultures; each culture has its own value, its own traditions, its own way of life,
be it more or less complex, be it more or less sophisticated. The frontier between culture
and civilization is often blurred and this confusion leads to a reductive dichotomy
between civilized people and “barbarians”. Culture is a whole way of life, it deals with
1
William Connolly, Identity/Difference: Democratic Negotiations of Political Paradox, apud Rajchman,
1995: 222.
2
the essence of characters; civilization includes the means man has to dominate his
surroundings. It has to do with material comfort, with sophistication, with scientific and
technological development, with computers, microwaves, CD’s and spaceships. Culture
involves a way of looking to the world, a cosmovision. A remote tribe in the Amazon
has certainly a less sophisticated life than most of us: they have no computers, no
fridges, no microwaves, but they have their own view of life, their own religious beliefs,
their own way of living that have to be respected by other cultures.
Multiculturalism is not a recent phenomenon. We can find it in the remote eras
of Hellenic and Roman Antiquity, where the mingling of cultures was a reality2: as
ancient authors testimony, hegemonic cultures provoked claims of power by periferic
cultures and oppressed minorities (women, black people, slaves), as the example of the
persecutions the Romans made to the christians.
Then, what is new in 20th and 21th centuries version of multiculturalism? The
novelty is mainly political and institutional: nowadays there is in many countries oficial
political recognition of cultural diversity and national institutions promote equal
treatment of the various cultural groups, some of them minorities groups. This politics
of equality is visible in education (for example, school curricula include not only the
history of the hegemonical group but also that of the so-called fringes of society: black
people, immigrants, etc.) and in employment (guarantees of equal acess to available
jobs). Instead of trying to erase differences, this multiculturalist politics allows the
thriving of cultural diversities and it makes possible the recognition of the so-called
“subcultures” (ratial, ethnic, sexual, etc.).
GLOBALIZATION
Globalization is frequently felt as a menace to strong national and cultural
identities. One fears its tendency to homogenize different cultural realities, by
annihilating every single mark of singularity. On the other hand, globalization is
considered the antidote to the negative aspects many intellectuals find in
multiculturalism, namely artificiality and fragmentation, as Denys Cuche explains it3.
According to these critical positions, multiculturalism can create artificial differences by
2
Some examples of bibliography about this theme are: K. Galinsky, «Multiculturalism in Greece and
Rome», Classical and Modern Interactions: Post-Modern Architecture, Multiculturalism, Decline and
Other Issues, 1992; 116-153; E. S. Gruen, Culture and National Identity in Republican Rome, Ithaca –
New York, Cornell University Press, 1992; R. Miles, Constructing Identities in Late Antiquity, London,
Routledge, 1999.
3
See Cuche, 2003: 166-167.
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maintaining and reinforcing the existence of separate social groups with strong cultural
identities. This phenomenon can result in an inevitable and unsolved fragmentation of
society which can lead to several kinds of separatisms and to the weakness of national
unity. Therefore, globalization seems to reunite societies under the same objectives and
realities. As I see it, multiculturalism does not have to imply neither artificiality, nor
fragmentation. In an ethic basis, it comprehends, on the one hand, diverse group
identities to which individuals belong (age, gender, social class, occupation) and, on the
other hand, it stimulates cultural changes between groups, as well as a deep respect for
each other, reconciling universal values and particularisms.
It is an undeniable fact that contemporary societies deal with major problems
that are not a region’s or a nation’s exclusive, as it is the case of terrorism, ecological
catastrophes, finantial crisis, etc. These problems demand a global response and very
hardly a sole nation or region could find a satisfactory solution for them.
However, it cannot be denied that globalization tends to erase differences and to
create similar life patterns around the world: consider, for example, the case of
franchisings, such as McDonald’s, Starbucks, Blockbuster, etc. Societies find
themselves eating the same food, watching the same movies, wearing the same clothes...
In this process of homogeneization, cultural particularities and differences are lost,
cultural identities are shattered, critical thinking disappears, as we all are victims of
massification.
LITERATURE. THE CASE OF PORTUGAL
Contemporary societies have to deal with this uneasy balance between the
inevitability of globalization and the paradoxical stregthening of cultural differences. In
this balance, art plays a determinant role, as it seems to be an escape to massification.
Artists pursue a quest for identity that involves various levels that start in the individual
identity and it can reach national identity. This is the case of Portuguese literature: since
the 19th century, Portuguese writers, poets as well as novelists, have showed a particular
interest in the identity theme.
This fact may appear quiet paradoxical as the History of Portugal goes far back
to the 12th century. For centuries, national identity in our country gained consistency as
aspects like territory, language, culture, State, religion and even myths were made
consistent parts of collective identity. One would expect that a country that resisted to
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wars, to the lost of independency in the 16th century (regained in 1640), to the
Republican revolution (1910), to decades of dictatorship (1926-1974) and that attained
the liberty of democracy in 1974 (the revolution of 25th, April), would not be involved
in questioning its own national identity, that seems to be so fully accomplished for
centuries.
Nevertheless, Portugal cannot ignore that, in spite of its ancient roots, new
challenges are defying the independency of nation-states around the world, as is the case
of the (soon to be approved) European Constitution. The growing globalization and the
increasing power of supra-national political and economical structures (as the European
Union, for example) have a two-sided effect: on one hand, it seems to turn the division
between nations unproductive and fragile; on the other hand, these same nations react to
these menaces strengthening their own national consciousnesses.
In the case of Portugal, the roots of this collective national consciousness goes
back to the Romantic period, in the first half of the 19th century. The Portuguese
intelligentsia, following the models of central European literature and culture, devoted
themselves to explore the essence of what was being Portuguese, in the past and in their
present; they searched the roots of literature and language and they called the attention
to patrimony (and its preservation); some of them did this from the exile, from a
distance that allowed a critical outlook.
Since Portuguese Romanticism, no more did national writers stop thinking about
the essence of being Portuguese. This theme continues haunting Portuguese Literature
until the 21th century. Portuguese contemporary literature – probably following a
tendency also present in other national literatures – continues to question and reinforce
national identity and the tradition, initiated by Romanticism, of thinking about who we
are, individually and collectively.
An excellent example of this fact is the work of José Saramago, Nobel Prize of
Literature in 1998. His works cover a wide range of genres – novels, short stories,
plays, essays, translations, diaries, journalistic chronicles – and they deal with universal
themes as human liberty and dignity, man’s ethic and moral responsibility, the quest for
a society based on Justice and Equality, the fight against oppression, the respect for the
Human Rights. This ethic and social preoccupation has been intensified in his latest
novels as Blindness (1996), All the Names (1997), The Cave (2000). They are, therefore,
texts that can be read, felt and understood all over the world, by readers of different
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nations. That is what makes sublime a work of art, a work of literature: its universal
value.
Along with this defence of humanistic and universal values, José Saramago also
shows a particular concern with his country, its present and its future. His writing
involves frequently the History of Portugal (Baltasar and Blimunda, The History of the
Siege of Lisbon, The elephant’s journey4), the questioning of the place of Portugal in the
Iberian Peninsula, in Europe and in the world (The Stone Raft) and the critical vision of
recent history, especially the long period of the forty-year dictatorship the country
suffered in the 20th century (Manual of Painting and Calligraphy, Risen from Ground e
The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis).
Rewriting history and myths, José Saramago intends to bring to the stage (as in a
theatre) those who are forgotten by History, the people who remained unknown in the
history of nations and who are the ones that really make things happen. Instead of kings
and queens, instead of the rich and intellectual elite, the main characters of Saramago’s
novels are peasants, common people, anonymous citizens to whom the author gives the
privilege of actually participating in the events. Let us consider, for example, the novel
Baltasar and Blimunda, a novel whose title lierally translated would be something like
The Convent’s Memorial. This novel narrates the building of Mafra’s convent in the 18th
century, by order of king John V (D. João V). This monument is one of the ex libris of
Portuguese Culture, as it is a huge and monumental legacy of the golden era of
Portugal’s maritime Expansion. Therefore, Saramago builds the story the other way
round: instead of centring the action in the royal family, the main roles are played by
Baltasar and Blimunda, simple workers who participate in the actual building of the
convent and who reach a fundamental place in the plot. To reinforce the common
citizen’s creativity and power of imagination, they are accompanied by an historical
figure, a priest – Bartolomeu de Gusmão – who entered to Portugal’s History as the
inventor of a flying device (the “passarola”, a bird-like flying machine). In 1709
(exactly 300 years ago) Bartolomeu de Gusmão made an experience with this invention
and it was the first ascension of an object heavier than air5. In the novel this flying
machine is built by the priest, helped by Baltasar and Blimunda, and it is a symbol of
the infinite possibilities of the human mind, whether it is rich or poor, whether it is
4
5
His latest novel, published in November, 2008.
Some decades later, the Montgolfier brothers made the first human ascension in a balloon.
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royalty or common people. What is important here is the liberty of mind which no
power can annihilate.
The 20th century in Saramago’s novels – Manual of Painting and Calligraphy,
Risen from Ground e The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis – is mainly the portrait of
years of dictatorship, of oppression, of political propaganda, persecutions and torture by
a State that controlled every area of human development – economic, political, cultural
– in order to reach a society where apparently there were no conflicts, no dissidents, no
questions. Saramago portraits a traumatic moment in recent history which needs to be
clarified and definitely closed. As his characters do in the novels, Portuguese people in
the present must regain liberty of thinking and the ability of making their own destiny.
There is no fate. Each one has to work in order to build each one’s future. José Gil, a
Portuguese philosopher who writes about this subject, says in his work Portugal Today.
The Fear of Existing:
“today’s democratic Portugal is still a society of fear. It is fear that hinders
critical thinking. We live in a society without critical spirit […]. Every
State’s finality […] is to assure the liberty of the citizen, liberty meaning the
maximum possible of expression, in society, of its conatus, i. e., of its life
potency. […] Portugal has a democracy with a low level of citizenship and
liberty. […] We know little – I mean, the ones who know are rare – what
free thinking is. Our thinking rarely expresses our maximum life potency. In
other words: we are far from expressing, from exploring and therefore far
from knowing and claiming our civic and social rights of citizenship, that is,
our freedom of speech, the right to justice, the multiple liberties and
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individual rights in the social field” .
José Gil and José Saramago share a similar view on contemporary Portugal.
Both authors show an ethic preoccupation on making people aware of their freedom and
of their rights of citizenship, the roots of individual and critical consciousness.
6
My translation. This is the original text: “o Portugal democrático de hoje é ainda uma sociedade de
medo. É o medo que impede a crítica. Vivemos numa sociedade sem espírito crítico [...]. O fim de todo o
Estado [...] é assegurar a liberdade do cidadão, entendendo por liberdade o máximo possível da expressão,
em sociedade, do seu conatus, quer dizer, da sua potência de vida. [...] Portugal conhece uma democracia
com um baixo grau de cidadania e de liberdade. [...] Sabemos pouco – quero dizer, raros são aqueles que
conhecem – o que é um pensamento livre. Raramente no nosso pensamento se exprime o máximo da
nossa potência de vida. Dito de outro modo: estamos longe de expressar, de explorar, e portanto de
conhecer e de reivindicar os nossos direitos cívicos e sociais de cidadania, ou seja, a nossa liberdade de
opinião, o direito à justiça, as múltiplas liberdades e direitos individuais no campo social.” (GIL, 2005:
41-42).
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The Stone Raft is Saramago’s novel in which the intention of thinking about
Portugal’s identity and Portugal’s present and future is more evident. The author
imagines the physical separation of the Iberian Peninsula from the European continent,
and he narrates the voyage that that giant raft does through the Atlantic ocean. Using
this allegory, Saramago pictures different reactions around the world to this strange
event: Europe feels a relief for being separated from those “barbarian” peoples as the
Portuguese and the Spanish; the United States of America feel threatened by such an
avalanche of emigrants and by the perspective of having some of the coastal cities
turned into interior ones; foreigners left in the peninsula try to run away to the continent
at any price... As the Iberian Peninsula wanders through the ocean, the novel’s main
characters also wander inside the peninsula searching for their new identities and living
in perfect harmony, in a striking contrast with the ambiance of anxiety and exodus that
surrounds them. Alliances are made, relationships are created, identities are constructed.
As these characters, the Iberian Peninsula also searches for her own identity: is she
inevitably connected to Europe or to the American continent? It is important to consider
that The Stone Raft was published in 1986, the year Portugal and Spain joined the
European Union. Saramago wants to protest against this fact and his position is very
well marked when he makes the wandering peninsula stop in a place between South
America and Africa. With this allegory Saramago makes evident his opinion according
to which Portugal has more to do with Brasil and with Africa than with Central and
Northern Europe. Therefore, Portugal’s identity would have a stronger connection to the
countries that were part of his empire. This is undeniably not a neo-colonial perspective,
as Saramago abhors such way of thinking: he is referring to some elements Portugal
shares with Brasil and with some African countries such as language, history, myths and
other cultural traits. This is an almost utopian discourse, a discourse full of hope in a
new destiny and in a rebirth of Portugal, as we can see by the end of the narrative when
every woman in the Iberian Peninsula get pregnant at the same time – the peninsula
itself is compared to a child soon to be born: “the peninsula is a child that formed
herself travelling and now she revolves in the sea to be born, as if she were inside an
aquatic uterus”7.
7
My translation of the original: “a península é uma criança que viajando se formou e agora se revolve no
mar para nascer, como se estivesse no interior de um útero aquático” (SARAMAGO, 1986: 278).
8
In giving such a relevance to common people and to the dominated – workers
and lower classes – Saramago definitely shows an ideological position in accordance
with multiculturalist perspectives mentioned before: his heroes belong to the people,
which is usually seen as an amalgamated mass dominated by political and economical
power. Saramago clearly wants to destroy the idea that only dominant groups are able to
think and to have critical positions about subjects. His discourse is against alienation; it
is a perspective of a contemporary man who learned to reread critically his nation’s
past, not in order to invent utopic models of nostalgic past perfection, but to exercise his
capacity to analyze, to reflect and to put questions in the present and to the future8.
Saramago intends to awake Portuguese society to the urgency of fighting passivity,
inertia and apathy, so that Portuguese citizens take the construction of their future in
their own hands, as did Baltasar and Blimunda in the 18th century. For this to happen it
is fundamental to develop a vital force and to fight against what obstructs the expression
of our force as individuals and collectively9.
As we can conclude, this is an universal message, not just a national one. What
is important, then, is the assumption of the individual’s identity and his confidence in
his own creativity – as is the case of the priest Bartolomeu de Gusmão in the novel
mentioned before – and in his ability to build his own future, his own destiny. As
Saramago puts it in the second volume of his diaries, identity is a permanent question
for humanity: “And everything, as the rivers run to the sea, ends in man’s question, the
same, always the same: «I, what am I?»”10.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
BHABHA, Homi K. (ed.) (1999), Nation and Narration, London/New York, Routledge (1st. ed.
1990).
BLOOM, Harold (2002), The Varieties of José Saramago, Lisboa, Fundação Luso-Americana.
8
Harold Bloom says of Saramago: “Saramago is a free man, and his books exalt freedom, generally by
depicting its dreadful alternatives” (BLOOM, 2002: 10).
9
Saramago is in perfect agreement with José Gil and his work Portugal Today. The Fear of Existing. This
Portuguese philosopher analyzes in this essay the roots of the generalized apathy and fear in Portuguese
contemporary society. According to him, mainly all goes back to the period of the fourty-year dictatorship
in the 20th century.
10
My translation from the original: “E tudo, como os rios vão ao mar, vai ter à pergunta do homem, a
mesma, a de sempre: “Eu, que sou?” (SARAMAGO, 1994-1998, II: 22).
9
CUCHE, Denys (2003), A noção de cultura nas ciências sociais, 2ª ed. revista, prefácio de
Fernando Gandra, Lisboa, Fim de Século (1st. ed. 1996) [The Notion of Culture in Social
Sciences11].
CUNHA, Norberto (coord.) (2006), Europa, globalização e multiculturalismo, Actas dos
«Encontros de Outono, 19 e 20 de Novembro de 2004, Vila Nova de Famalicão, Editora
Ausência [Europe, Globalization and Multiculturalism12].
GIL, José (2005), Portugal, Hoje: o Medo de Existir, Lisboa, Relógio d’Água [Portugal Today.
The Fear of Existing13].
MCKIM, Robert e MCMAHAN, Jeff (eds.) (1997), The Morality of Nationalism, New
York/Oxford, Oxford University Press.
RAJCHMAN, John (ed.) (1995), The Identity in Question, New York/London, Routledge.
SARAMAGO, José (1994-1998), Cadernos de Lanzarote, 5 vols, 2ª ed., Lisboa, Caminho.
________ (1989), História do cerco de Lisboa, Lisboa, Caminho. [The History of the Siege of
Lisbon].
________ (1986), Jangada de Pedra, Lisboa, Caminho. [The Stone Raft].
________ (1980), Levantado do chão, Lisboa, Caminho. [Risen from Ground14].
________ (1977), Manual de pintura e caligrafia, Lisboa, Caminho. [Manual of Painting and
Calligraphy].
________ (1982), Memorial do convento, Lisboa, Caminho. [Baltasar and Blimunda].
________ (1984), O ano da morte de Ricardo Reis, Lisboa, Caminho. [The Year of the Death of
Ricardo Reis].
SILVA, Teresa Cristina Cerdeira da (1989), José Saramago. Entre a História e a Ficção: Uma
Saga de Portugueses, Lisboa, D. Quixote. [José Saramago. Between History and Fiction: a
Saga of Portuguese People15].
WEBSITES
http://www.josesaramago.org – José Saramago’s Foundation’s blog
http://caderno.josesaramago.org/ - José Saramago’s personal blog
11
My translation of the title.
My translation of the title.
13
My translation of the title.
14
My translation of the title.
15
My translation of the title.
12
10