[New York Sun] Ira Stoll - In a new book, Defending Identity, Natan Sharansky - who spent nine years in Soviet prisons before moving to Israel and eventually becoming deputy premier - writes: "Far from being the hostile enemy of democracy, identity is in fact necessary to sustain it." Although identity can be "used destructively," it is also "a crucial force for good." Strong identities, he says, "are as valuable to a well-functioning society as they are to secure and committed well-functioning individuals. Just as the advance of democracy is critical to securing international peace and stability, so too is cultivating strong identities." The most compelling proof in Sharansky's account is his own life story. "Identity gave me the strength to become free," he writes. "When Jews abandon identity in the pursuit of universal freedom, they end up with neither. Yet when they embrace identity in the name of freedom, as Soviet Jews did in the 1970s, they end up securing both."
2008-05-30 01:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive