Essay
Comment
Identity
Politics
7 min read

Outsourcing our identities: the corrosive effect of political tribalism

Political identities need to connect with core identities, Andy Flannagan reflects on how political disagreement can distort the lives of participants.
Across the heads of a roadside crowd, men wearing orange sashes and military band uniforms march along.
An Orange parade in Larkhall, Scotland.
Ross Goodman, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

I spent the first 24 years of my life in Northern Ireland. I am incredibly proud to say that it is my homeland. I am still a regular visitor. I love it. I love the people. However, that doesn’t change the fact that my beautiful, yet broken home provides a disturbing case study in what can happen when two communities live in the same space, but separately.  

That is sadly what is happening in the USA right now, and increasingly what is happening in the UK too. What is at the root of an inability to co-exist with those with whom we disagree? There are many answers to that question. I am not saying that what follows is the only answer, but that perhaps some ancient realities underly our present-day struggles. 

When we hold too tight to an identity and someone pokes it, we get angry. But what shifts us from holding something healthily to grasping it with a clenched fist? 

It is difficult to have an academic discussion about where the border (if any) should be in Ireland. The hurt and history go deep. Reactions are visceral. You only have to note the violent responses to a green, white and gold flag flying on a civic building, or an unwelcome red, white and blue kerbstone appearing overnight to realise that something deeper is being triggered. Similar to the ‘culture war’ issues that plague our present, these coloured symbols illicit emotional reactions because they challenge our very identity.  

When we hold too tight to an identity and someone pokes it, we get angry. But what shifts us from holding something healthily to grasping it with a clenched fist? In the political realm these tribal identities may be conservative, progressive, brexiteer, remainer, Democrat, Republican, or many others. 

We all need what I would call these ‘secondary identities’ to survive and get things done in this world. We need a sense of belonging to a tribe. But without a strong primary identity, we cling to these secondary identities so tightly that we are unable to engage healthily when someone challenges them. I’ll put my cards on the table. I believe that the primary identity of every human (whether we believe in a deity or not) is that we are made in the image of God. We have divine DNA in us. It’s the common thread of our humanity, designed to represent (or image) the kind, just leadership of God to the world. 

This is our core identity. This is the thing that people should see if they bite into us like a stick of rock. But if we lose connection with that core, we will still find our identity elsewhere. Our God-given desire to get a sense of who we are and where we fit in continues to operate.  

The problem with idols is that once you give your primary allegiance to them they exact an increasingly large price from you, without you even noticing it. 

The ancient scriptures also give us a useful language for what happens when we give over too much of our identity to a cause or group. The nation of Israel were experts at doing this. In their bones they wanted to worship something or someone, but rather than the hard yards of a mystical journey with a God who was often playful or invisible, they chose the more tangible, internet-speed version and created an idol from what they already had and what they already knew. Cue golden calves and strange statues. 

This grasping for simplicity, and tangible immediacy, helps to explain why Brexit or wokeness have become an idol. And why Trump has become an idol too. In Northern Ireland, the Irish flag has become an idol, as has the Union Jack. And the problem with idols is that once you give your primary allegiance to them they exact an increasingly large price from you, without you even noticing it.  

We often talk about shifts in culture without recognising that the word culture is derived from the same root as the word cult. ‘Culture’ provides invisible, uncontested leadership – it is that which we presume to be true, without stopping to question it, as we would not question a cult leader. 

This is about avoiding the outsourcing of our identity to things that may be good, but that shouldn’t control us. 

In my work with Christians in Politics, bringing Christians together from across the political spectrum, I have become fairly good at spotting when folks start to lose touch with their primary identity. You notice it from the visceral, speedy reactions on social media, subliminally prioritising their immediate emotional state above the emotions of others.  

Sadly, this accelerated during the COVID lockdowns, when it was all too easy to spot the radicalisation of previously fairly centred people. More time than usual on social media, more fear than usual from living through the global pandemic, all leading to them spending more time down algorithm-induced rabbit holes. 

This is not about the elimination of emotion. Nor producing an anodyne, academic, rational public square. After all, many who believe that they are made in the image of God also follow the human who they believe perfected that image, and he spent plenty of time raging against injustice and turning over tables.  

This is about avoiding the outsourcing of our identity to things that may be good, but that shouldn’t control us. Such things should influence us, but they shouldn’t forge us.  

The term idol is useful as it is now in popular usage thanks to TV shows like American Idol. Something in us knows that such here-one-minute-gone-the-next celebrity is not exactly bad for us, but also that such celebrity does not exist without a large number of people giving inappropriate amounts of time and attention (proportional to their talent) to these celebrity lives. 

There is a reason people try to keep religion and politics away from polite dinner table discussions. 

The challenge is that the most toxic idols are often actually really good things. Money. Food. Sex. These are good things. But as many of us know, if they start to control us rather than serve us, our happiness, waistlines, and marriages may be in trouble. With this understanding we can affirm someone’s political activism and enthusiasm as a good thing. We can affirm a political ideology as broadly helpful, but critique it when it has clearly become an idol in someone’s life, commanding time, energy and in real senses – worship. 

There is a visceral quality to our present debates that goes far beyond the discussion of policies. The enraged offence and wild language thrown at the other side speak of a deep and unhealthy suffusion of our identities to these tribes. 

The reactions we see on social media are the reactions of a child when their iPad is taken away. It is primal. Bearing in mind the toxicity of the social media-scape, it is easy to see how tribes are needed for protection, but if our responses to every situation are the knee-jerk reaction of our tribe, then we leave no space for breath, reflection or even prayer. And there is certainly no time to consult some ancient wisdom. There is a reason people try to keep religion and politics away from polite dinner table discussions. Nobody likes their identity being questioned. But rather than avoid these subjects, could we instead be so rooted in our primary identity that a disagreement doesn't have to lead to the end of fellowship and embrace? 

Tom Wright often points out that in life we will always need progressive (things need to change) moments but at times we also need conservative (things need to stay the same) moments. History is littered with both being significant. To pretend that one is always more important than the other is intellectually vacuous.

Our 'othering' of them renders them less human in our eyes and we are then able to countenance appalling things happening to them,

The same is true of parenting. There are times when a progressive response is required (okay you can start eating solid food now) and times when a conservative response is required (no, we still don't pour milk on the laptop). On a more serious note, discussions around parenting styles that sit on a spectrum between earth-motherly co-sleeping and Gina Ford military drilling are another good example of when disagreements within and between families get visceral. Again, it is because we don't just feel that this is a theoretical discussion. So much of our identity is unhealthily tied up in our insecurities around parenting that we feel that our very person is being attacked. The political and parenting spectra are eerily similar. 

Failing to remember that we are all made in the image of God and all part of the one human family also leaves the door open to the next level of ugliness – it leaves us able to dismiss' those we disagree with. They become people who are easy to label, mock, and dismiss. Our 'othering' of them renders them less human in our eyes and we are then able to countenance appalling things happening to them. They may become people we would rather see removed from proceedings than have reconciled to us. We forget the words of theologian Vinoth Ramachandrara, who said that:  

"when you stand face to face with another human being, made in the image of God, you are standing in the presence of a vehicle of the divine".  

Yes we need to be part of earthly tribes, but we also mustn't lose our identity to the tribe.  

Article
Comment
Development
War & peace
3 min read

South Sudan is on the brink, but it can pull back

The UK can join local peacemakers in preventing a new civil war.

James Wani is Christian Aid’s South Sudan’s Country Director.

A Sudanese woman walks across the ashes of a burnt out street market.
A burnt-out market place in South Sudan.
Christian Aid.

It’s been two years since Sudan slid into a brutal power struggle between the army and its former ally, the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF). Despite its size and savagery, blink and you might miss it as the world media remains mesmerised by the White House tariffs.  

Sudan’s people have suffered on a scale that’s almost impossible to take in. It is the world's biggest humanitarian crisis. More than 12.5 million people have been forced from their homes. Some estimates suggest up to 150,000 people had been killed so far in the conflict.  

The ensuing chaos has spilled into neighbouring countries like South Sudan where I live. Over the last year almost a million refugees and returnees have crossed the border to escape horrific war crimes, violence and rape. 

Neither are they escaping into a land of peace and stability. Resources are stretched as South Sudan grapples with long-standing challenges like floods and droughts from climate change and our own fragile peace process.  

Those crossing from the north have added a crisis on top of the existing crises. Nine million people here need humanitarian assistance - three quarters of South Sudan’s population.  

Christian Aid and its local partners are doing what they can to support this huge influx from Sudan by providing cash, emergency supplies and access to water and sanitation to more than 100,000 people.   

But even these attempts at relief might be short-lived. Fears are growing that South Sudan may follow Sudan and topple into civil war. 400,000 people died over five years in the last one. Ominous signs are there for a renewed conflict.  

Late last year in Juba there was an outbreak of violence between the President’s military forces and armed groups connected to the former head of the National Security Agency. The country’s first ever elections keep on being postponed. Tensions escalated in February. An unelected Reconstituted Transitional National Assembly was not called back from recess to discuss this.  

Now the country's First Vice-President Riek Machar is under house arrest. South Sudan's President Salva Kiir accused Machar of stirring up a new revolt. Last month, the US ordered all its non-emergency staff in South Sudan to leave as fighting broke out in one part of the country.  

Just this month, the UN mission’s plane was shot down, killing staff and a wounded armed forces general, allegedly by groups allied to the Vice-President. Uganda has sent its army to support the President and airstrikes on civilian areas and opposition compounds in four states are now nearing the capital.   

South Sudan might be on the brink, but this isn’t a doctrine of despair. The country can pull back.  

Christian Aid doesn’t just provide humanitarian support - we are in the business of hope. by working hand in hand with local activists, like the South Sudan Council of Churches (SSCC), to help the country’s government establish and implement the 2018 peace agreement.   

Respected church leaders have, and are, playing a key role in building trust and confidence:  brokering peace deals at local level, undertaking shuttle diplomacy in South Sudan’s states, talking to armed groups to urge them to get behind the peace agreement and to the President and Vice-President to return to honouring their agreement. The new elected head of SSCC, Rev. Tut Kony Nyang Kon, said their role was to bring the country around a unity of purpose.   

He said South Sudan’s leaders need to present a reinvigorated plan for free and fair elections in two years to reassure people, rally the peacemakers and deter those who may see an opportunity to undermine the peace gains made so far.  

But they need diplomatic support too.   

The UK, along with the USA and Norway, is part of the influential “Troika” that must make a serious diplomatic investment in the national and international peace processes to ensure that the existing peace agreement holds and deter other states from providing financial or military support that can fuel conflict and violence.  

The UK government needs to show it means what it says when it promised the UN Security Council last November that it would champion the protection of civilians and double aid for those fleeing the conflict in Sudan.  

2025 should be a leadership moment for the UK and the international community to increase support for the region and get behind South Sudan’s peacemakers to avoid another catastrophic conflict in Africa.