On Identity

by Amin Maalouf

For it is often the way we look at other people that imprisons them within their own narrowest allegiances. And it is also the way we look at them that may set them free.

What determines a person’s affiliation to a given group is essentially the influence of others: the influence of those about him – relatives, fellow-countrymen, co-religionists – who try to make him one of them; together with the influence of those on the other side, who do their best to exclude him.