Religious Identity - Sitt Maria Rose by Etel Adnan - Essay Example

Religious Identity Religious Identity cannot be comprehended without the milieu information of the two words that create the term. Religion can be described as, ‘a system of thoughts, feelings and actions, shared by a group of people, that provides them with an object (s) of devotion; a code of conduct, that provides guidelines to judging of individual and group consequences of their various actions and a framework, that forms reference by which society may relate to, and to the wider universe.’ (Bryan Chosley Shepherd; The University of Texas at Austin. Sociology 3) Religion concerns itself with the Known, the Unknown, the natural and the unexpected. It acknowledges the mysterious, the extraordinary and the supernatural. Religious consciousness generally recognizes a sacred, transcendent order; creating ways/guidelines of dealing with the unpredictable and inexplicable elements of the Human experience. On the other hand, the term Identity refers to the self-understandings; people tell others of themselves, and then try acting as they had defined themselves. These self-understandings, especially those emotionally related to the teller are what can be wholly termed to refer to Identity. Religious identity thus refers to “a people’s ways of relating to their religion, including their association with a certain religious community, the strength of their belief in the preferred religion, and their ways of demonstrating those beliefs in their day to day lives.” (Knippenberg 24) It can be equated to membership to a religious grouping or community, this being regardless of the person’s religious activity or participation (Lim 345). It may be referred to as a specific type of Identity formation focusing mainly on group membership and the importance of the membership as pertaining to self-conception of the individual. Similar to either cultural or ethnic identities, the religious context provides generally a perception from which to view the world, a set of principles of guiding one’s lifestyle and the myriad of opportunities available of socialization with different people, generational differences regarded. As a whole, religious identity is affected by factors such as a person’s gender, generational status and ethnicity (Knippenberg 56). Religion is intricately intertwined with various aspects in the socio-cultural arena, that the above three factors are always present in the shaping of an individual’s religious identity. Ethnic differences; according to the Social Identity Theory, emerge when individuals of ethnic minority groups feel threatened in terms of identity, thus reasons for their emphasis on their social identities as a means of maintaining positive self-conception. Gender differences may impact on one’s religious identity; this being exemplified through the characteristic participation of the female gender in religious activities and in their expression of religion as being an important aspect of their lives, this being in relation to their male counterparts (Bryan Chosley Shepherd; The University of Texas at Austin. Sociology 32). Generational differences, categorized as either being first, second and third, where the first and second-generation individuals may have higher levels of religious identity as compared to their third generation counterparts. Immigrants, in efforts of readjustments to the often-stressful changes associated with immigration, highly seek an environment provided by a place of worship that encompasses a community of emotional, financial and social support. Focus is placed on the stages of Adolescence and early Adulthood since adolescence is a developmental period that is crucial to an individual’s identity development. At this stage, there are various opportunities for the exploration of the ethnic, cultural and religious traditions present in the individual’s society, but within constraints erected by their parents or guardians. Influences can be both internal and external; depending on extent/exposure of socialization (Bryan Chosley Shepherd; The University of Texas at Austin. Sociology 35). A number of scholars have studied the essence of Religious Identity and they include the following, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha with the work: “Dictee”, and Etel Adnan with the work: “Sitt Marie Rose.” Others have also contributed on the various aspects encompassing the society. In the work “Dictee” by Theresa H.K.Cha, was interested in how identities were created. Being a trained structuralist filmmaker, she tried through the work, to reject the symbolic representations while at the same time striking up a sense of objectivist poetry; that entailed the makeup of aesthetic objects in a way that conditions of desire present, are themselves dramatized and forced to taking responsibility for their resultant productions (Cha 6). She seeks to expose the gaps present in recorded history in which there lacked an identity representation as well as trying to reveal the inadequacy of the textual body of the work in trying itself to accounting for and embodying a history, experience and identity that is ever continuing. It is based on several women who are linked by their struggles and in the way; various nations have had effects of their lives (Philipsen and Erik Borgman 35). The consequences of war, while in exile is a prevalent theme and on the gender issues exemplified by Yu Guan Soon, who forms a student revolutionary group after the overthrow of the Korean government by Japan during the military occupation of Korea, but is disregarded by the national movement. There was great oppression and brutality under the Japanese with the women being particularly vulnerable. The gender theme is thus put into focus, with the themes of suffering, brutality and war encompassed (Majaj and Amireh 35). It murmurs inside. It murmurs. Inside is the pain of speech the pain to say. The quotes: - “…larger still. Greater than is the pain not to say, to not say, says nothing against the pain to speak. It festers inside the wound, liquid, dust that must break, must void..." best encompass the Korean people’s suffering (Cha 12). The work “Sitt Maria Rose” by Etel Adnan is set before and during the Lebanese Civil War of 1975-1990. Publication was done in France in 1978, after an Arabic translation done one year earlier. It was based on the life of Maria Rose Boulos, who was executed by a Christian militia during the conflict, defines in breadth the various aspects of Lebanese culture, and even on social issues such as xenophobia and women’s role in society. Historically the French Mandate (1943) ended France’s political influence in Lebanon, but the influences brought by Western culture helped create a Lebanon characterized by diversity. The major themes, as put by Adnan, are based on contrasts between the Western and Eastern influences on Beirut. The role of the Lebanese women, within their social context, is paid particular attention especially in the latter half of the work, in the form of a dramatization of the death of Maria Rose Boulos. She was an immigrant from Syria who taught deaf and mute children and contributed to the organization of social services for Palestinian camps (Adnan 17). It is based on two timeframes, the pre-war era, with Mounir’s desire to make a movie on Syrian immigrant working in Lebanon. It is during this era that violence, as mentioned happening in Beirut, escalates into the Lebanese Civil War. The second timeframe is divisible into three parts, each composed of seven chapters. Each of the sections has a chapter devoted/relating to the events that surround the death of Sitt Marie Rose, this being from the perspectives of one of the narrators (Adnan 28). There is the systematic order, in each of the three sections, in the way the narrators contribute i.e. beginning with the deaf-mute school children she teaches, then Sitt Marie Rose herself, Mounir, then Tony, Fouad, Friar Bouna Lisa and finally with the unnamed narrator. She, throughout, challenges the status quo defended by Mounir, Tony and Fouad. It culminates in her death; captured initially for helping the PLO; (the Palestinian Liberation Organization), and for being romantically involved with a PLO official who is a Palestinian doctor. Mounir, a childhood friend of Sitt Marie, struggles with his desire of call to duty as the leader of the Chabab militia at the same time, trying to dissuade Sitt Marie Rose in her cause and to her taking up his cause to be spared her life. Mounir, Fouad, Bona Lisa, Tony and Sitt Marie Rose belong to the Christian faith, with Tony, Fouad and Mounir as colleges in the Chabab militia and Friar Bouna Lisa as a clergyman in league with the militia group (Adnan 34). Aspects such as ‘gender’ compose a major theme here. In the Lebanese cultural way of life, women are seen as being part of the personal possession of the ‘modern’ Lebanese man. Possessing the aspect of modernity is what endangers Sitt M. Rose, by her challenging the status quo of her surroundings and in her contributing to the Palestinian Cause (Kim, Matsuoka and Morimoto 223). It alienates Mounir at the same time attracting him, since it the cause of her transgressions of the role of Lebanese women in society (Majaj and Amireh). There is hierarchical status in Lebanon, with the French being above the Lebanese who in turn are above the Syrians and the gendered hierarchical order of Lebanese society. There is the influence of European Jesuits in encouraging the young Lebanese men in rejecting their cultural heritage and in them yearning for Western influence. Also of great significance is the ‘Lebanese Civil War’, where the character blames both Christians and Muslims for the outbreak of the war; best exemplified by the clergyman Bouna Lias. However, in the end, there is the emphasis on the suggestion that the war was being fought on grounds of class structure, as poor immigrants being against the established locals, than for ‘a Higher Cause’ (Kim, Matsuoka and Morimoto 224) The following quotes best bring out the environment surrounding that era: - “…. The four young men seated in this classroom are not merely judges. They are the victims of a very long and very old tradition of man’s capitulation before Destiny. For them, the decision of the group is the one thing they must defend and assert by whatever means. They train themselves to become executioners, all the while believing them to be judges. They are moved by a sick sexuality, a mad love, where images of crushing and cries dominate. It is not that they are deprived of women or men if they like, but rather are inhabited by a profound distaste for the sexual thing. In their fights, they do not try to conquer lands, but to eliminate each other. And if after death they persist in mutilating the corpse, it’s to diminish the enemy’s body still more, and erase if possible the fact that he ever existed, the existence of the enemy being a kind of sacrilege which exacts a purification equally as monstrous…….” (Adnan 30). When a stranger appears on the horizon, or the poorly loved, he is the dispossessed whose hatred sprouts and grows before the eyes like jungle plants that don’t even wait for the rain to stop, to proliferate, then he, the one loved by his mother and blessed with wealth, takes his rifle and goes to the attack. He feels he is the strongest, and does not know that those bullets will carve bloody words on his naked chest. Deadly, like the stranger, he too will disappear. How long must we wait for the impossible mutation? .......” (Adnan 34). The work; - Dictee encompasses the lives of several women and the different situations that join their lives in suffering. The quote; “….May I write word more naked than flesh, stronger than bone, more resilient than sinew, sensitive than nerve…..”(Cha 19) best illustrates the very essence of the work. There is the presence of the gender factor here also. The Japanese colonial rule of Korea sees the place of women in society as being mere possessions of the men, to be used and abused. The presence of identity difference between the two sides is best exemplified by the religious differences of the traditionalist view and those of the Modernization viewpoint. A sense of identity and belonging is displayed here as it is in the above work, Sitt Marie Rose. The quote “…..tells me the story, of all these things, beginning wherever you wish, tell even us…..”(Cha 79). best describes the willingness of the people in trying to understand society an in their place in it; this forming the fabric of their identity. In this work as in Sitt Marie Rose, there is the presence of hierarchy in society and other factors such as nationalism, alienation and even unity of the Korean people in their fight for self-determination and rule (Lim 84). The work; - Sitt Marie Rose, explores concepts such as community, identity and responsibility as espoused by the civilian population in Lebanon during the civil war at the same time trying to produce a new national narrative identifiable with Lebanon. There is the presence of contributions from the motivations and experiences of bystanders, resistors, combatants and the victims of the conflict. It seeks to explore how the two antagonistic nationalist movements reshaped the very fabric of the Lebanese nation-state and the criteria guiding membership within the society. The quote “…..Away from these things, the old flaws of a spoiled child took the forefront. He was fighting--that was all there was to it. For what? To preserve. To preserve what? His group's power. What was he going to do with this power and this group? Rebuild the country…..”(Adnan 24) show of the nationalism expressed by the local against the refugees/intruders who were of the Muslim faith. “……Because in this country there were too many factions, too many currents of ideas, too many individual cases for one theory to contain. Like the presence of this woman, taken at random at a roadblock, which should, according to the norms, be a part of his clan, his flesh and blood…..”(Adnan 50) best espouses the social roles of the Lebanese women seen as part of the men’s possessions. The two works, written by Female writers best exemplifies the presence of conflict in society and the myriad of ways in which the women affected cope, suffer and die due to their stands/principles. Both are brought out from the feminine perspective, with there being a multiplicity of narrators, voices in the general outlook of the works. The ruthlessness and ferocity of the men in the wars/ conflicts is also brought out in both. In conclusion, as defined earlier, religious identity refers to the way people relate to their religion, and their association with a certain religious community, the strength vested in their belief and the ways they demonstrate those beliefs as they engage in their daily activities. This means that religious identity influence the way people view themselves and the way this view influences their activities in real life and the ways they interact with other people who hold similar religious identities with them and those who have different religious identities. Theresa Hak Kyung Cha with her work Dictee and Etel Adnan with the work Sitt Marie Rose among other scholars have contributed to knowledge on religious identity and its manifestation in the society. Works cited Adnan, Etel. Sitt Marie Rose: a novel. U.S.: Post-Apollo Press, 1998. Bryan Chosley Shepherd; The University of Texas at Austin. Sociology. Religious identity and social engagement. New York: ProQuest, 2007. Cha, Theresa Hak Kyung. Dictee. California : University of California Press, 2001. Kim, Heup Young, Fumitaka Matsuoka and Anri Morimoto. Asian and Oceanic Christianities in Conversation: Exploring Theological Identities at Home and in Diaspora. New York: Rodopi, 2011. Knippenberg, Tjeu van. Towards religious identity: an exercise in spiritual guidance. Germany: Uitgeverij Van Gorcum, 2002. Lim, Shirley. Transnational Asian American literature: sites and transits. New Jersey: Temple University Press, 2006. Majaj, Lisa Suhair and Amal Amireh. Etel Adnan: critical essays on the Arab-American writer and artist. New York: McFarland, 2002. Philipsen, Bart and Erik Borgman. Literary canons and religious identity. London: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., 2004. Read More