Translator: Yuliana Hernández Villa Reviewer: Robert Tucker
Hi, everyone.
I'm Sarah Gouia.
As you already know, I have three different nationalities.
I was born in France, raised in Paris, so I'm French.
My father is Tunisian,
and my mother is from Costa Rica, Central America.
So you can easily guess
why I'm so passionate about this topic on origins.
But what I've been even more passionate about
while I was growing up,
was to resolve this eternal internal debate.
Feeling very cosmopolitan, very international,
certainly because of the diversity of my own origins,
but also understanding the claims
that cultural origins matter a lot in our identity,
that actually the people that sometimes are called 'patriotic', 'nationalists',
in a very pejorative way, negative way,
I could understand them as well.
So I grew up portraying myself as the classic citizen of the world
and, at the same time, understanding
why, for some people,
it was so important to keep alive their traditions and their culture.
But I think I've come up [with] a solution to that debate,
and that's what I want to argue with you today.
Actually, there's no debate, there is no contradiction.
There is no contradiction
between feeling very patriotic,
and at the same time understanding
that we are all part of a broader community
made of human beings that are all entitled to human rights.
There is nothing contradictory
between feeling that your origins matter,
and, at the same time, that you can enrich your own identity
by travelling, living abroad,
meeting new people, experiencing new cultures.
There is nothing contradictory
between being part of a community,
and enjoying being part of this community,
and, at the same time,
having a very complex and particular identity.
But before explaining a bit more why it is so important to say that today,
I want to first define what I mean by origins.
I'm going to define origins in two different ways.
Territorially first.
This is where you were born, or where you grew up.
So it could be a region, a village, a country.
And then there's social origins:
your family,
your economic social background,
your friends sometimes,
the people you grew up with,
all those people that were with you while you were growing up.
So, there's social origins, and there are territorial origins.
But in this talk I'll probably focus a bit more on country origins,
and on culture origins as social origins,
because I believe most of our problems in our modern world
revolve around those two notions.
So, why is it so important to argue
there is no contradiction between the two feelings I had?
Well, I believe first that I kind of want reconciliation between two groups
that I'm definitely going to caricature for the purpose of this talk:
the cosmopolitans and the nationalists.
The nationalists are the ones
that see the importance of our culture origins,
the importance of our traditions,
and how we've been raised, where we've been raised,
but are afraid of globalisation.
The cosmopolitans, on the other side,
are the ones that don't feel that cultural origins determine much.
They focus much more on the individual,
but they're sometimes a bit blind to how difficult it is
to peacefully coexist with people that have different cultural origins
and come from different places.
I believe one way to reconcile those two people,
those two groups of people,
is to make a very important distinction - between origins and identity.
But before saying a bit more on that,
I want to say first why I want to reconcile them a lot,
and it is because I don't want the xenophobia from the nationalist ones,
and I don't want blindness on the cosmopolitan side.
So, why the distinction between origins and identity
is important to reconcile those two groups of people.
Well, because, actually, we can link those two concepts of origins and identity
to two basic feelings we all have.
We want to be part of the group, and we want to be different.
We want to be so much a member of any group, community,
feel part of something -
at the same time, we want to be unique,
we want to be different, we want to be: 'Oh, I'm this person that no one is.'
And I think everyone has those two basic, fundamental human feelings.
And actually origins and identity are a bit the same.
Origins is about the fixed reality in your early life,
you can't change it, it's fixed.
Identity, on the other hand,
is very much about the evolution of your own personality,
so it is very much about perpetual change.
Origins is about your first sentimental belonging
to a certain family, country, etc.
Identity, on the other side, is very much about being independent from anyone else,
being very different.
So, you can see that origins
relate much more to this feeling of sociability,
of being part of the group,
and identity is much more about being different,
about being independent from everyone,
about the fact that you are unique.
I'll [now use] my own example to define those two concepts,
to make it a bit clearer.
So, if I think about my own origins, territorially, I grew up in France,
and that definitely influenced me a lot.
It's the first time I understood how society was working:
I could definitely notice and witness the norms of my society,
the values of French society - I internalised the culture.
My very first thoughts and ideas
were framed thanks to the French language.
My social origins,
my father being Tunisian, my mum being Costa Rican,
they pass on to me, as well,
their culture origins, their vision of the world,
the music they listen to, their ideas, their values -
all this make up my origin.
But if I think about my own identity, it's so different;
it's very much more complex.
Yes, indeed, my origins do have an importance on who I am,
yeah, I do dress in very Parisian trends sometimes;
yes, I do love Arabic songs;
yeah, I do speak in Spanish when I'm drunk.
Yeah, I have all those feelings and influences coming from my origins,
but that's not just who I am, I can't restrict myself to that.
I'm definitely also a woman, I'm talkative, I'm perfectionist -
I'm a very stressed person in my school, my career, etc.
There's many other things that make up my own personality.
I love politics, I love history, things like that, make up myself,
but today [that] might change, [or] in a few days later,
or after some years.
But also, not only the cultures of my origins influence me,
the other cultures I'm going to experience later
also influence me a lot.
For example, it's been two years now that I've been studying at Cambridge,
and I'm still very much feeling the influence of British culture:
I do have tea very much at four every time with my friends;
I say 'lovely' a lot;
I try to copy Emma Watson's accent quite a lot.
There's definitely a lot of influence coming from British culture.
So, my self can't be restricted to only my origins.
So, why is it so important to reconcile the cosmopolitans and the nationalists?
Because what I would say to the cosmopolitans is:
Don't be blind to the influence of our origins and our identity -
don't be blind because sometimes,
especially when you feel threatened or discriminated against,
those origins take up a very important place in your own identity.
When I'm in France, I sometimes feel very much more Tunisian.
Why?
Because sometimes, in some discussions or listening to the news,
there is sometimes some confusion between certain terms, like:
Muslims, North Africans, immigrants, refugees.
They are all taken as synonyms,
and I feel a bit insulted by that.
But why do I feel insulted?
Why do I feel threatened?
Why do I feel more Tunisian?
Why do I have this tribal sense of belonging to that community?
I haven't been to Tunisia for a while, my Arabic is not good,
and I'm not Muslim either.
Why do I feel so hurt by those words?
Because I do feel threatened in my own origins.
When I'm in England, I don't feel rejected as French,
but I do feel the influence of my French culture.
It's actually the first time I realised how much France had influenced me:
in my way of studying, in my way of experiencing friendships,
all of those.
So origins are important.
We can't say they're not important;
they are important in our lives.
And we should understand
that because people are moving from one country to another
and coming because of globalisation,
we will be surrounded by people coming from different origins,
and we have to respect that sometimes they might be a bit threatened
because of the differences,
and if we discriminate them, they'll definitely feel very insulted,
and their origins will take so much more importance in their identity.
The nationalists, listening to everything I've just said, would be:
'Hold on! Actually, well, we agree with you.
We definitely feel very threatened by immigrants coming to our countries.'
I disagree with that
because, yeah, they feel threatened, but not in their origins:
they feel threatened in the idea of their collective identity,
and that's where the distinction again, between origins and identities,
is important.
They feel threatened
because what they do to make up this collective identity
is they take characteristics, symbols that we all have from our origins,
and they believe that everyone has the same characteristics,
or would pick the same symbols.
That's not true.
Example again -
In France, they talk a lot about Joan of Arc, the nationalists.
I don't have anything to do with her,
I literally don't feel anything
when someone talks to me about Joan of Arc.
I think that France is much more about Voltaire:
dark humour, fighting for a cause all the time, loving debates.
But that's also my only way of perceiving this,
it's my personal way of perceiving my own origins.
Everyone perceives their origins in very different ways.
And this is very much the problem with nationalists.
What they feel threatened is not their origins;
it's their collective identity.
And this collective identity doesn't exist.
There is no identity for everyone of us; we're all so different.
Yes, we are all influenced by our origins,
and, yes, definitely the cosmopolitans should be much more aware
of how much our origins make up things in our identity,
how sometimes we feel passionate about them,
but they don't make our identity,
we don't restrict ourselves to just that.
No one should tell you who you should be because of where you come from,
because of which family you grew up in,
or because you come from this social economic background.
Identity is absolutely personal,
it's the particular association of characteristics
that make you yourself.
So, there we see, that, actually,
if cosmopolitans understood this distinction well,
and if nationalists understood this distinction as well,
between origins and identity,
well, they could definitely reconcile on many issues.
So, it's true,
we can be both cosmopolitans and hold our origins as important.
It's not contradictory.
We only have to acknowledge that we definitely have
both a very tribal sense of wanting to be part of the group,
and sometimes copy the people from the group,
and that we all want to be very different as well,
and we should live with both of those feelings -
they're not bad, they're great feelings -
but to the extent of not hurting others,
whoever they are, and wherever they come from.
Thank you.
(Applause)