(seen at Land of the Free? via Jordon, Wendy and Dan)

There are millions of us out there with these stories. We are wanderers, and yet despite our identity as global nomads, people always want to have the permission to nail us down to what we “really are”. Does my lifestyle strip me of the right to call myself “German” I ask?

Amin Maalouf (In The Name of Identity: Violence and the Need to Belong) has called this a highly parochial and dangerous view of humanity. Anyone who claims a more complex identity than what a particular group is accustomed to is marginalized and this is done not just by the average fanatic or xenophobe but, in fact, rather, "because of habits of thought and expression deeply rooted in us all; because of a narrow, exclusive, bigoted, simplistic attitude that reduces identity in all its many aspects to one single affiliation, and one that is proclaimed in anger."

And where that anger has led us, in our world, is only too painfully evident.