Every four years, the World Cup asks us all a non-football question. – Which team do you support? a direct question to someone with a single and distinct ethnic culture person. However, many people can claim three or four teams.
I am one of them. I am Egyptian and Canadian, born in Switzerland, lived in USA, Saudi Arabia and Australia (as well as other non-eligible countries). Nevertheless, I have always been a clear and consistent supporter of Egypt.
I know I’m not alone. Many people living in the Gulf – or as immigrants in other socio-cultural contexts – have this experience. The tournament shows something that has been true all year.
Something we don’t say out loud
I studied Arab families who immigrated to Canada for more than ten years. I was particularly interested in what happens between generations when parents and children adapt to the residential culture at different rates or in different ways. One of the things we’ve looked at in our work is this concept clash of ethnocultural identity (Ward, Stewart, & Coos, 2011).
The scale we used asks people how much they agree with a series of statements such as “I sometimes don’t know where I belong” and “I feel alienated from both my ethnic group and society.”
One of the things I find interesting about these statements is that they contradict the deeply held belief that being a “global citizen” or “cultural nomad” is an entirely positive experience, and illuminate some of the personal problems that can come with it.
In our work with Canadian Arab adults, we found that the greater the discrepancy between how youth feel Arab and how they believe their parents are Arab, the higher their ethnocultural identity (Rasmi, Chuang, & Hennig, 2015). Our research couldn’t show which came first, but I suspect they happened together. Perceiving a greater void can create confusion about who you are, and confusion about who you are can cause you to perceive a greater void.
Perceived acculturation gaps were also associated with greater intergenerational conflict. These conflicts – both interpersonal and personal – are not easy to resolve. You certainly won’t decide it over a football game, but you can see how decisions are made when you’re cheering along with the crowd.
The easiest group you can join
The national team may be the easiest group any of us can get into. No one checks you, asks how long you’ve lived there, asks your Arabic, or explains why you don’t look Egyptian. Not only are these questions difficult to answer, but our answers are often challenged or dismissed, making the whole exchange very uncomfortable. In the stadium, people will not praise you with the same questions. As someone who has always been not very Egyptian in Canada and not very Canadian in Egypt, this means more to me than the trophy.
Affiliation works in circles
At this tournament, something I’ve been thinking about for weeks happened. When the Arab community deepened, it ceased to be about one country at all. Egyptians watched Morocco with the same knot they felt for Egypt, and when Morocco also went out, many were at a loss as to who to support.
Social identity theory provides an explanation. We do not have a single identity—we hold many and they nest within each other (Tajfel and Turner, 1979). Your country is close, but there’s something bigger around it, built around a common language and shared history and a sense of “we” that’s bigger than any flag.
This is the part that can be skipped on the outside. Arab identity is not a slogan and it is not nostalgia. It’s just our lived experience that when one of us is in front of the world, we all feel a little bit represented. The range is wide enough to keep Egypt in Toronto, Morocco in Paris, and Lebanon in Dearborn.
A larger circle can offer unexpected compassion for someone struggling to feel completely at home in a smaller space. You may not know if you are a “proper” Egyptian or a “proper” Canadian. But for 90 minutes, you are one of us, and no one will ask you to prove it.
Affiliation is a choice you continue to make
People think the hard part about owning multiple homes is not being able to choose between them.
In my experience and the accounts of people I’ve interviewed over the years, the opposite is true. Selection is rarely a problem. Fits. Most people feel different aspects of themselves, but there is no container that holds them all.
Supporting Egypt has never been about football for me. I suspect the same may be true for many of you. It’s a way of saying it’s mine and I’m going to keep it, win or lose.
If I could offer one thing to parents who are bringing children across the border, it would be this. Belonging is not something that children passively accept, and it does not come because they are born somewhere or have a certain passport. A clear sense of who we are comes from learning and then choosing ourselves rather than inheriting what is given to us (Marcia, 1966). Often our children have to choose it, and then choose it again, and the choice makes it theirs.
