• What is the dialogue "How does a person become Czech? " about?

The dialogue points to the tension between one’s own self-image – i.e. the answer to the question of who I feel myself to be – and what others think of me. Ali is annoyed that the others see him as being foreign – even going so far as to speak English to him – while he feels himself to be Czech.

In racially and culturally homogenous societies such as the Czech Republic, citizens often regard the categories of citizenship and nationality as identical. This means that they perceive as Czech someone who has Czech citizenship and also Czech nationality. Such perceptions can frequently cause certain problems when meeting people of various cultures in the country in question. And this type of perception is far from being common in all countries. In Holland, for instance, the difference between these two categories is far more blurred. What topics could be hidden in our dialogue?

• What is...?

Identity: This is frequently understood as a sense of one’s own particular identity over time (it is still me, despite all the physical and psychological changes), as the compliance of modes of conduct and behaviour of a person with their identity (that kind of conduct belongs to you) or as an identification with someone else, with a group or idea (these opinion, values, modes of conduct are mine).

Cultural and ethnic identity: This is frequently understood as the multi-layered identification of the individual with various cultural, ethnic, social, professional, special interest, and other groups.

Culture: No human individual can adapt to society without contact with other people. The fact that they make contact with each other creates their cultural identity, the totality of cultural properties which they regard as their own, familiar, close to them. We can to a certain extent understand culture as the character of a group, as a reaction of human society to its concrete life conditions. Every group develops in a different environment (natural, social, historical, etc.). When life conditions differ, people react to them differently, creating various products, values, religions, etc. And then their culture is different. In the broadest sense of the word, we can understand culture as the very artefacts of culture, the results of the activities of a group, as it were, the socio-cultural regulators of culture, the method of functioning and conduct of a given group (its norms, values, standards of behaviour) and idea of culture, the opinions and stances of the group (the subject of education, ideology, world opinion, philosophy, religion) shared and transferred by its members. Culture cannot be identified with ethnicity or nationality!

Cultural traditions: The deep-seated standards of behaviour and conduct of a culture form a meaningful resolution of situations arising in a given environment at a given moment in time. As time advances, the environment changes, and even the perception of the group may be lost or change meaning, along with the traditional method of resolving a given problem. Tradition may disappear or change in its significance, or a new tradition may be created. (These days, few people communicate with water sprites and nymphs. Fairytales for children gradually arose from the original myths which explained the organisation of the world. We are beginning to celebrate St Valentine more frequently, and instead of fairytales we explain natural phenomena using scientific knowledge.)

• Topic

Identity in the broader sense of the word, just like cultural identity, is created during the process of socialisation. Children learn to differentiate people into “mine” (my mum, my grandmother, my family, etc.) and “others” (that is not my but your mum, your family, those are the As, and we’re the Bs, etc.). This process is natural and helps us grow into the world. It helps us interpret this world and find our place within it.

However, in today’s world above all there exist a large number of groups with which the individual can identify. Cultural and social identity is an individual feeling of belonging to a family, school class, sports club, peer group, or to other groups (e.g. even to civilisations – defined by religion, philosophy, lifestyle, etc.). National identity is the feeling of belonging to the political unit in which I live (or several units to which I belong in some way). Ethnic identity is derived from a feeling of belonging to language groups, to a traditional heritage, art, etc. Global identification then adds to the previous two identities a dimension involving a feeling of belonging with all the human beings whom I can meet very easily during my lifetime in a globalised world.

Identity, and cultural identity in particular, is a sensitive matter. It gives us a feeling of security, belonging, the feeling of a familiar environment which is close to us, intelligible, in which we orient ourselves and with which we identity. However, each individual understands their identity a little differently. Some people feel like they belong to the nation state, others feel a strong identification with a specific culture, for instance (mushroom pickers, gardeners, footballers, anarchists, etc.), while still others feel a special link to their native region. The cultural and ethnic identity of everyone differs according to its contents and relates to other values.

We do not perceive our own identity in normal life too often. However, it starts to become important when we meet someone else, someone “other”. This “other” acts as a mirror of our own identity. And their otherness warns us that this other person sees life differently. This is one of the reasons why encountering people from different cultures involves a large number of dilemmas, while it can also be a huge benefit.

From the point of view of the formation of national identity, the Czech Republic has undergone some stormy developments. A multinational state in 1918 (8,020,000 citizens of Czechoslovak nationality, 3,218,000 citizens with Germany nationality, 477,000 with Russian nationality, 762,000 with Hungarian, 191,000 Jews, 110,000 Poles and 35,000 others, according to a census of people from 1921), after the stormy events of the First Republic and World War II the country was transformed into a homogenous society, which after 1989 again began to become more heterogeneous. One consequence of the experience of two generations living in a homogenous society was the investigation referred to into the different meanings of citizenship and nationality. Research shows (Nedomová, 1997) that the concept of Czechness was reduced to a person who was born to two Czech parents with Czech nationality and Czech citizenship and who had Czech as their maternal language. What does other research say on the matter? Research by Prudký (2005), for instance, shows that the three most important reasons for a person regarding themselves as Czech are as follows: they speak Czech, they feel Czech, and they have Czech citizenship. On the other hand, place of birth and religion are not important in this respect very often.

The confrontation of this concept with perceptions in other countries is interesting. What makes a Dutch person a Dutch person, for example? Or a German a German? It seems that in Holland, an important aspect is a person’s own decision. In short, a Dutch person decides to belong to the Dutch political system (expressed by, for instance, respect for the queen), and they’re Dutch.

• Stories and examples

Let’s look more closely at Ali’s story. Ali grew up in a Czech environment, Czech is his maternal language, and so it would seem that his identity is the same as that of other children who were born in the Czech Republic. Except that Ali is dark skinned, and so from childhood has had to face up to the fact that people will want to doubt his Czech identity. This makes his experience different than that of a white child, born of two white Czech parents. Ali identifies not only with the cultural groups of Czechs, but also with the group of Czechs who have a different skin colour, he has experience of belonging to a marginalised group. On the other hand, he is a member of the group of Czechkids, he’s a scout, and does orienteering with other children. Ali therefore belongs to many groups. Although Ali’s story is clearly specific, it is far from being unique. Even between children born to two Czech parents, there are large differences as far as identity is concerned – children from a large family from a village have a different experience and therefore identification(s) than children from a small family (or from divorced parents) from a large city.

I’m Czech, just so you know it
Klára works in an information centre in one of the larger border towns. This is a town which in 1918 had a population of 12,500, of which only 107 were Czechs, the rest being Germans. Most current tourists in the region naturally come from Germany, often from the ranks of the families who were expelled after 1945. Klára meets them very often in the information centre.

Klára’s father is German, and to this day Klára blames him for not having taught her German. In the period prior to 1990, it was not very appropriate to speak German in the streets and her father was worried that if Klára spoke his maternal tongue at home, she might one day slip up and be the victim of nasty comments. The problem is that these days, Klára really needs German, and even though her father is German she has to attend a language course in order to be able to do her work in the information centre, something which naturally irritates her a lot.

We speak with Klára about the local region and the situation there, and admit that we are also a mixed couple, and chat about the identity of such people. Suddenly Klára pauses and says: “Just so you know, I am a real Czech. I don’t want you to think I’m German just because my dad’s German!”

Why?
My grandmother used to tell stories from historical novels about how the people of Chodov guarded the border, who was in charge here, and what acts were committed by our kings. She always sang wonderful songs. I never thought too much about why I call myself Czech, what that actually means. Only when I read Masaryk or Komenský on the character of the Czech nation as part of my studies (a country divided into two halves contending for the future of a small country in the centre of the machinery of Europe, e.g. the machinery of western and eastern Christianity, Protestantism and Catholicism, Russia and Germany, Russia and America, etc.)

One day, I had the opportunity to travel to a distant country in Asia. Maybe only three times people moved away from me in a restaurant because I was white. However, I slowly realised that my honest conduct in this country might appear like a lie, that my healthy self-confidence might be explained as disdain. I kept answering questions as to where the Czech Republic was, how we live there, what customs we have, how many relatives I have, etc. People in that country were proud of where they come from, they often used words like birthplace, native land, etc. and they lived a village lifestyle. They looked after me as they would have one of their own. I spent one of the most wonderful times of my life there. When I returned home, I began to take part in a Czech folk dance and music ensemble… I´ll give you three guesses why.

• Sources

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