Two requirements are necessary to allow people to express their sense of multiple identity. One is a clear set of legal principles which elevate individual over group rights and protect individuals from discrimination, notably on grounds of race, religion and gender, through strong and effective sanctions. The other is that among the several elements of multiple identity everyone must be expected to subscribe to some unifying aspects of national identity, notably the law of the land. Although we should be wary of idealising them, it is only through experimentation with structures of this kind that a deeper sense of alienation can be countered. Imperfect though they may be, legal safeguards, and not street politics, provide the only sustainable defence for minorities against discrimination and injustice.
Nothing excites communal passions more than violence and disorder.
A shared sense of equity. The current preoccupation with distinctive cultural roots occurs at a time when the integrative forces of global communications and travel, trade and capital flows, shared environmental hazards and commons are giving substance to the idea of a global community. But the moves towards global governance are not well founded. The best role model for those who are seeking to combat the extremes of identity politics is probably Holland. It would be preferable for incidents to be dealt with by ad-hoc groupings of the relevant powers in a region.