The development of the minority’s identity is interdependent on the development of its individuals. However, for a minority to form a strong social identity, it too has to pass a developmental pattern which involves the categorization of its individuals according to their religion, nationality, or profession. “The main aim of this process is to create a minority with an identity which is both distinct from and positively compared with other groups” (Tajfel &
Turner, 1979: 95). However, being different from and singled out from the others can also lead to being unequally treated by the majority, thus creating a feeling of becoming objects of collective discrimination (Wirth, 1945). To limit the effects of such a negative situation, the minority individuals have to continuously define and redefine their cultural identities within the complex tapestry of in-group and out-group cultures (Horenczyk & Munayer, 2007).
Sometimes, this is achieved by accommodating more than the majority society,
other times by negotiating their identification with more than one minority group to which they belong (Ferdman & Horenczyk, 2000).
Although these pacts with new groups are easier to accomplish with acquired identity constituents, such as choosing a career, they are more complex when part of the identity is primordial, thus inherited and hard to change, such as belonging to a certain religion, class, or culture (Engineer, 2006). This ongoing process of defining and redefining the minority’s identity, also through its members, reflects the complexity of the process and how culturally, socially and psychologically dependent it is, stressing again the importance of understanding the uniqueness of the specific minority and its individuals. These theories can explain what happens, when and why, but they cannot provide a theory for all individuals and minorities; minorities have their own specificities and characteristics which can be understood only when they are dealt with individually.
Managing to define a clear identity has implications for the attitude the individuals assume toward the minority and the majority among which they live.
This attitude can be expressed in one of four acculturation attitudes (Berry, 1997): assimilation- a positive attitude toward the majority and a negative one toward the minority; separation- a negative attitude toward the majority and positive toward the minority; integration- a positive attitude toward both the majority and minority, and marginalization- a negative attitude toward both the majority and minority. While these acculturation attitudes are easier to understand when talking about a minority that is formed in a foreign country, due to immigration for instance, they are harder to comprehend in the case of a ruling majority, such as in cases of occupation, or establishing a country on another nation’s history and heritage, as in the case of the Palestinians in Israel. Acculturation is not decided by the minority, but rather by the invading majority, if it sees important to embrace that minority. The act which led to forming the Palestinian minority does not leave much affinity to the majority, after all, this minority was created from those who, for different circumstances, stayed behind and were not part of the refugees who formed the Palestinian Diaspora.
For the IMAs, as members of a small Christian minority within other Christian minorities, and forming part of the Palestinian Arab minority, the shaping of a strong minority identity is doubly important, and complex, at the same time.
They have to manoeuvre their way and get the recognition of their special status as Maronites from other Christian minorities, as Arabs from the Arab community, and as citizens by the state. Reaching a clear definition of that community identity can play a major role in forming its present and future. The choices the IMAs make, both as individuals and as a minority, are therefore critical and should be made out of clarity of state, not confusion; knowledge and not ignorance. For instance, knowing who the minority is and where it comes from can lead to a positive definition of the national identity, stating who the individuals are, what common past and shared future they have, while, ignoring these facts, can lead to a negative definition, stating who one is not, both in the sense of values, practices, characteristics and whatever feels ‘strange’ to them (Yadgar, 2003).
While the national identity deals with issues of belonging, the cultural background of a certain minority can also be at odds with the main culture of the society in which it lives, and may experience a certain conflict between the need of preserving that culture, of which it is proud, and the necessity to accept the main culture and coordinate its development with it. Here too, providing the individuals of the minority with a sound knowledge base of the ethnic identity at an early age, and with political awareness at maturity, as Kim, Lee and Kim (1981) suggest, can make the minority realize the differences that exist between them and the majority, leading to resenting the foreign culture and appreciating the characteristics of the minority. As in the case of forming the ethnic identity among blacks in the United States, Helms (1990) argued that it went in stages: the first stage of creating the cultural identity was characterized by the idealization of the culture of the majority and the will to be similar to it.
However, by the second stage, when the minority members realized that they would not be able to assimilate with the majority, they reacted by criticizing it, which lead them to reconnect to their roots. The same goes for the IMAs, who seem to be in the midst of the second stage, where they do criticize the majority, but are not yet reconnecting to their heritage and culture, although
Ghosn and Engebretson (2010) showed that assimilation and reconnecting to the roots went side by side among the Australian Maronite community, which is another example of why these theoretical models do not always work, especially when specific characteristics of the minority are ignored. Ghosn and Engebretson, stress that the Australian Maronites’ connection to the church and to the Maronite rite means connection to culture, heritage and homeland – Lebanon, which is not the case for the IMAs.
Regardless of the developmental path a minority follows in structuring its identity, a certain degree of awareness and the need to understand one’s own heritage are an essential stage toward appreciating the merits of one’s own cultural identity. Important to say, culture is no longer a national and fixed issue that is defined by heritage, history or even common issues and values among people of close social relationships. It is difficult to find people with similar definitions of their culture, especially among children and teenagers, echoing the environmental factors at the Ecological Systems Theory (Bronfenbrenner, 1994), globalization in all its forms, including the media, is reshaping young people’s definition of culture and even challenging its meaning at the deepest level (Qarooni, 2010). This trend has had implications for the IMAs, they too have drifted away from their culture, language and heritage and have adjusted themselves to the culture of the majority as a survival technique (Beggiani, 2000), or because they identify better with the majority as adolescents.
The process of developing the identity of minorities is complex enough for the minority members, who face a myriad of challenges trying to identify with the bigger group. However, when it comes to the adolescents among them, the process is doubly hard. These adolescents experience oppression as they struggle to understand themselves, their culture, the oppressive culture of the majority, and the dynamics between the two cultures (Sue & Sue, 2003).