Identity as a Cognitive Necessity: A Content Analysis of the Manifestations of Ambiguity Surrounding Libyan Identity in the 2017 Draft Constitutional Declaration

Abstract

   Proceeding from the premise that identity is a cognitive necessity for the spheres of belonging, any ambiguity surrounding it leads to a degree of skepticism regarding its symbolic and objective components. This gives rise to pressing questions concerning the manifestations and consequences of the crisis affecting it, thereby hindering a group's ability to connect with its own emotional dynamics. Given the elusive nature of the categories onto which the most potent forces can be projected a situation that plunges the group into an anxious state of uncertainty regarding temporality, or a sense of threat and disorientation amidst various relative spaces the inevitable syndromes of an identity crisis come to light. This manifests in the given premise that "the very person questioning their identity is the one who does not know what that identity is," thereby prompting an inquiry into the enigmatic concept of identity and its nationalist manifestations. and the relationship between the manifestations of this crisis and the reality of states susceptible to it—on the one hand—and its potential to be repurposed as a Trojan horse for the diverse cultural categorizations of minorities; minorities driven by a craving for self-determination that accompanies the sweeping advance of globalization and its financial, legislative, and media instruments, all of which transcend traditional concepts of borders.