Religious Identities versus National Identity: an assessment of the views of syrian refugees in Brazil about National Identity Consciousness | Identidades Religiosas versus Identidade Nacional: uma avaliação sa visão dos refugiados sírios no Brasil sobre a Consciência de Identidade Nacional

Abstract

Many analyses of the civil war in Syria see the religious divisions as one of the main aspects that explain its outbreak in 2011. According to this perspective, the conflict results from the dominance of subnational identities over national identity. This argument is now widely contested by civil war literature. This article endorses this contestation and seeks to evaluate the hypothesis that the incompatibility between social identities would weaken social cohesion in Syria. A questionnaire was distributed to Syrian volunteers in Brazil, addressing the importance and prominence of national and religious identities. The argument presented here is that a) there is not necessarily an incompatibility between religious identity and national identity; b) national identity is well established and widespread among Syrians; and c) despite not being the immediate cause of the conflict, the salience of religious identities makes them an important factor, among others, in social mobilization.