Which came first, the chicken, or the egg? As with people, nations tend to form their identity based on what others think of them. It would seem appropriate for a country's citizens to form their own identity from shared characteristics (language and other commonalities like money), but I find that it's the opinions of outsiders who really form the identies.
For example, the United States didn't label itself the economic powerhouse of the 20th century. It kind of just 'happened' and then when other countries started looking up to the United States after WWI for guidance and military power, the United States stepped up to it's new role as a global power. Since then, Americans have clung to that identity.
Nor did the United States send out Americans back in the 1800s to tell outsiders that the Untied States was the "land of opportunity". No, that came from the outside in as well.
At the French Embassy, it was also obvious that the French were clinging to their own idea of themselves through their language. They're doing this because in recent years, individual European countries are blurred into the whole of the European Union. Everyone wants an identity of their own, and the French have been used to being considered a leader in Europe so they won't let their above-average identity get mixed in with the rest.
Another bit of French identity--wine and cheese--would also not be a major part of their identity if not pointed out by others. It was not the French who determined that their wine and cheese was better than anyone else's. Someone on the outside has to point out that their wine and cheese was superior to their own before the French could legitimate this as an identifying character.
Elle, this is actually a really interesting thought, that the identity of nations are not created by the nations themselves, but determined based on outside influences of the country. At the embassy it seemed as though the French government was attempting to suppress rights of their ethnic minorities within France, but how exactly do we know that? We don't live in France, so I suppose that American and global feelings toward the subject of the burqa ban would seem to prop up the story, perhaps making it worse than it actually is, or seems to a citizen of France. However, as you noted on another blog, we can't generalize the identity of an entire group of people based on the feelings of outside forces. If that happened, the rest of the world would see the US as we saw it through the videos in class on Friday: cowboys, wide land, leisurely activities going on seemingly all the time. At the same time, these people on the outside looking in will know little to nothing about the cities in America, the crime rate, the poverty rate, etc. Perhaps nations need to have more initiative to create their own identity, and create it truthfully and fairly, for the global hegemony of "identity politics" to finally cease to be a major issue.
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