Aim for peaceful resolution

Officials of Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) cast their vote in the Kurdish independence referendum at a hotel in Arbil on September 25, 2017.Iraqi Kurds voted in an independence referendum, defying warnings from Baghdad and their neighbours in a historic step towards a national dream. / AFP PHOTO / Emily IRVING-SWIFT AND AHMED DEEB

NEWS reports about communities and regions asserting their identity are capturing media headlines everywhere. While the media gives a lot of coverage to an event or action connected with the phenomenon – a referendum for independence in Iraqi Kurdistan or a vote for the same in the Catalonian parliament – the reasons that explain the assertion of identity are seldom analysed in depth.

The unique characteristics of the assertion of identity in a specific instance and why it is different from another similar episode elsewhere are hardly discussed in the popular media.