Imagined Communities: An idea that is greater than the sum of its parts

Benedict Anderson, a Marxist leaning political sociologist famously wrote that nations are “imagined communities” because “members will never know, meet or even hear of the majority their fellow-members, and yet, in the minds of each lives the image of their communion”.

This idea has tremendous potential, and encapsulates one of the three pillars of enke’s mission: Connect.

In political and social science, Anderson’s concept describes the reality that nation-states (ie. countries) are modern political constructions that emerged as a tool for mass mobilization and economic organization.

Most people living within a country experience very different lives, and very different day-to-day realities from one another. This is especially true here in South Africa, one of the most unequal and simultaneously diverse countries in the world.  And yet, there is something inherently natural about feeling a part of something. One glimpse at the pre and post rugby world cup Springboks rally, is enough evidence of that.

Perhaps the potential of imagined communities, the human ability to establish connection, is greater than the sum of its parts?

Where is all this coming from?

I’ve just joined the enke team. I moved to South Africa 5 months ago from Thailand where I was living and working for the past year.

During the past few weeks as I’ve been reading the news to keep tabs on what is happening around the world, my eyes couldn’t help but pause on the dramatic images of flooding in Bangkok.

Despite the quiet, calm of the Greenside office where the enke team’s braintrust operate, looking at these photos, the familiar smells and sounds of Bangkok, and the memory of the wonderful warmth of the Thai people, comes flooding back (pun intended).

Looking at the people wading through waist high water, I can almost feel the fantastically mesmerizing pulse of a city who’s sights, sounds and smells that typically overload the senses are suddenly muffled under metres of water. Looking at the boats being used to transport people along the now very high waters of the Chao Praya river, I can imagine the people inside. I can imagine how they feel, the sense of helplessness.

The reality is that I probably have just as much in common with the people those boats along the river, as I do with the leathery faced parking attendants who helped me position my car this morning, who smile as I pull in to the office everyday and loyally keep their post “watching my car” sitting on their plastic chair along the side walk.

But it is the potential of that feeling of communion that we should think about, and focus on, rather than the naiveté of it.

The potential of that imagined community to create communion where there wouldn’t ordinarily be, is an incredible thing. For humanity to advance for the better, particularly in a county seemingly as divided as South Africa, we need to figure out how to harness that communion, without relying on racial or class targets.

This is why enke brings together youth from across the social spectrum, to facilitate the imagined communion that exists between all youth in this country.

Connect, is a process that is greater than the sum of its parts.

Chris