Most of us know it as the CSI song, that riveting (or maybe annoying?) 'Who are you... who who... who who...' chant; aptly chosen as the series circles around piecing together a life once lived. The story goes that this song was written by The Who guitarist Pete Townshend after he met the Sex Pistols in a Soho bar, but was too drunk to recognise them. I leave it to my The Who fanatic friends to verify the truth of that statement, but drunken escapades aside, I was drawn to the song because of the question it asks: who are you? That, I think, is the question that begets the most simple of answers; or perhaps the most complicated.

The lamest joke in my repertoire of very lame jokes often pops up when I am driving on PLUS highways. It often confuses me as to which lane to take when I am driving at the maximum driving speed limit. In theory, I am going 'fast' which means that I am entitled to be in the far right 'fast' lane, but by doing that, I often get honked and 'high-beamed' by cars going at 140km/h. This relegates me to the middle lane, where I am reduced to driving at about 80km/h because buses and lorries choose to use that lane, never mind the fact that they are slow. Thus this brings me to my lame joke - often said in pseudo-road rage, "Tak ada muhasabah diri ke lori ni?"

Because the idea of 'muhasabah diri' - self reflection - is to help us define who we really are. We introspectively look at ourselves gazing inwards. In the most basic sense, who are we? Deep down inside, at the core of our cores, where all that is hypocritical, cultural, circumstantial and environmental ceases to exist, do we know who we are?

We don't know ourselves

Yes, do we know who we are? In a simple sense, we would answer in the affirmative. When someone asks you that question, the typical answer one would give would consist of a name, a surname perhaps, and where one lives; thereby constructing an identity of who you are. Idlan, I say, and I am from Bangi. This frames my personage as someone who is Malay, potentially middle class, and have parents who work in the higher education sector, or thereabouts. Our environment become anchors against which we define who we are. In fact, so do our circumstances, our localities, our jobs, our religion, our dress sense, all part of an identity. Not surprisingly so, given that the above (plus minus the other million factors) that make up our culture: an integral part of how we define who we are.

Take us out of the settings within which we are accustomed to, and there is some likelihood that we begin to lose the sense of who we are. Perhaps not entirely, perhaps not in a bad way.. but nevertheless, you change. Because in theory one of the dynamics of the culture against which we benchmark ourselves in defining has changed; so as that pole against which we lean against shifts, so do we.

Gender roles are becoming defunct: the place of the man as the sole breadwinner more and more ceases to exist; the role of the woman as the nurturer becomes convoluted with her dreams and aspirations of her own ambitions it is all teamwork effort now; divide and conquer doesn't work anymore. We once prayed, five times a day, or went to church on Sundays, or to the temple, because our parents said so and sometimes because that was what everyone else did. That was simple when life was lived in almost a cocoon: these beliefs were never challenged. The barriers are gone today, dissolved by technology. We become exposed to so much more: and questions arise with which there are no accompanying answers. What do we do? This, the very premise of M. Night Shyamalan's The Village.

In no other times, would identity crises arise save for these times we live in; where borders virtually cease to exist; where technology allows us to break down barriers; in economies where knowledge is power. Globalisation allows us to not just trade everywhere, but we can also ply our trades everywhere... and the mismatch between our desires and personal developments with our localities often cause us to seek pastures anew. Unlike our ancestors, though, we are not building a brand new colony in uninhabited places. We are planting ourselves in already developed environments, mostly already complete with a culture of its own.

Leaving home

Two books I read within the past year or so highlighted the identity crises of migrants: in this case, those who leave Asia for the gold-paved streets of America. In Jhumpa Lahiri's The Namesake the choice was conscious and calculated - the main character's parents moved abroad from Bangladesh because of employment. In Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner the move was out of circumstance - the main character's father and he himself fled Afghanistan because of war. But the crux of the Namesake and a vital part of the second part of the Kite Runner centered around the issue of fitting in. Defining yourself, when you thought you already had yourself defined. Asking oneself the question, "Who am I?" and not finding a satisfactory answer.

It is normal to see immigrant communities in the West holding more steadfast to the norms of the culture where they come from than the people 'back home' do. It is common to see a demarcation between these communities and those surrounding them; an attitude of 'us' against 'them'. In the books mentioned above, phrases such as "This is not our way" or "We don't do it like that" permeates, and this is not seen merely in fiction, but fact.

You see such dynamics at work when you speak to friends who are second or third generation British, the confusion - the rush to ditch the tight jeans and tank tops and change into the traditional shalwar kameez on Fridays because dad comes up to visit you after his Friday prayers; the difficulty of trying to explain why you were 'promised' to a distant cousin back in the homeland; the post break-up tears after having to call it off with a 'white' boyfriend because 'parents would never approve'.

All the above, though, harmless, when compared with the identity confusion that led five young men, the majority of whom were of Asian parentage, to carry and detonate bombs in London on July 7, 2005. There seems to be a relationship between disenchantment, the lack of strong grounding to pitch one's tent of principles on and the recruitment of youths by terror masterminds. (Go watch V for Vendetta when it comes out, it asks interesting questions on this theme. And you get to see Natalie Portman bald, if that rocks your boat).

When you don't quite know who you are, stuck in the dark, it's easy to follow a beacon if it suddenly appears, because it provides hope. George Clooney portrayed this pretty well in his oil movie Syriana, (despite not tempering it at all with a moderate view of Islam) in the subplot that told the tale of two young men, migrant workers in the Middle East suddenly finding themselves unemployed. The boys were approached by a man who manipulated their anger against the big oil companies and fused it with simplistic religious notions. Add a pinch of salt and voila... Clooney shows said young men on a suicide bombing mission in search of justice.

Identity crises

Moazzam Begg, a British citizen recently released from Camp Delta, recently talked about the identity crises that he went through which led him down the road that finally ended in Guantanamo. Born Muslim, schooled at a Jewish high school and owning a proud family past of a generation of fighters and soldiers, Begg fought for the Muslims in Bosnia - and it was his involvement in such mercenary activities, partly, that led to his arrest as a potential al-Qaeda operative in Afghanistan three years ago. In a recent interview conducted by The Guardian, he professed that perhaps the way he wanted to make a difference was misguided, but he is adamant that he is innocent of the terror charges that were never officially made against him, and continues to fight to uphold justice.

Indeed, we are the generation of the confused. Opportunities that are abound allow us to become global trekkers, and we find the axes against which our elders have tried, so hard, to define themselves, dissolving, and other axes appear. The idea that a belief holds because 'our elders told us so' no longer applies because with less and less barriers it becomes easier to find evidence to the contrary. We see too much, yet we understand too little.

Can you blame us though, for having our senses addled? In one hand you hold condiments to lure us, in the other a sword to behead us. What is the message that the leaders of today sending for the leaders of tomorrow? We have America, self proclaimed leader of the free world, denouncing and threatening countries for 'sponsoring' terror: and yet in the same sentence they play benefactor to Israel.

The same governments that are censuring Iran and North Korea for developing nuclear weapons have a handsome stash of the same weapons themselves. With one breath they criticise countries that wage war upon another, in the next they parade their detonated bombs in the streets of another sovereign nation. What does it say about integrity, morality and doing what is right? What does it say about leadership, and responsibility of those with might? Nothing. The message we get is that if you have enough money and are big enough, you can get away with anything.

Truth be told, I think very few of us have managed to successfully define who we are, because the anchors against which we base our judgments on are crumbling; or are shifting so fast we become confused. "Who are you" is a very complicated question to answer indeed.

Sometimes I think life is like driving in personally uncharted territory, armed with only a global positioning system to help us find our way. And then mid-way, the GPS tells us, "Your 30-days trial period has expired. Please register to continue using this software." What do we do? We drive on, hoping to see some signboards along the way that would lead us to wherever we need to be.

IDLAN ZAKARIA is hoping that Fulham beats Liverpool tonight, because she has more Fulham players in her Fantasy Football Team. Join her mindless pursuit for managerial heaven via idlan@idlanzakaria.com