Imagine there's no countries…
I have a problem with patriotism. I think it is a vestigial emotion. Actually I think it is dangerous.
Usually, I avoid talking about this. It upsets close friends. But I am feeling itchy today.
If patriotism is simply about belonging it could be okay.
But it should not be encouraged.
Even the slightly liberal among us would flinch if someone proclaimed that s/he is ‘proud to be a Hindu’ or ‘proud to be a Muslim’ or ‘proud to be a Christian’, while asserting that s/he could not imagine being anything else.
But somehow we condone the same emotion when someone says s/he is ‘proud to be an Indian’, while implying that other races and nationalities are not really worth belonging to as much.
For me nationalism is geographical communalism.
Some friends have asked: ‘Then who are you?’ Allow me to become introspective here…
Suppose the biology of humans dictates that we seek to belong to some group. Suppose the secondary emotion of patriotism is actually much closer to the primary emotion of love. Then what?
My solution…
Either tomorrow or millions of years into the future, we have a great possibility of meeting beings from other worlds, sentient or not. What then? We may have to belong to all life forms in the universe. Or then we may have to belong to a Universal Gaia, not just a planetary one.
What I am driving at is that if there really is an emotional need to belong, it is best met by an emotion of belonging to as wide a group as possible.
But in the real world patriotism is beyond just belonging…
Patriotism is also about deification. And then it is not just foolish, it is fatal.
Deification exists in law. For instance, the state will not allow you to make mobile ring tones out of the national anthem. Why? A colleague explains that “then it would be just another song”. I say how about some healthy disrespect for authority. I am sure it will go a long way into checking power from becoming absolute.
Remember the Nazis? Could Hitler’s tiny Germany ever have sustained five bloody years against the might of the whole world without tooling with patriotism?
A friend, who is quite patriotic, ironically, loves a song called Imagine. Let me remind you of how it goes…
Imagine there's no heaven,
It's easy if you try,
No hell below us,
Above us only sky,
Imagine all the people
living for today...
Imagine there's no countries,
It isn’t hard to do,
Nothing to kill or die for,
No religion too,
Imagine all the people
living life in peace...
Imagine no possessions,
I wonder if you can,
No need for greed or hunger,
A brotherhood of man,
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world...
You may say I’m a dreamer,
but I’m not the only one,
I hope some day you'll join us,
And the world will live as one.
I know that the remarkable Sir John Lennon talks about the ‘a brotherhood of man’. Far from a Gaia, you would say. But at least it is a thought in the right direction. (Or is it left :-)
Usually, I avoid talking about this. It upsets close friends. But I am feeling itchy today.
If patriotism is simply about belonging it could be okay.
But it should not be encouraged.
Even the slightly liberal among us would flinch if someone proclaimed that s/he is ‘proud to be a Hindu’ or ‘proud to be a Muslim’ or ‘proud to be a Christian’, while asserting that s/he could not imagine being anything else.
But somehow we condone the same emotion when someone says s/he is ‘proud to be an Indian’, while implying that other races and nationalities are not really worth belonging to as much.
For me nationalism is geographical communalism.
Some friends have asked: ‘Then who are you?’ Allow me to become introspective here…
Suppose the biology of humans dictates that we seek to belong to some group. Suppose the secondary emotion of patriotism is actually much closer to the primary emotion of love. Then what?
My solution…
- I can only imagine that we could replace the patriotic emotion with that of belonging to the human race.
- And then work out of that too with the larger concept of belonging to all life forms on Earth.
- Finally there can be the still larger concept of belonging to the Gaia, the Asimovian idea of a sentient planet.
Either tomorrow or millions of years into the future, we have a great possibility of meeting beings from other worlds, sentient or not. What then? We may have to belong to all life forms in the universe. Or then we may have to belong to a Universal Gaia, not just a planetary one.
What I am driving at is that if there really is an emotional need to belong, it is best met by an emotion of belonging to as wide a group as possible.
But in the real world patriotism is beyond just belonging…
Patriotism is also about deification. And then it is not just foolish, it is fatal.
Deification exists in law. For instance, the state will not allow you to make mobile ring tones out of the national anthem. Why? A colleague explains that “then it would be just another song”. I say how about some healthy disrespect for authority. I am sure it will go a long way into checking power from becoming absolute.
Remember the Nazis? Could Hitler’s tiny Germany ever have sustained five bloody years against the might of the whole world without tooling with patriotism?
A friend, who is quite patriotic, ironically, loves a song called Imagine. Let me remind you of how it goes…
Imagine there's no heaven,
It's easy if you try,
No hell below us,
Above us only sky,
Imagine all the people
living for today...
Imagine there's no countries,
It isn’t hard to do,
Nothing to kill or die for,
No religion too,
Imagine all the people
living life in peace...
Imagine no possessions,
I wonder if you can,
No need for greed or hunger,
A brotherhood of man,
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world...
You may say I’m a dreamer,
but I’m not the only one,
I hope some day you'll join us,
And the world will live as one.
I know that the remarkable Sir John Lennon talks about the ‘a brotherhood of man’. Far from a Gaia, you would say. But at least it is a thought in the right direction. (Or is it left :-)
posted by Zaki at 5:48 pm
6 Comments:
I remember a post I had made after an argument with you. Here's the link: http://fulltp.blogspot.com/2002/03/friend-tells-me-that-religion-is-root.html
I wish...
I think patriotism is stupid. It's an accident of fate that I was born in the country I was. There are good things about my country and bad things too, neither of which I had anything to do with.
I think I agree with my anonymous commenter.
what else to expect from people who plant bombs in trains
I think patritotism like many other things is a marketed concept...tell someone he is doing a great job for xyz reasons if armed attack by nation is right then terroism isnt exactly worng either
go
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