Over the entire course of the evolution of humanity, patriotism has been the tantalizingly sensitive concept which has held together the very fabrics of co-existence. At the same time, even its slightest manipulation for the parsimonious politics has created the greatest of unrests in the world order, triggering phenomenon detrimental at both cause and effect ends; something which the world realized in 1914 and again in 1939. But certain lessons are never learnt.
Today as the world bears witness to the gradual shift from the conventional to an era of neo-realist politics sugarcoated in the theories of post truth and alternative facts, it is intentionally made to overlook a global conspiracy of implied xenophobia. There is this politics of hatred at play all around the world, against the social, racial and demographic minorities, flourishing by virtue of a lullabied majority, all in the name of patriotism.
The election victories are shaped on hate speeches on any line which demarcates a set of majority from a minority or at least appeases the former. Employing Islamophobia, Transphobia, racial bias or a sense of hostility to the immigrants, the majority in every nation is made to believe that the minority is the root cause of all their problems.
A section of people in India and Pakistan believe that a war will solve all their problems. Donald Trump’s America believes that creating a wall at the Mexican Border will end all their misery. Many Brits believe that Brexit will once again make them the king of the world and a section of Australia and many other European nations believe that the immigrants are better left to perish. Remarkably, according to their local leaders, they all are the true patriots.
Howard Zinn in ‘The Zinn Reader: Writings on Disobedience and Democracy’ writes, “If patriotism were defined, not as blind obedience to government, not as submissive worship to flags and anthems, but rather as love of one’s country, one’s fellow citizens (all over the world), as loyalty to the principles of justice and democracy, then patriotism would require us to disobey our government, when it violated those principles.”
It has never been as important as today to rise above this politics of segregation and identify oneself beyond the selfish lines of race, religion and nationality because at the end of the day, as Zinn writes, it all boomerangs.
Nikhil Kumar
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Reference- The Zinn Reader: Writings on Disobedience and Democracy, Howard Zinn, Seven Stories Press, 1997
Image Credit- Nikhil Kumar for DU Beat
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