h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Dear Peter,

I wandered into your article about your childhood 1940-46 in the middle of reading the morning news, following the link from a BBC news item marking the anniversary of Mussolini's death. I immediately forgot the news and spent the next half hour reading your memories. What a wondeful and evocative article it is! Thank you for sharing your memories with the rest of us. I hope that other readers will derive from it the same thing I did: a reinforcing of the belief that nationalism and hatred have brough too much misery to people through centuries and that we should maybe dispense with patriotism as well, as it is perfectly possible to live without it and still be a decent and honest citizen of one's country.

vlojen

Many thanks for your kind remarks. However, while I do agree with you about nationalism (at times, almost a cult religion). I see patriotism in a more positive light.

Nationalism is irrational, an exaggerated, passionate, and fanatical devotion to a national community, whilst patriotism is a devotion to one's country and a rational concern for its defence.

You can take a patriotic pride in your country without being a nationalist.

Regards,

Peter

Peter,

Many disagree with me on the subject of patriotism. And I certainly do not equate nationalism and patriotism. I used to think of myself as a patriot as well. But:

I was born quite after the War, as we used to call it, in 1964, in Croatia, then Yugoslavia. Today, when I say 'the war' I have to specify which one I mean - WWII or the 1991-1995 Yugoslav war. When the rise of Serbian nationalism led to the war in Croatia, I felt I wanted to defend my country. But the reaction of many of my fellow countrymen to that attack fell short of anything decent or even civilized and many terrible things were done in the name of the defence a country that was genuinely under attack.

Suddenly, it was more important whether you were a Croat than whether you were good, intelligent, honest or kind. I remember a friend of mine (then an editor in the media) telling me: "My country is more important to me than truth." Simply because the country was in danger the truth was relegated! There were many nationalists in Croatia (and sadly still are), people who hated the other side and had an irrational pride in their side, but he and many like him were not nationalists - they were only patriots.

It was then that I discovered that 'my country' is a concept too heterogenuous, too much laden with baggage of all kinds to merit my devotion. I felt that I have to take pride not in my fellow countrymen, but in all men who deserve admiration. It was then that I discovered that, in order to fell pride in values found in people, one had to stop feeling proud of countries or nations.

The two episodes that you described, when you were set upon by English and Italian kids in turn for being from 'the other side', evoked in me my non-patriotic feelings again. And that is why I felt compelled to drop you a note. Because, to me, these two unfortunate episodes symbolize the wrongs of belonging to a side, be it a country or a nation or an ideology, be it in a 'moderate' or excessive way. In order to fight nationalism, one has to start eroding patriotism too.

When you take pride in your country, you are taking pride in a set of values that you perceive as being associated with your country. When others take pride in that same country, they might see that country to represent something completey different. That is why, the horrors of the twentieth century behind is, I feel we should refine the discussion, leave nations and countries behind and express devotion to values instead.

Regards,
Vladimir

Vladimir

It seems to me that we share the same values and are discussing labels. There can be no agreement in any discussion if we define the same term, in this case 'patriotism', differently.

I believe with John Locke that we are born 'tabula rasa' and that we are brain-washed with the beliefs of our parents and fellow peers even before we can think rationally for ourselves. A Vietnamese child of a few months of a Buddhist mother, adopted by middle class Protestant English parents, grows up speaking English and behaves exactly as any other English Protestant child, loving his adoptive parents. No one seems to have any problem grasping this, yet at the same time many perversely believe that they are somehow born English (or of the nationality of whatever their motherland is). Land is regarded as magical, yet nation-states are a relatively recent invention, totally unknown, with the possible exception of China, before the middle ages.

Men of the past who I admire are the 'Philosophes' of the Enlightenment, particularly Voltaire; then Thomas Jefferson and Giuseppe Mazzini - the last two because they were eminent patriots and are fine examples of what I mean by a patriot.

Jefferson, in Carl Sagan's words "because he, almost more than anyone else, was responsible for the spread of democracy throughout the world. The idea - breathtaking, radical and revolutionary at the time (in many places of the world, it still is) is that not kings, not priests, not big city bosses, not dictators, not a military cabal, not a 'de facto' conspiracy of the wealthy, but ordinary people, working together, are to rule the nations" (quoted from Carl Sagan's article 'Real Patriots Ask Questions'). It was Jefferson who single handedly drafted the American Declaration of Independence. In the original draft there was even a clause condemning slavery, but this was struck out by Congress at the insistence of South Carolina and Georgia, supported by the northern states which, although they had very few slaves themselves, made a handsome profit shipping them.

Jefferson, who was extremely well read, said "In every government on earth is some trace of human weakness, some germ of corruption and degeneracy, which cunning will discover and wickedness insensibly open, cultivate and improve. Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of people alone".

Of what relevance is this to the argument, you may ask. To me it is of relevance because I believe that you cannot be a patriot and not believe in freedom of speech; you cannot be a patriot and deny the rights of minorities; you cannot be a patriot and be deaf to other points of view both within your own society and that of external societies. It is only when those fundamental liberties are denied that you become a nationalist.

WW2 was an example of patriots everywhere fighting aggressive fascist nationalism.

Peter