No To Patriotism and Nationalism

By: Bikal Dhungel

“ Nationalism is an infantile disease, its a measles of mankind “ Albert Einstein


“ A Nation is a group of people living in a certain boundary who might share common language or culture with you, nothing above and over that to worship blindly “ Milton Friedman ( Capitalism and Freedom )


“ Where liberty dwells, there is my country “ Alexander Hamilton

Those people who love their “country “, few of them also ready to die for, it is an absurd statement that their love ends in the border that was drawn by unknowns. The border of countries changes time to time. In the year 1900, there were only 57 countries in the world (source: Democratic Leadership Council ). Under one nation, Ottoman Empire, there were many sovereign nations of today. Austria-Hungary was one country. Weimar Republic ( today Germany and large parts of Poland ) was one country. Under the umbrella of British Empire, there were many independent countries of today.

After World War I, the map of the world was redrawn, the looser lost many of their territories and colonies. Four great empires collapsed namely the Ottoman Empire, Austro-Hungarian Empire, German Empire and the Russian Empire which was overthrown by a Bolshevik Revolution where the autocracy of Tsar was dismantled. In the year 2000, there were 192 countries registered in the United Nations which implies that since 1900, there were many other countries that became sovereign nations. The patriots of these empires had to limit their patriotism into smaller regions and boundaries. Gist of this point is, you cannot love a land or territory. You can only love people.

When people form a separate nation out of your country, do you still love them ? Sure, you can love them as human beings but if you don't love them anymore because they belong to a different country, you love was not real. True love can never be conditional.

There is an election in Scotland in September and the Scots will decide if they want to stay within the United Kingdom or not. Today they take pride saying “ British “, tomorrow if Scotland goes, the 'Britishness' will not be there anymore. But if the English always liked the Scots for their friendliness, openness or culture, they will continue liking them even though they are a separate nation.

A boundary is not a living being, its fictional. We have one Earth and it only makes sense as a whole. If you cut down the earth, no life might exist here. The mountains, the hills, the plains, oceans are all inter-dependent but yet one country whose border is drawn by man might consist of only mountains, other only hills and another hills and plains. I am not saying that the whole world should have open border, it might bring problems at the moment but the long term goal of international community should be a border-less world. It is indeed possible. In regional level, borders are dismantled in some places like Europe and America. Also countries should exist in order to administer rules and regulations and to let our systems to function properly. But nation-states should only be minimally important. I will give the example of European Union later.

For most part of human history, there were no borders. There were no restriction on freedom of movement, hence there was no patriotism or nationalism as a result of which there was no war for territories. Only when people started to say “ This is mine and that is yours”, they started to fight for it, and this was the exact beginning of conflicts for the cause of land, possession, power etc. This type of conflicts caused millions of death and there were rarely any time since few thousand years that there was peace all over the world. Some time somewhere on earth, they were always fighting going on for possessions. If we look at the history of all big and small wars, almost all was for land (possession), power and money. Cause of remaining few were women.

Under the feeling of Nationalism, the Nazis killed 6 million Jews and almost 80 million people died as a result of the war and countless of others affected ( National Geographic ). Hundreds of thousands were killed in Yugoslavian war which was triggered by nationalistic feelings. Hutu Rebels killed almost a million Tutsis in Rwanda within 3 months. Wars due to nationalism have taken place in other countries recently, in Greece (Cyprus), Sri Lanka,  Kurdistan, Kashmir, Sudan, Morocco, Congo and many other places where there are ongoing sectoral violence. Any form of belonging to a certain place, religious groups or political philosophy will lead to conflict that always posses danger of escalation causing deaths. These toxic feeling of belongingness is dangerous if its misused. 

The feeling of patriotism and nationalism is not natural, it is instilled by the few who profit from it. The ones who aim to rule a place or country manipulate the minds of people by pressing them the feeling of patriotism so that these people will fight for them and the clever elites will continue rule them. That is why in most of the countries, the nationalists are mostly the ones with lowest level of education who are prone to mind manipulation.

Today's world is a different one. In comparison to any time in the past two millenniums, there are less number of wars. It has become peaceful. Globalization is the major factor that contributed to make it peaceful because countries trade with each other, and when they trade and do business with each other, they are less likely to go to war because it would harm them both. We use products from other countries. We read books written by other people from other countries, we travel, we make friends and do many other things. The level of prosperity today is highest in history. Never in history we had this level of income, quality of life, knowledge and development. This was only possible because we acted in global level, because we shared knowledge and experiences disregarding that the other person is from a different country. This shows that, together we can achieve anything we like. It is not through solitary works that brought us here. The writers of great books did not say that they wrote these books for people of their own country. We are inter-dependent with nature and with other people who live in this world. Directly or indirectly we are connected to them. So, the point here is, there should be international solidarity. Sayings like “ I will do this and that for my country “ might not be more logical than “ I will contribute my part in this world wherever it is necessary “

Patriotism and Nationalism is the root of all evils, it gives birth to arrogance and aggression. The first step towards international citizenship is love thy neighbour. In the first step it seems impossible. France and Germany, that went to war so many times in history never thought that they will ever be like one country. The continent of Europe had the most wars in history among all places in the world. However, after the destruction of first and second world war, people in Europe realized that it cannot go forever this way and after the atrocities caused by Nazis, two heavyweights, Germany and France came forward and formed “European Coal and Steel Community”. Its aim was to monitor the production of both sides by both countries because coal and steel were used to build weapons. Few other countries joined. Later after the Treaty of Rome, European Economic Community was formed which ended in today's European Union. Through many other treaties, systems within countries were pooled. Today there is Schengen Agreement, which allows people from one member states to another to move freely to the other, there is common agricultural policy, there is common fishery policy, security policy and they are even discussing for a common european army. It did not happen over night but took more than six decades. The greatest achievement of European Union is peace. No war is possible in Europe anymore. If there is a common army, there can be no war between member states. It was made possible because people of the EU agreed to sacrifice national interest, national values. They agreed on European value. They stopped saying “ we are …. country, we are the best” instead, they said “ we are Europeans, we are one people “. The EU is the most successful story of peace. The member countries continued to be more, today there are 27 nations. Few of the criteria of joining the EU is, a democratic government, human values, independent justice system, free press and others. Hence, more countries in the EU means more peaceful states which sacrifice their nationhood.

On the passports of any country, there is written “ European Union “ on top and then only the name of the particular country. This implies that before a citizen of a country, one is the citizen of Europe. This should be the ultimate goal of whole world, to be one, to sacrifice the feeling of nationalism and the first step towards this is now. We should place humanity and love before patriotism.

The genius and the good people we honor today, all campaigned for a world government and for global citizenship. John F Kennedy, Albert Einstein, Mahatma Gandhi, did not show arrogance by telling “ this is mine “ based on either religion or country. Einstein was a well known world citizen, John F Kennedy established Peace Corps (Peacecor) to strengthen world peace and friendship. Gandhi never wanted to possess anything anyway. When the future father of Pakistan “ Mohammad Ali Jinnah” expressed his worries that in independent India, there might be no place for Muslims, so he called for a division of India and form a separate nation called Pakistan, Gandhi offered him to be the Prime Minister of India and choose all the ministers himself but do not call to divide a nation. Gandhi wanted to coexist because he knew that a division of a place in two countries based on religion would cause huge conflict. The partition really resulted in million deaths and 14 million people were displaced ( UNHCR )

Not only these people, when we go back even more, we can read the literature of Johann W Goethe, Friedrich Schiller and Hermann Hesse, we can find many elements of world citizenship.

Hence, humanity, love, ethics and morality should be above patriotism. They should never be traded for a love of one country. A country does not exist, its only a fictional body. Love or like a person for what he/she has done or how he/she is instead of his/her nationality. Give your best in whatever you do for good for the world, not for a country. Our origin is one place and it might not be the place where you live now or have lived in the past. We have only two choices, either to live as global citizens loving people independent of their nationality or taking proud on our country being arrogant and fake. The former will lead to a peaceful world.