The Problem With Patriotism

I recently read Ramchandra Guha's article in HT, entitled, "Excessive love of one’s state is less harmful than that of one’s country", which talks about regional pride in literature and culture.  This debate was sparked by Guha's comparison of Kannada polymath Shivarama Karanth with Bengali literary god, Rabindranath Tagore.  I am not interested in this argument.  Personally, I believe, Bengali intellectualism and literary elitism is in decline and like the British, we are living off by selling the family silver (so to speak).  

No, what I am more interested in is exploring the idea of patriotism.  Being blindly loyal to some arbitrary division of land or world view, is an idea so abstract that I can't really fathom the need or requirement for it.  To me, patriotism, for country, religion, or an idea, if anything, is detrimental to the fabric of tolerant societies and a marker for regression.  In Tagore's poem, Where the Mind is Without Fear, he writes, and I paraphrase, "...let me awake in a world that is not broken up by narrow domestic walls" - a sentiment that resonates with me.

When I was backpacking through Europe several years ago, the political pub talk revolved around the wisdom of including the ten new countries to the European Union.  What was most striking about these conversations, and we see in the political set up of Europe today, is the rise of right wing sentiments in Western Europe.  In the recent EU elections, the anti-EU parties enjoyed a significant bump as outlined by this Telegraph article in May.

In my limited opinion, this "right-wing swing" is essentially a form of xenophobia in disguise.  The EU, I always felt, was the natural direction of humanity's future, a step towards global political and social unification, but it seems our basic need for a "us and them" framework is too overwhelming.  Give us aliens to fight and we're going to come together, otherwise we're going to find our own aliens... in the case of Europe, that's everyone who isn't, well, Western European.

Part of this "us and them" mentality is buried under the guise of patriotism.  "Self-interest" and "self-preservation" is tantamount to patriotism, and it is this kind of backward thinking that negates the momentum towards a politically and socially cohesive world.

In the context of India and Pakistan, patriotism rears its head when we're playing a cricket match or we're at war, and somehow brings out the worst in our generalizations about each other.  I've met many Pakistanis in my life and I've enjoyed their company very much.  Of course, that in itself is a generalization, and probably holds true for the 1 percent liberally educated urban youth I have interacted with.  My point is that we have no right to use the label of patriotism for actions and words that dehumanize people in a country, idea, or religion that is not ours.  Patriotism, like the practice of religion should be private and personal.  Rather than slap on some face paint when there is a cricket match, if we were really patriotic, we would treat our fellow citizens with respect, and not urinate by the side of the road or treat the country like shit.

I am aware of the argument that the need for barriers is seeded in animal instinct.  Chimpanzees, wolves and other animals that live in some form of social structure, display tendencies of divisiveness; acting in the interest of the pack or herd against other packs or herds.  However, considering we have put a human on the moon, is it really a legitimate argument to claim animal instinct as the basis for the most divisive notion we have in society?  Can we not say that, we, as a species, are better than wolves? [1]

All patriotism has really done is reinforce the imaginary boundaries that separate groups of people, who in all likelihood, under other circumstances could get along.  I'm not trying to demean the idea of patriotism, just the way we practice it today [2].

[1] The same applies to religion.
[2] I have nothing against wolves per se.