I am not a patriot

There. I said it. Could have put it differently, but that wouldn't send the message across well enough. It doesn't mean that I will shy away from my duty when needed or begin seditious activities. Just that I believe it is a flawed concept.

So why ain't I a patriot?

Patriotism is an emotion founded upon a very artificial and flawed concept of a country. As with all emotions, it often defies logic and hinders rational approaches. Consider this. We are already know that in this day and age, cultural, religious and linguistic identities are hardly the primary reasons to create or sustain a country. Granted, there are exceptions but they are just that. Similarly, unlike a few hundred years ago, grabbing territory for resources is also no longer a viable and sustainable reason. So we can safely say that countries and their boundaries are not primarily based on claims for valuable resources. Quite the opposite, in fact. If we remove the concept of a country from the table, many resource-based territorial disputes become easier to resolve.

So what then, are the main reasons (that remain) to define a country?

• Administrative convenience – pretty much along the same lines as states, districts, counties and provinces. It makes administration of a geographical unit simpler by defining a scope for the corresponding governments (whose basis, incidentally, is not specifically that of a country, but a more general concept of a region that is rightly linked and recognized as that of an administrative convenience).
• Facilitate broad and equitable representation of people in the administration. Though this is mainly applicable mainly to democracies, it can also be seen often in monarchies and dictatorships in one form or the other.

Once again, we see that these two can be achieved even if we sacrifice the concept of country at the altar of wisdom.

How is it then, that patriotism such a strong and as nearly unquestionable a virtue as any religious belief? Firstly, it provides a much needed identity and a sense of belonging to the masses – at the expense of differentiation from the neighbors. Unfortunately, this is both a blessing and a curse. A curse mainly because it becomes a basis to unreasonably foster hatred towards neighbors. Think of this. As an individual, when you have a dispute with a neighbor, family-member or a colleague whom you need to see nearly everyday – life becomes unbearable if you don't put a lid on hatred and find a closure to the dispute. You therefore look for that closure, often by finding a reasonable compromise. However, when it comes to two countries it is very different. It is impersonal and therefore not quite necessary to obtain closure personally. It is quite feasible for citizens to create and nurse hatred indefinitely towards a “country” and its people without having come across them personally even once in their life times. It is easy to grow up with the beliefs as well as teach children that our neighbors are not to be trusted. It is easy to make sweeping generalizations about whole nations and smile in triumph 'cuz no one in the audience will step up and counter your point.

So is there a way we can bid adieu to this concept? Perhaps. Perhaps not yet. There is a significant hurdle. It will only work if all countries and their people are willing to give up this concept nearly at once. Alternatively, groups of countries can begin to set the tone by opting to merge. No doubt it is easier said than done. Egos, the need for cultural identities (didn't I just say countries are not always a single-culture-bound?), and age-old prejudices are hard to overcome overnight. 


Yet there is hope. In that I shall take some solace.