PATRIOT : TO BE OR NOT TO BE
1. This image above popped on the twitter today morning and for some reason made one think, for the uninitiated this is the whatsapp status of Capt Tushar Mahajan,SC (posthumous) who made the supreme sacrifice in 2016 in Pampore. The question which kept circling around the head like a bird was; what is the difference between nationalism and patriotism and what am I? The question like any military answer may have to be answered in parts and hence this little treatise on what is it we are seeking nationalism or patriotism.
2. Definition of both these words are quite similar and thus are at times used as synonyms1 but a deeper study in the domain of social science makes it amply clear that this chalk and cheese and hence needs to be understood such. Many scholars have dealt with the problem of a valid theoretical and empirical distinction between nationalism and patriotism and with its consequences for research. In a study on The Authoritarian Personality2 distinction was made between genuine patriotism which stands for ‘love of country’ and pseudo-patriotism which measures ‘blind attachment to certain national cultural values, uncritical conformity with the prevailing group ways, and the rejection of other nations as out-groups’ Nationalism and patriotism are referred to as individual attitudes that differ in type and strength of affection for the nation and in their relation to exclusion of countries and groups of people based on religion, ethnicity, language or any other parameter deemed fit or purported. Nationalism is characterized by blind support for the nation and feeling of national superiority whereas constructive patriotism as a counter-concept to nationalism is based on values and includes critical loyalty towards the nation. Further, nationalistic sentiments correlate with derogation of nations, groups or people while constructive patriotism on the contrary does not correlate negatively with exclusion. This theoretical analysis leaves you with another question; as to whether one can still distinguish between patriotism as a less extreme and nationalism as a ‘blind’ and uncritical attachment to the nation. If I am critical of some event or action in the nation does that brand me to be anti-national.
3. Should events within the nation evoke a sense of patriotism, or must they provoke nationalistic fervor? Patriotism includes a sense of pride which is very internal to a person and it surely does not require that proof be given for it. Nationalism, on the contrary, often demands aggressive expression, public articulation and the assertion of superiority, going beyond the rites due to national symbols. Patriotism is fulsome but not necessarily demonstrative; nationalism is exuberant and overt. Is there, a danger that nationalism can be exploited by those who wish to benefit from its exuberance? Hyper nationalism can be artificially simulated, whipped up to serve an ulterior purpose. While patriotism is a continuum and this is where the image above comes to fore again, ultra-nationalism requires an event, an external stimulus, to periodically invoke it. Nationalism can degenerate to jingoism or xenophobia as it became visible during Trump’s regime in USA of ‘America First’. In November 2018, French President Emmanuel Macron, in what was widely recognized as a jab at America First Trumpism, stated in Paris: “Patriotism is the exact opposite of nationalism. Nationalism is a betrayal of patriotism.” He added: “In saying, ‘Our interests first, whatever happens to the others’, you erase the most precious thing a nation can have, that which makes it live, that which causes it to be great, and that which is most important: its moral values.” Macron’s illustrious predecessor, Charles de Gaulle had once opined that the patriot loves his place and its people and its idiosyncrasies; while the nationalist, of whom, for him, Adolf Hitler was the clearest and worst example, has no particular sense of affection for the place he advocates for (he is often an outsider to it, as Hitler, an Austrian, was to Germany) but channels his obsessive grievances into acts of ethnic vengeance.Nationalism in some cases may cause metastasis of the mind to irrational mindsets, difficult to counter with logic, because the very attempt to be logical rather than emotional is perceived as an act of betrayal.
4. Jingoism works to subsume other priorities that need attention, and compresses all national debate to a single issue of you are either with us or them leaving no middle ground. In such situations, ordinary citizens are faced with an existential, even painful, dilemma. If they do not join the orchestrated chorus of nationalistic hysteria, their patriotism is considered inferior. This is so because patriotism is by definition inclusive, while hyper-nationalism thrives on exclusion, the conjuring of the ‘other’,against which the anger and animosity of the converted has to be directed. If patriotism is about sharing a sentiment, nationalism seeks to appropriate that sentiment. Today each one of us is forced to make a choice in this simulated tug of war. In a mature democracy, patriotism is an embellishment which should ennoble the project of nationhood. Nationalism, if unchecked or deliberately hyped, mutates and defeats the democratic discourse. Its cynical misuse devalues patriotism, conflates dissent with sedition, seeks to deflect attention from legitimate critique, and encourages divisive tendencies.
5. George Orwell, the British essayist and author of Animal Farm and 1984, had decried “nationalism” as, first of all, “the habit of assuming that human beings can be classified like insects and that whole blocks of millions or tens of millions of people can be confidently labeled ‘good’ or ‘bad’.”3 He, too, stressed that nationalism must not be confused with patriotism. Both words are normally used in so vague a way, he observed, “that any definition is liable to be challenged, but one must draw a distinction between them, since two different and even opposing ideas are involved. By ‘patriotism’ I mean devotion to a particular place and a particular way of life, which one believes to be the best in the world but has no wish to force on other people. Patriotism is of its nature defensive, both militarily and culturally. Nationalism, on the other hand, is inseparable from the desire for power. The abiding purpose of every nationalist is to secure more power and more prestige, not for himself but for the nation or other unit in which he has chosen to sink his own individuality. “Every nationalist is haunted by the belief that the past can be altered. Much of the propagandist writing of our time amounts to plain forgery. Material facts are suppressed, dates altered, quotations removed from their context and doctored so as to change their meaning. Events which, it is felt, ought not to have happened are left unmentioned and ultimately denied.”
6. Gandhi had said, “The state is a ‘soulless machine’ and the individual is endowed with dharma that encompasses both satya and ahimsa. It is therefore the paramount duty of the individual, endowed with moral authority, to challenge and even disobey the state.4 His words embodied patriotism and surely Tushar was also alluding to the same idea of patriotism which one carried in his heart and not nationalism which you carried as a flag and waved it when ever asked to. In my own head I think it is clear now that I am better off being a patriot; silent but steadfast to the honour of my motherland.
1https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/nationalism accessed on 08 Jun 21 shows these words as synonyms to each other.
2Martin, John Levi. “”The Authoritarian Personality,” 50 Years Later: What Lessons Are There for Political Psychology?” Political Psychology 22, no. 1 (2001): 1–26. Accessed June 8, 2021. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3791902.
3https://fordhamobserver.com/1113/opinions/less-than-finnished/ accessed on 08 Jun 21.
4https://www.scribd.com/document/373082652/Unit-2-Gandhi-s-Views-on-State accessed on 08 Jun 21.
