Nationalism
There was a man, living happy life, in happy country, until one day he was informed, that the war started - they were attacked by cruel north neighbors. So, the man was ordered, to go and fight, and he obeyed of course; he took a gun, and go to fight, he was killing enemy soldiers, and hating them, and loving his own. On some point he was wounded quite badly, his death hour was near, but even though he knew he will die soon, he was quite happy and proud, as his final thoughts were, that he gave his life, for his country and his nation.
There was a little mistake though. He was adopted, by all means - in his veins was the blood of “cruel north”, his father and his two brothers (of which he was unaware), fight in this battle again him. They didn’t know, had no idea. That’s the illusion of “my nation”, of “my brothers”, this is the delusion of nationalism. The believe of “those are my people” it’s nothing but a very weak idea. And actually, if you just start walking in one direction, you’ll cross the border and find yourself in another country, and you’ll not even noticed it, until someone will tell you.
But, though this idea is really weak, many people would give their life for it. Just like that - someone would say to them: “hey, we were attacked” and they’ll go as big horde of sheep into certain death.
Nowadays, logic rules the world, so it isn’t hard for me to understand, that people don’t believe in God, but - on other hand, it’s hard to understand, that they believe in fairytale about superiority and goodness of their own nation / race. There’s absolutely no logic in it. And even further, with all the amazing sense and logic, they’re played like a pawns on a chess board, without having even a slight idea about it.
“The Great Dictator”, directed by Charlie Chaplin (beware, this is an ending of a movie, so it’s a spoiler!)
Of course, there is explanation. Nationalistic party, for example, has extremely easy job. We always love to hear: “how great our nation is”, and we like to believe that we somehow inherit all that greatness. It’s really easy, isn’t? I can be murdered, dirty sneaky liar, but, because I live in UK (for example), which is proud and good country, with good and honest people, — I’m good and honest too, right? — And someone could be saint, but since he live in dirty, disguising country, he must be dirty, disgusting man too, right? No!? Well, but that’s what nationalism is mostly about.
Nationalism isn’t so much about peacefully loving my own country, it’s more about, loving myself. It’s mostly about the idea, of superiority of my country (=myself), and lowness of others.
Well now, it’s not hard to understand how the war can arise, when every nation consider itself as good and superior, and basing that belief of superiority on idea, that others are somehow inferior.
It’s not strange, that people sometimes go to war so happily and easily, so fast and with such a passion, one of the reasons is, that they just doesn’t distinct between the idea of their country and themselves.
Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind. —Albert Einstein
But - the idea of my country, - isn’t just an empty idea, right? This idea usually holds: history, culture, language, landscapes, architecture, art and religion of a country.
Well, yes - however, when you open your eyes a bit more, and your view widen a bit, you see, there’s no language, no landscapes, no country, no architecture, no culture and no art, which would be in borders of only one country. There’s no separation. The separation indeed exists, only in our heads.
