Nationality is as accidental as eye colour. We did not consciously
choose them. We cannot yet say they are our fault or responsibility.
Another example is the current war in Iraq. People do not
currently feel their actions or lack of them are part of the reason for this
ongoing massacre, even though our life style might be part of the reason. Nonetheless
we hear countless amounts of people feeling proud of this or that Empire’s
achievements regardless of the destruction it brought to others. Maybe your
ancestors were very active in it. I do not know. But I have seen people very
willing to ascribe the achievements of certain historical periods upon
themselves; and of course, we have a selective memory on what events really
took place, and which ones we are ‘proud of’.
To me, to belong to a nation is a violent act as it starts
the mindset of division we live under. The concept of otherness is one of the
first steps towards violence. It justifies hurting other people, we thus
create: the enemy. The argument of tribalism is far too removed from our
current black tie politics. Thus I look at nationality as it currently stands.
But nationality is not the only division we accept; there is
also race, religion and gender, just to name a few. We have not learnt yet to accept
and acknowledge our humanity first? But no, we insist on wearing flags as
drapery and as a poor excuse for selfhood, for an identity. Who are you? An
English man? A Hungarian woman? A Congolese child? Or are you not David first?
Are you not yourself first? An autonomous individual perhaps? A thinking-feeling-breathing
being. I believe that before you subscribe to your assigned political identity
you might want to have a look at the aspects of yourself that you are actually
responsible for.
Nationality as such, for millions of human beings, is a very
new thing. It may come as a shock for the English for example, who have a
relatively old nation, to hear that there are over 30 new countries created
after the 1990s. How would you feel if you were an old man from current Croatia
but who grew up on former Yugoslavia before its dissolution in 1991? Who is he?
A Croatian? A Yugoslav? A man. A human. With rights and an identity, regardless
of politically designed boarders. We owed it to ourselves to have an
independent outlook on political maps and divisions. Maybe you can see how to
be a patriot is a difficult matter, a very confusing matter indeed, for
millions of human beings. There are other examples of this, the artificially
created nations and their manufactured culture, such as America the land of
hamburgers from Hamburg and Israel who now wants to claim hummus as its very
own. Humus comes from Hum, a city in Syria.
Please don’t think that with this article I am trying to
undermine the feeling of community that belonging to a culture brings. I
believe nationality and culture to be different to a great extent, and saying
that, I do believe we can and should feel pride and joy about other people’s
achievements. But in our world, to speak about the achievement of a nation has
usually imperialistic or colonialist (or underdog) connotations. Culture is a
very relative thing which usually means variety on our outlook on life. Whereas
nationality usually brings political connotations as it is derived from
boarders, not from common goals.
Speaking from a mixed background I perhaps have a more
flexible outlook on this. I come from a nation where ‘our’ biggest achievement
for a while was to qualify for a football cup. Perhaps you remember us,
Ecuador. The whole country celebrated together as if, we did it together. I do
agree that the sharing is all very nice, but looking at it objectively, it was
all a bit artificial and there was nothing of substance to really cheer about.
We all went back to our lives, judged by our passports. My other half belongs
to a recently dissolved ex-Soviet Union country. The day I was born, Belarus,
where I was born, gained independence from the Soviet Union. Shall this inflame
my chest with a feeling of passionate patriotism and belonging? No. Why?
Because some political figures that do not remotely care about me or the people
(Belarus is still a nation under a dictator, look it up) signed a paper? No. To
identify me, my personhood, my mind, my body, my experiences with a nation, is
simplistic, is separatist. It would be a lazy outlook that we have designed to
classify fellow human beings and to put them in boxes. We enjoy the classifying
and standardising of everything, after all, this is a confusing world, is it
not? And getting to know something is way too hard, is it not?
I do understand that belonging to a nation such as England,
with its proud history, which I do appreciate in terms of inventions for
example, can become overwhelmingly appealing for someone. Its might really want
to make you go out and run and shout in the streets: Im English goddammit! Well
done me! I made the Victorian era myself! Woooo! Rather than, is what am I
doing with my life of any consequence? We only have to have to look upon
Rhodesia, named after Cecil Rhodes, one man, one name to see the strangeness of
the act. I would feel very weird indeed to be proud of my children being from
the country Cecil Rhodes ‘invented’ so to speak. I would feel proud of the
daily smile on my children faces, not on them belonging to this random
territory.
Yet to subscribe to a nationality, to this principle of
division is to me, to ignore the long history of humanity, our migration, our
sharing, our eclectic cultural heritage, it doesn’t matter where you are or who
you are, you have a little bit of everyone in you. Time to act like it. Time to
feel proud of the work you do every day for whatever piece of land you happen
to be standing on, rather than reminiscence on a past you might not even
understand properly. It’s time to acknowledge your humanity first, our
similarities. The sense of community will naturally follow when we actually
interact and respect each other. A community is formed of people you have
shared interests with, not interests bestowed upon you by politicians and
individual interests.
One day I want to hear a story that goes like:
“Once upon a time there was a planet where people feared
each other, they built walls to hide from each other, but still looked upon
others to make their life decisions. Once upon a time there was a planet where
people had everything they needed but they denied it from each other, because
they felt different from each other. Once upon a time, there was such a planet,
were everyone was waiting to be saved by another, instead of saving themselves
and one another. Once upon a time there was a thing called patriotism which
kept them away from one another. Believe it or not, that is how people lived in
this so called planet. Once upon a time.... but not anymore.”
Good bye
By: Eliza Veretilo
