Patriotism is a very precious spirit.
However, neither power nor even ideological education has the ability to create it. Our upbringing’s environment has a significant impact on how patriotic we become. People come into the world in each homeland, make friends, build families, and cooperate with regions. And having many dreams, experiencing successes and setbacks, accumulating memories, and wanting to protect the people and areas they love grows into patriotism.
In this way, grown people know that when danger approaches their families, friends, and communities, they will rise with weapons and seek to eliminate obstacles.
Patriotism is not an act of hostility compelled by the state or dictator that forces people to use harm against others by carrying weapons.
No one would like to do an act that potentially could kill another person and be killed themselves. A strong desire to protect loved ones and communities drives people to be obliged to such tragic acts.
Does patriotism exist in all those who go to the battlefield?
・It exists for those who have something to protect against invaders
・There is not one as the act of an aggressor who only robs.
・Soldiers forced to choose between prison and the battlefield under tyranny don’t have that.
・Those who go to the battlefield for money don’t have that.
Besides that, patriotism fades for financially wealthy people who can evacuate abroad with their families to protect themselves.
Why do they have such feelings? For them, it was simply because they were taught that for a long time, regardless of loyalty to the monarch or attachment to family or community. Dictators brainwash and educate young children to extinguish their free and fulling potential selves. Tyranny tries to convince people of stupid teachings, impose borders, block out inconvenient information and lock them up.
Therefore, parents, who are supposed to raise and guide their children, receive the same education and cannot get out of the chain. Children are the future of the region, nation, and humankind, and there is no promised future for those who destroy the potential of those children. It is like living in an illusionary world based on the will of others through years of ideological education and fear.
As a result, under tyranny, many believe that soldiers who go to wars of aggression have a strong sense of patriotism. They believe it is honorable to sacrifice one’s life and go to war for a dictator, to hate and kill one’s enemies. When many dictators, specific groups, and organizations appeal to the people for patriotism, they are concealed their desire for exhibitionism, self-protection, ego, and profits while hiding their inappropriate information. In an internationally closed society, most people cannot see through it.
Despite continuing to receive such education, some people will eventually show the ability to assess the situation and act of their own volition in a closed society. It may be the first one of hundreds of millions. The existence of this mutation begins to propagate its thoughts to others. Those who sympathize with the thoughts and ideas will join the movement as supporters, and the increase in those leads to a revolution. The patriotism built on deceit, falsehood, and self-protection will collapse on its weak foundations.
A strong sense of patriotism comes from a daily life nurtured by loving family, friends, and communities. The relationship, the area that one person strongly wishes to protect, may be tiny, but it does not exist in isolation. Your friends also have their own families, friends, and regions. This community, built on a foundation/relationship of love, compassion, and consideration, will be protected and part of your group. The expansion of this solidarity of love, compassion, and consideration is patriotism. Therefore, when a nation talks about strengthening patriotism, it should indicate an environment where all citizens can continue to pursue their dreams and lead safe and secure daily lives in harmony.
People worldwide live with different values, but I believe that love, compassion, and consideration for family, friends, communities, etc., is the value shared by all humankind. Conflicts due to differences in ideas such as these have been repeated in the history of humanity from BC, the previous two world wars, to the present. Today, as communication methods continue to advance globally, despite it being a complex problem, I hope that this chain of affection (patriotism) will transcend race, religion, gender, and other differences and expand globally to eliminate nation and area disputes shortly.
The word “patriotism” will become an archaic word then.
Author – Hide M Gerald
