Is Patriotism virtue or sin?
“Patriotism is, fundamentally, a conviction that a particular country is the best in the world because you are born in it.” — George Bernard Shaw
“Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious.” — Oscar Wilde
“Patriotism is a religion, the egg from which wars are hatched.” — Guy De Maupassant
At a certain point in my life I started believing in these quotations and certain friends too agreed with me. When did the patriotism turn from virtue to sin? Patriotism is defined as devotion to, love to, and vigorous support for one’s country by many scholars. These definitions pump up the blood in a patriotic. But what they didn’t mention is, Is it good to be patriotic when it is harmful to the other country or when it suppresses your fundamental right to question the nation’s discrimination?
Patriotism is to love and respect your country and defend your country. It isn’t to attack or discriminate the foreign land. It is an emotion that keeps a certain nation to move forward, keep you accountable, and true to the values that all in the nations coded together. If a man marries and tells his wife that he will give her all that she needs like money but he doesn’t keep up with emotion, how he is going to have a family? Patriotism is such emotion in a nation to keep all the diversities together. The prosperity and development of patriot’s nation depend on ties with other countries too.
A country is not its borders. A country or a nation exists only in the minds and hearts of people. Due to the worst experience in human war history in evolution for their survival and expanding territories particular community created borders and started securing the borders. This securing the borders brought the community together. Different communities evolved into a nation. To keep the communities together for the prosperity of the nation, the ethical values and rules came into existence and that became a constitution and a flag to represent the whole country as one and an anthem to respect that country’s flag with the same and one emotion together. Respecting your nation and fellow citizen and securing your borders from foreign invasions gave rise to patriotism.
Respect your country, it’s flag, and national anthem. They are designed to bring all the people together. When the people come together and work for the betterment and stand in unity, then the act of patriotism is not needful. For example, when Nazi Germany rose against a particular community resulted in a world war. The whole European countries fought against each other. After World war II, every nation stood for itself and rebuilt. Then they have put the nationality or per se patriotism in the background and worked for the well being of whole Europe by forming a European Union (EU), with its flag and anthem to bring all of the different patriotic citizens to bring forward and work for the development of new Union, the community of different countries, defining new borders, new citizenship and new patriotism.
Patriotism should help the nation to bring all its citizens to a common stand for humanity. If your patriotism is not for the well being of a nation or another country, you are not a patriot, you’re a terrorist and it’s an act of terrorism. That piece of land on the earth doesn’t belong to you just because you are born on it or you are paying taxes. Of course, every opportunity that created in your country doesn’t belong to you or your race. Just stop pretending it’s your country, your racism is your patriotism. This patriotism is a sin. This patriotism in Britain led to BREXIT.
If your vigorous support is for the country that allows you to protest peacefully, freedom of speech, to write what you want and doesn’t suppress your belief and fundamental rights i.e., your country or the governing body encourages your freedom. There the patriotism is a virtue. Then worship your country. But when the same fails protest against your country, then your patriotism is perfect and true to your country. Just because you were born in it, your country is not great. The values and humanity decides the country’s greatness. Only the patriotism has the power to bring the whole world to one stand. Let’s wish one day like the EU, every continent form a Union and those unions unite together to form United Earth for peace and save the earth. Only that Patriotism is a virtue.
