Patriotism is a dirty word to many an embarrassment or a joke. The joke consists of caricature. The embarrassment is more interesting. It is a reflection of the feeling that patriotism leads to nationalism a thing with which it is often confused. Let me make it clear from the start patriotism does not automatically lead to Anschluss or Auschwitz: a host of more complex things lead there. Patriotism is a natural and good thing.
But as events move and change, so peoples reactions to the flag and their country shift. In time of war and sporting world cups, Britains tabloid papers practically survive on the evocation of patriotism. Wherever the conflict lies, on pitch or plain, they can be guaranteed to back our boys. Yes, this can sometimes be tasteless. When it is, I know it is not my patriotism. The debate over that divide will continue, but a new and interesting one has sprung up.
Soldiers abroad: our countrys good
The debate has begun over whether or not it is possible to continue in opposition to this war and still support your countrys troops. I have listened to the arguments that say it is and I think they are wrong. Such a stance is no more acceptable than it is to say to any person you meet: I back you in what you are doing, and you are utterly wrong.
It is also, in my opinion, ill-thought-through to be in favour of this war to liberate the Iraqi people only to then stop supporting it once the first casualties on our own side have occurred. That is not compassion, it is foolhardiness.
For, as Michael Ignatieff (in Virtual War) quoted a Serb saying to him during that conflict, it is hard to feel any respect for an enemy who is willing to kill for his beliefs, but not to die for them. We are fighting a war for as long as our elected leaders choose to wage it. It may be that the war may become impractical, but it cannot suddenly become wrong. Tony Blair is the head of the British government. He desires to pursue a policy. The British Houses of Parliament have backed him with a massive majority. This is the only valid democratic process. The people should stand behind it. Most importantly, they should back those people who are risking their lives to see the task through, not sitting in the comfortable position of armchair punditry trying to prove how much they care.
Allied troops should be backed and not only by those from the countries from which they hail. But the notion that people from their own country would not support them is staggering, as is the notion that they would not feel pride in them. Those of us whose soldiers are giving up their lives to liberate a people we are not obviously tied to should feel great pride. They should feel patriotic.
The absence of threat
Patriotism is not in itself a complex emotion. It is a perfectly simple and natural emotion: it is the feelings of guilt and concern which have been imposed on it which create the problem.
Some people still see that patriotism is able to be a force for good (as it was with the Blitz spirit in London during the second world war). Obviously positive aspects have to do with morale needing boosting in times of trouble. Patriotism when you are not really under threat comes too close to nationalist triumphalism not to worry some people. I suspect it is this that the British in particular feel to be a problem at present. They do not really feel under threat, and so they do not feel a need to express pride.
After 11 September, when Americans felt at their most raw, their flag was more in evidence, their talk more patriotic. Like love of ones family, love of ones country may be a thing taken for granted, but there are times when we realise just how much we feel it and perhaps how much we need it. Only pseudo-intellectuals actively desire to reject this inherent feeling. However, there are those who simply do not have it. There is a reason.
The British problem
For there is a problem here in Britain. Many of us feel pride in our country. We feel pride in our history a history of time and time again overthrowing repression (our own and that of others). Yet there are now in Britain a great number of people who do not share the sentiment for a very simple reason they do not share that past. This is not a popular thing to raise.
Patriotic sentiment is perceived as being a problem in multicultural Britain. There is no reason why it should be: Irishmen in Britain are encouraged to celebrate their nationality; Caribbeans are encouraged to have carnivals. All cultural activities, however occasionally abhorrent, are respected with the alibi of diversity. Yet the main culture, the majoritys soul, is subsumed in an atmosphere of embarrassment and fear of offence-giving. There is no reason why people in Britain should be told what to do by outsiders. There is no reason why Americans should be told what to do by outsiders.
You do not make the world united by pretending there are no differences.
During as well as before the war, demonstrations against the war have been held in Britains most Muslim-populous cities. A considerable number of the Muslim protestors, whether British citizens or not, actively and vocally despise the culture of the country they are living in; they have decided, in short, that my country does not work because it does not express their views.
What they need to remember is that the people of this country are a historical entity who together have managed to bring themselves to the situation they are in. We should not be told that we should not feel pride. We should not be told what to do. We should not be told what we can or cannot express pride in by those alien to our culture by those who have no interest in the furtherance of that culture.
No reason for shame
Britain has not yet been attacked by one of the Islamist groups who so desire our destruction and so, unlike our American allies, there is still a strong feeling that as a nation we do not need to and indeed should not celebrate and feel pride in our nation. When we are attacked the feeling will come back, and the only people who will not feel it will be those who does not belong in this country.
Our culture may be being diluted. Our culture is being threatened, but until the threat becomes very apparent, until we feel at our rawest, we shall continue in this state. When it happens I, and a good many other people who feel patriotism but not nationalism, shall be keeping a wary eye on those who break that divide.
All countries have cultures. All countries should be allowed to defend their culture. But I will say something a good many people are too scared to say. We should listen least to those who were never a part of our culture and never desire to be.
There are a good many things which one should feel shame for, and a good many things for which one should feel embarrassment. Britain is not one of them.
