Patriotism
George Bernard Shaw said “Patriotism is the conviction that your country is better than others because you were born in it.” There have been many such writers, political activists such as Leo Tolstoy, Emma Goldman who have described patriotism as too narrow a concept to meet the necessities and ideologies of the working men and women of the world who believe in harmony. In one of her speeches Emma Goldman said patriotism justifies the killing of innocent human beings. Do we all define patriotism as the right to kill in the name of one's country? The more important question is SHOULD we consider patriotism as the act of looking down upon all the other nations and overlooking the faults, atrocities committed by our own nation? Let's not define patriotism in a way which allows politicians, influential people to manipulate us into considering the slaughter of harmless human beings as a noble cause.
When a country's bomb hits another nation's land, lets recognize the true victims and the innocent, silent sufferers before hooting and rejoicing in pride of power. The razed lands of Iraq and Palestine provide strong evidence of the fact that patriotism has been misconstrued on a number of occasions. We should not be numb to the feelings of someone suffering in some other nation just because we love our country too much.
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