My country right or wrong?

Dr Johnson described patriotism as the last refuge of a scoundrel, but we still seem to treat “patriot” as an inherently favourable term to this day.

It seems to me that George Bernard Shaw got it right, when he said that “patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all others because you were born in it.”

One of my favourite writers is Ursula Le Guin, whose books present themselves as Science Fiction, but only use the genre as a vehicle for searing insights into humanity.

“How does one hate a country, or love one?” asks a character in one of her best novels, The Left Hand of Darkness, “I know people, I know towns, farms, hills and rivers and rocks... but what is the sense of giving a boundary to all that, of giving it a name and ceasing to love where the name ceases to apply? What is love of one’s country; is it hate of one’s uncountry?”

A glorious landscape that I love
But if Scotland votes "Yes" it'll be abroad
Should I love it less then?

That’s the central issue. Love of country is closely linked to hatred of other countries. We call the latter nationalism rather than patriotism: Charles de Gaulle claimed that “Patriotism is when love of your own people comes first; nationalism, when hate for people other than your own comes first.” Curiously, though, I’ve recently had a personal experience showing that how little separates them.

I recently posted about how government, in Britain but not in Britain alone, is reacting to terrorist threats from abroad by trying to weaken key rights at home. An (inevitably anonymous) commenter wrote:

“My god are you the most un nationalistic individual in the entire UK not a single patriotic instinct in your entire body or mind.”

The writer’s tone suggests we can take him for a patriot. Indeed, for a him: his aggression suggests masculinity. Or is it perhaps that I suspect he tends to talk a load of balls?

He feels I have no nationalism or patriotism – note that he makes no distinction – but hasn’t realised that I regard such a judgement as a compliment. Britain isn’t better than anywhere else because I was born there (as it happens, I wasn’t – I’m certainly English by birth, but I was born abroad. Has that influenced my viewpoint? I rather suspect it has).

Britain’s better than many places because, among other things, it has a legal system which aspires, at least, to such principles as the presumption of innocence, and a political system which, when it resists attack from government or a particularly debased press, upholds freedom of thought, speech and assembly. It is no better than anywhere else that tries to apply those principles; and if it gives then up, it will be a lot worse.

We do Britain, or any other country, a disservice when unthinking patriotism allows our leaders casually to take such liberties away.

It seems the author of the comment on my post has grasped none of that. Like Ursula Le Guin, I see no good reason to draw an artificial boundary at a geographical line and stop my love there. That doesn’t stop me loving what is most admirable in my country.

But my country seems intent on undermining much of what gives it most value, a health service free at the point of care, a willingness to look after the vulnerable, a commitment to educate our children. As it seems intent on whipping up a climate of fear to undermine our rights. Just yesterday, the terrorist alert level was raised to severe, though no one expects any kind of terrorist attack and deaths from terrorist action can be counted on the fingers of one maimed hand; by contrast, 1730 people died on the roads in the year to june 2013.

However, what David Cameron announced yesterday wasn’t a new initiative against bad driving, it was a move to make it possible to take away people’s passports on suspicion of terrorism. On suspicion.

All this is because of the violent success of ISIS in the Middle East. For which, I might add, the United States and Britain bear a major share of responsibility, through their invasion of Iraq. And yet we surely know which Britons have travelled to fight with ISIS and come back hardened jihadists, ready for action in Britain.

If we don’t know, then I’m at a loss to understand what purpose all that snooping by our spooks serves.

It seems to me that good intelligence is the answer to a terrorist threat – it’s what defeated the IRA in Northern Ireland – not further restrictions on human rights. That may not be a patriotic view, but it’s certainly one that upholds the very values that make Britain worth loving in the first place.

My answer to the anonymous commenter on my blog? Nothing sums it up better than the words of Carl Schurz, the first German-born American to be elected to the US senate:

My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right.

If you can’t see that, my dear patriotic critic, you really don’t understand what a legitimate love of country is.

Put out fewer flags

The habit of flying national flags always strikes me as a little puzzling. Dr Johnson may have regarded patriotism as the last resort of the scoundrel. To me, when it’s expressed by a flag, it’s all slightly deluded.

At a pinch, it makes sense for people who are away from their home country. I can imagine a Kyrgyz family in Kent might fly their flag if only so that passers-by could see that a family from their great country was living there. Perfectly legitimate desire, I suppose. Though I suspect most people would just be left wondering which football team used that particular flag, followed by a sense of bemusement when they couldn’t identify it.

Don't tell, don't tell me. That's Charlton Athletic, isn't it?

I can understand flags being used for military purposes. Take the so-called authorities in Ukraine: they need their own flag to identify which armoured vehicles they still control, as opposed to the ones decorated with a Russian flag that have been taken over by rebels.

Ukrainian Armour. At least, until the flag gets changed

Ships need flags too. Without one, you wouldn’t know which nation had been selected by the owners to minimise its tax liabilities and obligations towards employees.

But flags used by civilians in their own countries? Do we really need a Union Jack outside, say, the British Home Office? Whose Home Office might it otherwise be? Do we really believe that Burkina Faso would put its Ministry of the Interior in Croydon?

And what about the private individuals who fly their national flags outside their houses? They’re telling us that someone British lives in this house. In Britain. It may be just me, but I’m not convinced that this is strikingly interesting news.

Of course, in Britain we don’t just fly the Union Jack. There are lots of flags of St George in England now, just as there are many Saltires in Scotland. Which reveals another aspect of flag-waving which isn’t particularly amusing: it’s about separating oneself off – English, so not Scots, or a Scot, so not an Englishman. As Ukraine’s discovering, people defining themselves as not part of someone else is a problem these days, not a solution.

And then there’s the US. Take a look at a photo of the President. Or of candidates for the Presidency. Or even of many US politicians. They wear a lapel pin with the US flag on it.

Obama with a lapel pin.
Dose he need a reminder? Reassurance against the Birthers?

Now that really is extraordinary. I mean, do they expect foreigners to forget that they’re American? As they wander in behind their tanks with bankers in their wake?

Now Brits don’t stand out from the crowd like the US, either by wealth or by power. So maybe it makes sense that British politicians have started wearing lapel pins too. Not with the US flag, of course, but the Union Jack. Though given the independence of their foreign policy, it might actually make more sense if they wore the stars and stripes.

Clegg and Cameron with Union Jack lapel pins
Aping a trans-Atlantic fashion?

Now, people will tell me that the flag isn’t about identification but about pride. But I don’t wear that either. Pride is something you can have in an accomplishment: you climb a mountain, pass a test, complete a job. Those are things you can find satisfying. But your nationality? The vast majority of us get that by birth. And frankly it’s tough to find much to be proud about in getting born. In fact, I’ve never met anyone who hadn’t pulled that trick off.

Really, all this flag waving, doesn’t make sense. Serving no useful purpose. Divisive at worse. Marking a false pride at best.

Just what’s the mileage in it?