Shitting Ourselves11 Murder Mystery Tour

Nationalism and patriotism are related divisive cancers; tools for mental subjugation. Patriotism is easy for Americans who stand and do their mandatory salute and pledge allegiance at every kind of public assembly; as it is for a Roman Catholic Priest to stand in full regalia – robes, sceptre, sash and fishy hat – and conduct morning worship and communion in Latin, before an assembly of four to ten year old children at a primary school on a poor council estate in Manchester. How any parent can stand by and watch that kind of invasion of their child’s mind and spirit is beyond me. It is a little more difficult for a stranded, wounded American soldier who gets nursed and fed by a poor Vietnamese family, while all their neighbours and relatives are getting napalmed by his mates a mile up the jungle path. As long as Tom Cruise and his mates do it justice in a film, then that one’s done and dusted, eh? Can you be a patriot and nationalistic without being racist? It seems it is contingent on how good you feel about your country and leaders or your fear of being vilified by bigots. If your country doesn’t attack any ethnic minorities, that helps. You can still be patriotic and nationalistic if they do; really, the question is, can you if they don’t? Which way round should that be? The majority of people, I think, would view it as an insult to their intelligence to assume that just because a person was born in one part of the earth, they automatically owe allegiance to that community and have to be identified with it; or they have some assumed ownership of its environment and community. We consider that a human right because that is our home and if we cannot depend on our home, or defend it, or belong there, where can we belong? Yes, I can understand a sense of community, belonging, family, land-ownership and benefiting from some supervision of services and law etc. It’s fundamental and should be strived for, but the reality is that lands change and so do civilisations. So, is that a reliable way of thinking? Does it actually pan out? How about those whose parents are from a different land to theirs? We call it ‘duel-nationality’ (even when both parents were from different countries). It is useless when there is a War in Bosnia and Rwanda, but great if you want to play football for a different national team than where you were born. The ‘United States’ of America has been setting trends for us for a while now, but it can hardly be called united or a single community or a pure indigenous population. Few nations have a broader, more diverse population and some people who live there view the States as their home. Other nationals, who have never lived where their parents lived, don’t. But just take the indigenous population (whatever ethnic heritage) or ‘pure Americans,’ whatever they are; how does that nationality thing pan-out from state to state? It’s fine to cheer on ‘good old boys’ (of any ethnicity) away at war, they’re probably saving each others’ lives and hence mothers’ sons and daughters of every persuasion; or people who saved lives during the twin towers disaster; or emergency services and hospital workers; or musicians; or heroes in film. But where was that cheer and unison when the levees broke in Louisiana? Maybe Obama wouldn’t be as indifferent as Bush, to another Katrina, but it was a completely different electorate that gave him the opportunity to show it. It could be argued that he achieved much more by sinking his millions into broadcasting his half-hour television program, than the still untouched lower ninth quarter. Or it could be argued otherwise. British culture could learn much from the general way Muslims and other eastern and European cultures care for each other. I think some of their values and traditions or their commitment to each other, socially, are stronger. Apart from the obvious intolerances. Contrasting this, British broadmindedness (when we allow ourselves to be) without the constraints of similar ideologies speaks volumes for our backbone and acceptance of diversity and personal freedom. Nationalism is just a thin lie that feeds fear, mistrust and delusion. It is the prime tool governments use in manipulating people to be racist when it suits them. Until there’s a war, do you think people of the same race or nationality automatically and genuinely feel the same empathy and camaraderie for each other? It rears its ugly head at football matches, or when we go on holiday to some strange land and meet someone from the other end of ‘our’ country, or in my case someone Welsh, Scottish or Irish. We’re neighbours then. But it is such a shallow façade. One of my friends who lived in a wealthy area in a large detached house was lying on a beach in the Seychelles when a shadow covered his face; the conversation went something like

this: “Em… can I help you?” “Do you not recognize me?” “I’m terribly sorry, should I?” “Well, we’ve been living next door to each other for the past eight years, Bob!” All that came from it is this anecdote. We all fall for this idea of brotherhood and feel a false sense of security from it; as if our particular town depends on our personal identity and notoriety for its existence. Well, there is some argument for that, in that towns do get shaped by individual personalities. And people do come running to funerals. But it isn’t ‘our town’ and never will be, just as your country will never be your country. You may possess rights and build walls around it and exploit it as you will, but the soil in Britain will never belong to the Royal Family or the National Trust, try as you might, you won’t be able to keep it, or take it with you, even when you’re alive. You can become part of the ground, but you cannot defend it against fall-out from Chernobyl or freak floods or bee parasites or foot and mouth or other invasion. We are temporary managers and now, we’re having to help each other do that in places we never thought we’d ever set foot, just to try and reverse the knock-on damage of deluded commercial policies and practices. No one minimises the human cost of war and freedom, or decries the devotion and sacrifice of all those who died in its name. The price is far too high. But we glorify the heroics and justify the outcomes more than we question the decisions that place those lives at risk, in the first place. It isn’t a soldier’s place, or ours, to question. And what does it say about America’s first amendment, when people were in fear of reprisals for criticising Bush. The nature of war and patriotism makes it so easy to whip up some sense of arrogant national pride, as if our heroes are somehow better than heroes of other countries when actually, it’s multinational forces that have paid for our freedom. The concept of country may turn out to count for very little if we don’t turn around global warming and capitalist greed. If you get into trouble abroad you may appeal to the relevant Embassy that represents your homeland. Whether or not they will help you will likely have to fit in around international relations and political considerations, but at least you won’t be alone in court, eh? Your town exists to feed off you, not to feed you. It will shit on you and shaft you as soon as blink. But… if you manage to do something to bring notoriety to it, like write a book, oooooh… just watch them come running and bandy your name around in publicity, when they’ve never met you and care even less. Or just murder someone, that’ll get them a mention. And someone will include it in a tour. This shallow assertion should work contrary to social harmony and symbiosis, but the positive thing about human nature is that there is a universal internal language amongst those who have experienced similar situations. This operates even between total strangers from the most disparate and divided communities. We readily acknowledge this in everyday life. People of similar skills, soldiers, botanists, people who have lost children, people who sail boats, prisoners, people who have had children – think how many that is; why isn’t that the biggest influence in how we treat each other? You cannot ignore the global euphoria surrounding Obama’s appointment. Think of all that positive collective motivation. Nationalism and patriotism forces us to disengage from this, thinking it is in our interest, our self-preservation. It isn’t. Instead of communities living together, we polarise pockets of bigotry, because we campaign and legislate for people’s rights to differ, but do not seem to attach sufficient reward and responsibilities to positive accomplishments in integration, contingent upon regard for personal choice. Culturally, we concentrate on differences, rather than similarities. We sustain this chessboard mentality while white British nationals don’t get to use ‘prejudice’ or ‘discrimination’ cards. We are all fruits of assimilation to some degree. I do resent the racist attitude though, from any quarter, whenever certain groups have little regard for their neighbours, and I can see why people get so upset by it. I detest violence and I detest racism – wherever it is. I hate fascism, fanaticism and patriotism. It is weak-willed, narrow-minded, unimaginative and just plain dishonest to believe owning an area of earth results in superiority. Having more or less, how does that make someone superior to another? How does that strengthen society?

As long as the American Dream is going to be evangelised and imposed on the four corners of the globe (incidentally, it is two British sportsmen that are held aloft as ‘the way, the truth and the life’) including North Korea, Afghanistan, Rwanda, Zimbabwe, Darfur, Iran, Israel, Palestine and Jordan – then a radical alternative to the historical American mentality will be called for. As different as their ambitions may be, all countries employ the same methods. I certainly hope Obama justifies the fear that was evident in Bush’s and Brown’s eyes when they spat out their congratulations to him. It will depend upon how much we can tap into and reward our common humanity and interdependency; how willing we are to back every initiative in achieving a global community. What need of nationalism and patriotism, then? ___