Patriotism starts from your porch and nationalism ends up in the garbage.
Konstantin Kevorkian
In the ancient world, an attempt to highlight, magnify and isolate a particular ethnic group, had a very pragmatic goal – this sometimes depended on the survival of a group of people passionately loving, native marsh and authentic designs on shirts. The unquestioned postulate of rejection, and sometimes – and hatred of tribes with other beliefs, hair color and “foreign” songs, was from the point of view of the ancients is quite rational and justified.
It would seem that with the spread of Christianity and later of Islam, mankind has been reliable vaccinated from getting “in the face of other nationalities do not see the face.”
“…You hold Verviers Allah [of Islam] and do not divide, because before Islam you were enemies and he joined you…” – sounded Friday sermon from the pulpit of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople (Istanbul). Although, before this building was turned into a mosque, it sounded quite identical to the words of Christian preachers, echoing the words of St. the Apostle Paul: “… in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek…”.
But, alas. If before the era of capitalism, the majority of political and cultural phenomena have a universal rather than national character, deliberate from the point of view of science and of political technologies, described in the late nineteenth century philosopher Herder had already formed as the ideology and policy direction, the nationalism in its radical forms has become akin to a mutating virus.
Along with the consolidation of the national society in the era of the industrial revolution, there were, thanks to the various varieties of scoundrels, and virulent strains of this ideology. Measles of mankind – the so-called Einstein nationalism began to spread with alarming rapidity in the scale of the pandemic, justifying the looting of the colonies, ethnic cleansing, ideologies of the superiority of the “supermen” of deportation and “cohabitation” with the power of the executioners, the column pursuers doomed to Babi Yar.
Not even hundreds, but tens of years ago, the Western democracies were still the norm signs “whites Only” or a public demonstration “of black life in captivity”. But our generation has witnessed ethnic cleansing in Bosnia, in southern Kyrgyzstan. And the conflict in Ukraine, is a horrifying reality in which we live, as in a nightmare. But, today, preaching the paradigm of civic nationalism and tolerance, a modern civilized society seeks to strengthen its institutional immunity and to protect society from recurrence of infection with dangerous strains of radical ethno-nationalism and its ugly mutations.
“Nationalism is a manifestation of a nation’s weakness, not its strength. Infected with nationalism weak Nations” – said Dmitry Likhachev. And we, unfortunately, in comparison with the West – not the most beautiful illustration of the proofs of this assertion.
The desire to create camps for dissidents of the residents of Donbass, the charges of Ani Lorak or Hope Savchenko in the betrayal of the interests of the nation, calls to expel Viktor Medvedchuk only for the fact that he is against “blind” of European integration, attempts to revive the “fifth column” in the questionnaire, “joy” about the murder of an Elder, the massacre at the “wrong” television stations, attempts to justify atrocities “tornadovtsev,” reasoning about the historically “correct” genome Ukrainians, writ norm of communication “reigning movi” – all symptoms of a weakened immune system companies. These are signs that the “Patriotic” verbiage, these naive, bashful and full – blooded scoundrels- Dostoevsky, brought us to the cemetery of biological waste, where waiting in the wings of the ideological plague of modern times, fascism, racism, chauvinism, xenophobia.
Getting cultured “corrupt” media, this infection becomes a weapon of mass destruction, has the ability to directionally spread with terrifying speed, taking possession of the minds of millions in the shortest possible time. And now, in accordance with George Orwell, the crowd of newly minted zombie is obsessed with the idea that “the past can – and must – change”, and any deviation from the “interests of the nation” must be destroyed, or “bitten” to refer to the “correct” ideology. But, the subject of “national character” becomes a faceless, dull crowd, which, by definition, Tungsten Weidner “…can’t be happy until, until you find someone hurt her…”.
Yes, sometimes they look comical when, after further restrictions on Russian content on television, boasting of their VIP identity, panic can solve the most difficult dilemma – which dress in accordance with the standards of the Chinese calendar to wear to be able to fall face in the salad “Olivier” with “totalitarian” in the New year.
But, is laughter through tears.
Now Bogdan Benyuk (Deputy Chairman of the “Svoboda”) preaches the need for decision-making exclusively to the “truly Patriotic” by the government. All other people should just “take the salute” and make decisions farmstead parteigenosse for the immediate, thoughtless execution – too many “defective” among the common people, to trust people the reins of the country. “To serve is not difficult if you keep your hands at the seams!” – so taught when student rights are in Magdeburg, the future field Marshal Friedrich Paulus.
But, performing such a mission, the formation of a “truly Patriotic” elite ranking and holding his hands at his sides, logically requires an instrumental approach with appropriate criteria for evaluation and selection.
That, shortly, will offer us “Freedom”? What would be the criteria, if these “patriots” come to power? I don’t think it will be a formula of Hg wells: “Our true nationality is man.” Rather – be kind, old grandfather’s lessons of Goebbels, compasses, rulers to measure the proportions of the head and strict adherence to the phonetic standards in the pronunciation of the word “Palyanitsa”.
There is nothing wrong with the ideology of the “Our mom is the best!”. But, attempts with pathos to magnify through the humiliation of others “mothers” is the path to the abyss. Breathing in the stench of the abyss, where the iconography of death, belonging to the brush of Buffalmacco or Bruegel, may seem like just an innocent children’s creativity.
If we can keep the spread of these pathogens perverted form of nationalism? Will our society ever great? More likely than not – when we understand that the aphorism by Stanislaw Jerzy LEC “National majority does not mean that its individual members more representative of the national minorities” written in blood, and not the result of idle speculation.
But… a reliable vaccine against the virus of cave nationalism was not invented until now.
Author: Alexey Kurakin
