We live in times where ‘patriotism’ is either a virtue or a crime. Patriotism, like peace, is not anyone’s private property, but the term is tossed around (loosely) by those who swear by it and by those who are equally rabid in taking issue with them. The result is that it has been reduced to a rhetorical tool and nothing else.

"Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel," Samuel Johnson said more than two hundred years ago and this has been one of the more frequently quoted sayings in our political columns of late, employed mostly by those who have histories of being partial to the LTTE, virulent opposition to the Rajapaksa regime, some for valid reasons, some because they would have preferred the UNP to be in power and still others for whom anything that has even a trace of ‘Sinhala’ or ‘Buddhist’ is vaha kaduru.

The word refers to the love or devotion that one has for one’s country. So, while it may be true that patriotism is a convenient refuge for scoundrels, it does not necessarily follow that all patriots are scoundrels. Love is a personal choice, devotion too. On the other hand ‘country’ is not something that has to be thought of only in terms of these things. This is perhaps why the English language also has a word called ‘nationalism’, which refers to one’s devotion to the interests or culture of one’s nation. One does not forbid the other and they are moreover interchangeable in most contexts. The issue is that ‘interest’ is a very subjective and ideology-laden term. Thus there are ‘nationalisms’ which in turn allow for claims and counter-claims as well as charges of ‘treason’.

Interestingly, the Sinhala equivalents, deshapremaya (patriotism) and jathikavadaya (nationalism) evoke starkly different sets of meaning; the former rolls easily off the tongue, the latter almost artificial. Few would describe themselves as ‘nationalists’ but few would deny that they are patriots.

I believe Johnson’s formula is not only incomplete but also made for abuse. It is not a helpful observation in the current discourse on nationalism/patriotism, which I believe should be a serious exercise not just in an academic sense but for the purpose of contexualising our lives as willing or unwilling citizens in that political entity called ‘Sri Lanka’. It is both an individual and collective project that we are being tasked to do in this historical moment of victory/defeat (as per our political preferences). It is a project that will always remain a work-in-progress, a fact that should not dissuade us from undertaking it because destinations fall into the conjecture category which journeys are more immediate.

We have, as a people, been bombarded with the iconography of patriotism. We have, as a people, had ‘the nation’ thrown in our face also as some foul-smelling entity which we were required to be ashamed of. Our notions of ‘patriotism’ and ‘nationalism’ are therefore the product of such clashes, intersections and our reflections of the same. It is not easy to wade through the ideological clutter pertaining to ‘nation’, but I thought reflection could do no harm. I love this country. I asked myself ‘for what reasons?’ It was an exercise that naturally stepped from one anecdote to another, most of which I cannot write down in one go for lack of space. I will share a few, though.

I realized that my first notion of ‘nation’ came in Grade One. The first two letters we learnt were rayanna and tayanna: ‘rayanna, tayanna….rata’. I am not sure what kind of emotion that word ‘rata’ or ‘country’ aroused in me at that time, but I got a clue when my older daughter, who was around five at the time, told me that for a long time she thought ‘rata’ referred to a toy (I reflected on this statement in an article which can be found at http://www.nation.lk/2006/10/08/eyefea4.htm). I remembered also that she was quite upset when she realized how small Sri Lanka was after seeing a world map for the first time. I had to explain to her that there is no relationship between ‘size’ and ‘good’, ‘size’ and ‘beautiful’.

My first sense of this ‘rata’, I remember, was in Grade 4 when we were required to bring a map of Sri Lanka to class. At that time there was a subject called ‘Geography’ (and also ‘History’). This was before maps were available for purchase on the street or in any boutique. We had to trace maps off text books. I used a short-cut; kept a piece of paper under the page that contained the map and drew the pencil hard over the lines. I would then trace the pencil over the imprint. Those maps, although relatively small, had a lot of detail; all the major lagoons and islands were there. From Dondra to Pedro, all the way around the coast and back, the pencil took me on a fascinating journey. It is one of my earliest associations with ‘beautiful’. We were made to mark the major rivers, the tallest mountains, the plateaus, the climate zones, the ports and places of historical interest.

I love the map of my country. Was that deliberate ideological construct? Should such things be erased from our education? There are no easy answers to such questions. I do think, however, that such an education does not necessarily churn out scoundrels. There was nothing politically distasteful in learning the names and locations of all our rivers, waterfalls and mountains, in learning what was cultivated and where etc., even if one believed the geographical boundaries are a colonial construct and a historical aberration.

History, on the other hand was and will always be a subject that can be abused, and one which can inscribe non-negotiable ‘truths’ that make for extremist understanding of event and personality. Is this reason enough to scrap ‘history’ altogether? Obviously not. But we are straying here.

From Grade One to ‘now’ is a long time but then again this is not biography. I have often been asked why I returned to Sri Lanka after spending many years abroad. I have two answers. One, I love the map of my country. Two, I was a beneficiary of free education and there can be no moment in time when I can say ‘I have paid my debts’.

A friend of mind, a batchmate from Peradeniya who is from Ampara and who now works in the Nation Building Ministry once told me that he has a speech for those who say the Government does nothing for them and for those who are idle. This is the gist:

"Before you are born, a midwife visits your mother to check on you. You are born in a Government hospital. You will get vaccinated also in a Government hospital. You attend a Government school. You get free text books and free school uniforms and sometimes even a free glass of milk and some food. If you do your schoolwork well, you get a Government scholarship to a better school and if you get good results, you end up in a university where you receive your education free. Since you believe that the State somehow owes you a job and since Governments think that you are justified in this, you get a job in the state sector. You get loans to purchase a motorcycle and later perhaps a car. You get a loan to build a house. All at concessionary interest rates. You retire and get a pension until you die. Throughout all this, if you ever fall ill, you can get free medical attention at a Government hospital. You might get depressed, try to kill yourself by consuming sleeping tablets, get the dosage wrong and end up in a Government hospital, where around Rs. 40,000 will be spent to save your life. Now tell me, what have you done for your country, for the people who paid for all this?"

I went to a Government school and later attended a local university. I don’t know about other people, but I think ‘patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel’ is used far too frequently than what is in Sri Lanka’s context a much more sensible tag, ‘nationalism is the responsibility of the citizen’. After all, there are far less scoundrels taking refuge in patriotism than they are citizens who have benefited from this nation.

Our patriotisms can take different forms of course. We are not required by constitutional edict to love and show devotion, and even if it is ethical to do so, there is nothing to say that we should all love and show devotion in the same way. If we are asked to, I am sure we can all find some tragic flaw in our country, but perfection is a myth, we should not forget this. This necessarily imperfect character of a nation or a system does not forbid love. It does not forbid us from crafting our lives and the country in which we have citizenship in ways that are more pleasing than at present.

I decided, upon reflecting on ‘patriotism’ over the past few weeks, that it would help if I did a reality check now and then on the following two questions: ‘what has this country done for you?’ and ‘what have you done in return?’ These are not necessarily questions that only patriots should ask themselves. They are questions that every citizen should consider, I believe. The true scoundrel, let me add, is not the guy who is abusing that thing called ‘patriotism’ but s/he who derives from this country all its pleasing landscapes, benefits from the largesse of the state and spits upon its social, cultural and physical geography just because it is not the perfect paradise s/he wishes to inhabit.