Luminiferous Ether: nonpatriotism

I want to thank everyone who commented about my last post on patriotism. I really appreciate the thoughtful response I received. The following words "speak to my condition" (as Quakers are wont to say.) They were written in 1934 by Lloyd Stone, set to the music of the hymn "Finlandia" by Finnish composer Jean Sibelius.

This is my song, Oh God of all the nations,

A song of peace for lands afar and mine.

This is my home, the country where my heart is;

Here are my hopes, my dreams, my sacred shrine.

But other hearts in other lands are beating,

With hopes and dreams as true and high as mine.

My country's skies are bluer than the ocean,

And sunlight beams on cloverleaf and pine.

But other lands have sunlight too and clover,

And skies are everywhere as blue as mine.

Oh hear my song, oh God of all the nations,

A song of peace for their land and for mine.

What is this an expression of? Universalism? That's what I am.

Blue Gal recently posted a wonderful video of Billy Bragg singing 'Waiting For the Great Leap Forwards', including a snippet of an interview at the end where he talks about dissenters being the real patriots. And while I appreciate the sentiment, I have to say I am uncomfortable with attempts to redefine patriotism so that it fits dissenters.

Webster's has the following definitions:

patriot: one who loves his or her country and supports its authority and interests

patriotism: love for or devotion to one's country

I guess one could interpret those definitions in different ways. This is how I see it. I love many things about my country, without a doubt. Do I support its authority and interests? Not at all, and BushCo is just an extreme example of what the U.S.A. has stood for since its inception: imperialism, profiteering, expansion ...

Of course there are shining exceptions to the rule, but they seem to fall outside the authority and interests of the country, and are vulnerable to being co-opted or outright squashed.

What about devotion to one's country? To me, devotion implies a certain amount of blindness, and once again, I cannot allow that definition to define who I am and what I do.

So no, I am not a patriot, thanks all the same. I even got a chance to proclaim that nationally a few years ago.

Way back in 2001 -- pre-9/11 -- Republican legislators in our state managed to tack a bill onto the budget requiring daily recitation of the Pledge or singing of the national anthem in public schools. With a strange timeliness, it was shortly after 9/11/01 that it was implemented.

On 10/1/01 my mom lay on life-support in the ICU and I was at the board of education meeting arguing for an opt-in implementation (for example, an optional morning assembly) as opposed to having it piped into our rooms every day. (I think my mom would have been proud of me.) That night the school board made one of their infamous ill-conceived decisions, to require only instrumental versions of the anthem, which ignited a firestorm of controversy. The flames were fanned by the likes of Rush Limbaff and Dr. Laura.

Because I was one of the few who spoke out initially, I found myself in a rather bizarre situation of getting a phone call from an LA Times reporter, in the teachers' lounge on my lunch break one day. I said something like, "I believe that patriotism leads to nationalism, which almost inevitably leads to jingoism" which was published and widely quoted. (For a while after that if you Googled me, you would come up with right-wing websites raving about how I should be removed from my job. At Christmas that year my elderly and ultra-conservative Aunt Jean said, "I heard your name mentioned on Dr. Laura's show. She mispronounced your name, but I knew it was you." Yeah, well ...)

It gets stranger. About a week later I got a phone call from writer Mark Singer, a regular contributor to The New Yorker, wanting to interview me for an article. And then, one morning a photographer from The New Yorker showed up at my school to photograph my class reciting the Pledge. That photograph was published on a double page spread in the Nov. 26, 2001 issue. It's a motley crew in the photo, and the photographer was unhappy with the light where the flag was, so she actually took the picture where the kids are facing a banner proclaiming "PEACE" which I had hung up. Subversion R Us.

(And about 6 months after that, the author Mary Pipher -- who recently returned an award and resigned from the American Psychological Association in protest over their weak stance on torture -- requested permission to use that photo on the cover of her book The Middle of Everywhere: The World's Refugees Come To Our Town. Weird, eh?)

In another hilarious development, my principal brought in a recording of national anthems from around the world. She was away one day, but left directions for the secretary to "play the anthem." The hapless secretary didn't realize she meant our anthem, and played the national anthem of China!

Oh yeah, and the Pledge? After a huge media circus of a meeting, attended by busloads of Christian fundamentalists from out of town, Minutemen in full costume, and some normal people, the school board decided that principals would lead the Pledge over the P.A. system every day, but it must be preceded by this statement: