The love of ones country is a splendid thing. But why should love stop at the border?To me, it seems a dreadful indignity to have a soul controlled by geography.It is the love of country that has lighted and that keeps glowing the holy fire of patriotism.However, each man must for himself alone decide what is right and what is wrong, which course is patriotic and which isnt. You cannot shirk this and be a man. To decide against your conviction is to be an unqualified and excusable traitor, both to yourself and to your country, let men label you as they may.I have no sense of nationalism, only a cosmic consciousness of belonging to the human family. But it is not easy to see how the more extreme forms of nationalism can long survive when men have seen the Earth in its true perspective as a single small globe against the stars.If I knew something that would serve my country but would harm mankind, I would never reveal it; for I am a citizen of humanity first and by necessity, and a citizen of Botswana second, and only by accident.We need a type of patriotism that recognizes the virtues of those who are opposed to us. The old manifest destiny idea ought to be modified so that each nation has the manifest destiny to do the best it can, and that without cant, without the assumption of self-righteousness and with a desire to learn to the uttermost from other nations.Can anything be stupider than that a man has the right to kill me because he lives on the other side of a river and his ruler has a quarrel with mine, though I have not quarrelled with him myself?It is not for him to pride himself who loveth his own country, but rather for him who loveth the whole world. The earth is but one country and mankind its citizens.
Posted on: Tue, 23 Dec 2014 05:59:09 +0000
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