How can we be proud of being Americans?

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By Roland Michel Tremblay (about the author) Page 1 of 3 page(s)

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Call a referendum as soon as 50,000 walk out. Whenever 50,000 citizens across the country decide to walk on the streets to denounce something, that they feel somehow it is important enough for them to get out and denounce that something, surely there should be a device in place to automatically launch a referendum on the subject. So everyone could individually vote on the issue, since we can no longer trust politicians. Or else, where is democracy then, what more do we need to do to convince others that their decisions are wrong and unwanted?

National pride has been for far too long a weapon of mass destruction. It has been used to justify the worst atrocities, like illegal wars and torture, in the name of honor and nationalism, all under a floating flag over some land somewhere. We'll have to think twice from now on before acting collectively on pride, we'll have to pay attention and see through the manipulation of the masses by any kind of authority, be it the government or religions. Are we never going to learn the lessons of history?

Pride. Proud of being who you are, of belonging somewhere, of your personal accomplishments, of your collective achievements. All sounds very important, and yet insignificant, unworthy of any attention. When you take a good look back, what is there truly to be proud of? I can't think of anything. And yet, pride can be such a powerful weapon, as long as you have the public vote, as long as you can manipulate the public opinion to your own advantage so it suits your agenda, even your war agenda.

You might find it difficult to identify to a group if, for example, they are all Black, or all Chinese, or all Indians, and you are a White British born in Manchester. But if you are a White British born in Manchester, why should you have more in common with all the other White British born in Manchester? To the point that you all have to support the same football team (soccer team) and hate all other teams and British cities, in what we call healthy rivalries?

If you are an American born in Tulsa Oklahoma, or if you are an American born in Boston Massachusetts, there you are, already it is not so simple anymore to be proud, to have a sense of belonging to a collective. Do you have then the same identity? Are you proud to be Republican or Democrat? Are you proud of being White American or Black American? Can you be proud of being a human being when compared with all the other animals in the animal kingdom? And when will you ever be proud of being from Earth, if ever? How many millions have seen UFOs and aliens, can we all be nuts? I wonder.

I was never into sports. I was never really into politics. I was never truly into being proud of being French-Canadian or Canadian. I was never proud to be American (Canada is in America). I never had to be proud of belonging to any group or team of any kind. For me national pride is a mystery.

I find it difficult to understand how pride can be used to create a sense of belonging, strong enough to justify going to war with any nation. We are Americans, we are the strongest nation in the world, we will take the world by force, because we can, we are Americans. Our values are the best in the world, everyone should want to be American, to claim our flag as their own, because it means freedom and democracy. Not so true nowadays, but never mind about that for now.

A flag is often the symbol of our pride as a nation. It is the argument to justify anything. To provide a sense of belonging, to give a reason to our existence in a collective. I was never part of any collective, I always considered myself an individual, never really paying too much attention to international borders and their significance, apart from complaining about how hard it is to cross these borders and go live somewhere else.

I guess that pride comes at a cost. That if you are not like them somehow, becoming part of them might just turn out to be impossible. And if somehow you succeed, then you might as well be a traitor to your own people, your own nation, a traitor to yourself and what you personally believe in.

Unless of course you forget who you are, where you come from, your flag, your identity, who you really are, and start supporting Manchester United, just like everyone else. Assimilation complete, you are now a true Brit, even if you speak Russian or Punjabi, or French in my case. Who should care about Manchester United or Chelsea?

Or else, let's then eradicate and take over Iraq/Iran, that has always been the main so-called collective agenda since the very day I was born. Will we ever, together, succeed? This is all part of the same thing, local and national pride. This is how we are being manipulated.

Why should you be proud of anything just because you are born in a certain place on this planet? Why should you be proud of a flag just because you are living within the borders of a land that this flag symbolizes? Why do you feel the need to belong in any way with a certain group of people, and then be ready to go to war with another group with perhaps different ideas or religion?

National identity is the first step towards war. City identity is the first step towards city rivalries and chauvinism. You would not think of using weapons to kill the people in the next city or county, why should you feel the need to go to war with another nation?

Because you are still proud of being not only from that city, county, province or State, but also of that country. And well, it must be different when you cross those international borders. The only language they must be able to understand is the one spoken by bombs. Urgh, where has my logic failed?

You could never be proud yet of being a human being compared with all the other animal species on this planet. You could never be proud yet of being a human belonging to Planet Earth. Until at least there is only one nation in this world, one flag, and hence, only one identity.

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Roland Michel Tremblay is an author. More information here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roland_Michel_Tremblay

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