The Four Seasons of Patriotism

Barack Obama, unarguably one of the greatest contemporary American Presidents, is quoted to have said: 

"We, the People, recognize that we have responsibilities as well as rights; that our destinies are bound together; that a freedom which only asks what's in it for me, a freedom without a commitment to others, a freedom without love or charity or duty or patriotism, is unworthy of our founding ideals, and those who died in their defense".

One of the most important aspects that his statement highlights is that there can be no freedom without commitment; that there can be no freedom without patriotism.

It is perhaps interesting to sit back and look at ourselves on occasions when we feel patriotic. We will be amused to find that our patriotism is of four seasons.

The first season starts with the arrival of national days like our independence day, constitution day, etc. With the advent of social media, we get a flood of messages, often repetitive and from people of whom you are convinced that they are incapable thinking beyond the shadow of their shoes. But then what the heck? You get reeducated on the significance of such occasions; the people who penned your national anthems; what the founders of your constitution said or unsaid; the great bind (I still am on the look out for it for the past half a century) that connects us one people; etc, etc. Of course for the majority of kids (I am not sure if kids could be 16 and below. After all every one is a kid to their parents), such days are usually granted holidays to spend time with family and friends.

The second season arrives with the disembarkation of a coffin that is wrapped in the colors of the country. The media makes a beeline to the funerals in which smartly dressed soldiers (police, etc) lift their guns on to their shoulders and fire empty shells into the air. The whole community gathers around the glare of cameras to tell the world how proud they are that the man in the casket died. What they do not say of course is how happier they are that their own youngster finished his engineering or MBA from MITs, Harvards, UCLAs and the like, and is entrenched in a war with corporate honchos that is much more grueling. They regret that the sacrifices that their wards have made (think of those board meetings lasting into mid nights, those un-celebrated birthdays and anniversaries, those missed holidays or time with family) simply go unsung.

The third season arrives with dazzling insights. Standing in front of the jury and judges for having committed such innocuous acts like cheating millions out of unsuspecting investors, declaring solvency  after building empires out of the sweat of millions, and such like. One does wonder why freedom doesn't include the freedom to loot? Is anybody holding the early Americans, Australians, Britons, French, Dutch, Spaniards and Portuguese (did I leave out any one...) for what they did to the natives just to get hold of the wealth of the land. Why then are they making such a fuss now? After all, I am no Columbus or Captain Cook. It's my own country and these others seem to have what I desire of them...

The fourth is a season of opportunities. It usually belongs to the political class and sometimes to the wealthy and influential movers and makers of the nations. They, of course, have the privilege of invoking it in times when they find that the going is not exactly not in the directions that are to the liking of their ilk.

The four seasons of patriotism apply to every sovereign territory that we may belong. They are universal. And, these are the seasons that apply to every region irrespective of the terrain that any nation can claim of. They do not belong to a terrain or climate. They are universal. That is the beauty of patriotism.