to me, it means feeling a sense of belonging to something likened to one’s cherished retreat
bet it a country, an identity, or a cause for which one stand up and take on the heat from the rest of the shielding all that one believes in.
patriotism can also be this sense of being a good social human being, acting in a way of caring and life-respecting person, a communicative able-body, who is mindful for the protection of the planet, and other life forms.
language, culture, creed comes in to play, as one realizes the link with one’s ‘background’, namely ethnicity, geographical nationality, faith and group affiliation with a purpose, of propagating shared values within and if need be, without the group .
& to take it a step further, how we match that with our ‘fore-ground’ i.e. living in a pluralistic multi cultural society, where the order of the day is every one’s right to what they want to do.
it is a find line to walk on.
patriotism can make or break nations if it goes and is adapted in a wrong direction of actions…
human history is replete with such examples of national spoliations.
nonetheless, i feel that being patriotic is a good thing, as long as one identifies with the good aspects of that, for which one’s patriotism is displayed.
I am Pakistani and I call Pakistan my country.
I love my homeland not because it is a piece of land where I belong to but because it is meant to be a geographical piece of land to obtain some other objectives which is the implementation of Islamic politico-socio-economic system. If this is excluded (a place to implement Islamic System) I will never display any petriotism towards Pakistan. My patriotism about Pakistan stem from the fact that it is supposed to be an Islamic country. In other words, my patriotism is for my faith and Pakistan is directly related to it.
Stated this, any country formed on these basis will have the same place in my heart......
Lahore 981: I agree with you. And i think that if don't see the things according to Islamic politico-socio-economic system", should be more patriotic and try to implement these?. And same applies to all cultures/religions.
A country or society needs more patriotism when its in trouble.
So one concept of patriotism would be to keep fighting against the wrong deeds. One doesn't have to be in power. Even a small piece of writing can do a job.
Another concept would be to keep evaluating our own deeds. If we have positive attitude, if we are somewhat useful - we are patriot.
I forgot to mention this quote by the 19th century writer George Curtis,
"A man's country is not a certain area of land, of mountains, rivers, and woods but it is a principle; and patriotism is the loyalty to that principle".
I won't try to define the exploited terms like "Patriotism" specially in the context of the term "Pakistan".
Actually, Country is quite a remote sort of concept to get hard primitive roots in oneself. The roots belongs to culture, And it would be harsh to say that every country has its own culture, because one single country can have more then one cultures. **The term "Patriotism" originally is related to one's affinity to its surrounding, when one's surrounding becomes part of one's self. **The primitve man treated everything as it contained something like a soul, he was not capable enough to differentiate between his feelings and raw emotion-less and feeling-less dead surrounding. We have some part of it yet and rather we built over it which makes us capable to build concepts like patriotism. It actually binds people and contributes to their pride, but it also allows states to exploit people by appealing to primitive roots, rather then to reason.
thanks, all of u folks, for sharing ur frame of minds about exactly patriotism means...to you, and in this situation, we need to see whether we have multiple affinities, then what?
Lahore's point is well taken,
if the state given state deviates from its ideological shape and function on a map,
it will lose its strength in being revered and held on to, as all those bad things are happening which clearly de emphasize the reason for its existence.
so, we have to mindful of where our affinities lie and how best we protect what is ours. that is in the case of a land, where i was born. always, no matter what. it is mine to love and to sacrifice for with all my might to up hold its good things and try all i can to root out all the bad in it - that to me is patriotism.
i’m not saying that we should undermine others and call ourselves the best,
that is not patriotism - that is supremacist and greedy, narcissistic, unfair, endlessly arrogant and hedonistic in nature.
but, in defense of patriotism i must say that i have the right to defend my country and my people, if they are being wronged.
i think so, it is only my opinion.
Lahore's point is well taken,
if the state given state deviates from its ideological shape and function on a map, it will lose its strength in being revered and held on to, as all those bad things are happening which clearly de emphasize the reason for its existence.
This is too naive to be philosophical, Many possible questions could be raised, The worst is that "change" is named as "daviation". Here in Pakistan, we treat religion and country the same way i.e. "matters of faith".
A change in an ideology can bring both prosperity and destruction. It depends on the nature of change, Accepting ideology as faith and considering change as deviation i.e. equivalent to sin, is totally absurd. Important thing is not that, on what ideology a state is based when its created(still a debate-able point) but, How it can work now.
i see ur point. but please note, that i did not at all say that change of any kind is bad, if any thing, i think that for any culture to even be alive, evolution is crucial. but what i am wanting to emphasize here is this: the ideological vision is the end goal and the methods of realizing itself as an instrument of symbolic existence, then remember that ignoble means to a noble end, will make the noble end, ignoble. therefore, wavering on seeing the universal distinction between moral rights and wrongs is a bad thing.
if Pakistan was created on ideological basis as a state that is pure of cultures and ideas which are counter intuitive to the purity of Islamic system of social interaction or economics, then, such practices and behaviors have no point of existing in Pakistan, nor they should be condoned by Pakistani.
adapting good things from other cultures is one thing,
feeling blasé' over the 'market mentality' of the corporate and 'God excused ' existence will get us no where.
and these two are the staples of corrupt societies everywhere, be it within Muslim countries and establishments or without.
best,
Dush
A change in an ideology can bring both prosperity and destruction. It depends on the nature of change, Accepting ideology as faith and considering change as deviation i.e. equivalent to sin, is totally absurd. Important thing is not that, on what ideology a state is based when its created(still a debate-able point) but, How it can work now.
As i said earlier that its debatable that pakistan is based on an ideology which is islam, Secondly Its not that you take a change and compare it with islam and then adopt or drop it if its according to that.
You got to take what works, So what i'm trying to say is that, you shouldn't assume the ideology as people use to assume faith, you got to take options which work.
Like let say we stick with the "two-nations" theory and start projecting it on all plateforms as our main ideology. But there are problems, because there are alot of muslims in india as well. So why they are indians and why we are pakistanis? So you had to develop what works for you? Further you can't develop a romantic sort of view of the country, based on ideology, ignoring where its going looking at what is happening in Sarhad and Balochistan, Do you think that its because they are going away from islam i.e. the so called ideology. Obviously not, So? We need to workout and know what this country is? rather then going on with an assumed ideology.
what this country is?
corruption, economic-disparity within the country
injustice
double standards,
as a nation, as a country, low morale, no preparation to be self-sufficient
no national character
all kinds of bribery
& individual as well as social apathy
so, that is where we are at.
and in this case, without the string of religion attached to this purpose of having a separate state.
& it is ours!!!
so, what can we do to turn the tables around?
there has to be a guideline.
there will be a sense of uncertainty
but where there is a will, there is a way.
please know that we cannot and we ought not, conveniently, work by way of copying what works in other societies, without having understood, whether that is better for us or not.
i am particularly saying that modeling our political, social, and economic systems, after non Muslim countries/ india or a bad Muslim country's model that is a sell out to a non-Muslim, country, we will never succeed.
we need to take care of our own borders and not feel that we need to please somebody, another country, another nation, who has other motives.
if we really think, u will find that globalization which is also named cultural pluralism, is a gray phenomenon - something that has no room to allow 'indigenous' flourishing of the countries who have become home to this.
instead, the dominant culture is, at the end of the day, of the markets.
money allows every nothing and lack of it, allows nothing.
we don’t want that our future and our generations' futures are pledged due to the manipulations and insider and outsider corruptions.
u cannot negate this reality.
these are deep things, long durations or decades are witness to the imbuement of this kind of intrusions.
one way, we think of it and say, no, there is good in it & that is a very simplistic, self defeating notion.
and more realistically, we can say that, No, there has to be balance, even if we feel pro-cultural-pluralism.
and on a personal level, what we can do, is that be optimistic as it is a survival thing to do.
but, also, be firm in ur resolve, to not allow others,
to accept u to give up all that is yours. we can still be friendly Muslims, we can still be a lot more better humans and we can be teachers to those who have lost their souls to materialism.
faith and hope is the driving force. what will bring it about is unity among us, as a nation. and a self accountability to do well, with in our country , as well as outside of it.
dushi
You got to take what works, So what i'm trying to say is that, you shouldn't assume the ideology as people use to assume faith, you got to take options which work.
Like let say we stick with the "two-nations" theory and start projecting it on all plateforms as our main ideology. But there are problems, because there are alot of muslims in india as well. So why they are indians and why we are pakistanis? So you had to develop what works for you? Further you can't develop a romantic sort of view of the country, based on ideology, ignoring where its going looking at what is happening in Sarhad and Balochistan, Do you think that its because they are going away from islam i.e. the so called ideology. Obviously not, So? We need to workout and know what this country is? rather then going on with an assumed ideology.
A change in an ideology can bring both prosperity and destruction. It depends on the nature of change, Accepting ideology as faith and considering change as deviation i.e. equivalent to sin, is totally absurd. Important thing is not that, on what ideology a state is based when its created(still a debate-able point) but, How it can work now.
Words,
I'll help to relieve your tension.
Right now I am a bit busy. I'll write a resply to your point against "Pakistan vs patriotism" I have answered this post giving Pakistan AS AN EXAMPLE. So stop posting this childish reply again and again. Keep your itellegence to you brainy.... write what you think, and leave my opinion to me....
But let me say one thing. Patriotism is a word being related to a "country" in this question. In my opinion, I do no think I can be patriotic to a country (in my case it is Pakistan) in itself. Culture, language, and etc etc bear no value to me in case of patriotism. If you or others define patriotism on these basis, I am sorry, I cannot. However, I like the culture, language, food etc etc....
Land, being the place where one is born, yes, I have strong affiliations with it but this again is not a reason for me to be patriotic in a sense what the world takes it...
I am only "Patriotic" to my faith and if a country is formed on this pronciple, I am read to die for that piece of land too. I'll not think about a country in this way if what is in perspetrive is culture, langiage etc.....
If this is what you think, I cannot argue with a jerk like you who is so ignorant. It is a hard, irrevokable fact that Pakistan was obtained in the name of Islam. And nothing else…
If you have a problem with that, I can disprove you here in this form, right here… Aa jatey hai uth key kaheen sey Pakistan Islam key naam par naheen bana, to aur kis key naam par bana hai?
And your second point is once again making me think of the fact if you are even a Muslim…
Dushwari,
I got your point, that we can’t just copy from the other nations, i.e. what works for them not necessarily be working for us as well, and further that pluralism isn’t a thing which will allow flourishing the indegineous roots.
Actually, I never said that we should adopt changes from others, without looking that, will it work for us or not. The theme of your view point is that “islam” is what is ours, while if you look at my first post, I think its not just islam, these are cultures and they are more then one, Islam is represented by people from different cultures differently. So from that background, i think we need to work on common grouds, and the real indegineous grounds are cultural. In my opinion we yet lack a real pakistani identity shared by all who live here.
I want to share a simple experience with you, I had been in cinema in all our the country, i remember in lahore, when i was in cinema and before movie the national anthem started, most of the people got up and very few were sitting, but in peshawar when i visited a cinema, two or three people got up for anthem and after feeling awkward they sat down as well. People don’t do such things when they feel strong association with there country, So thats why I said that we need to work out the ground realities and see how we are going as a country?
Mr Lahore 981, Mind your language, You need to mature a bit more for this forum.
This is a philosophy forum, atleast here you can concentrate on subject matter rather then what is the religion of whom. Its not important/relevant that Am I muslim.
Few months back i read a book which discussed, Haider-Abad of 1930’s,40’s and Pakistan of 50’s and 60’s written by a famous leftist. That book contained the scripts from another book, which was written by a “Molvi” of 1930’s Haider-Abad. I’m sure that if you read those scripts, you will directly say that, that molvi was not muslim . Thats how Islam changed, It became safocated even breathing makes you non-muslim, So what kind of positive change we can expect from a modern version of this religion.
I’ll repeat that we shouldn’t need to look at things that either they are islamic or not, we should look at them that either they work or not.
points well taken, everybody!!
this is a public thread. and everybody has the right to their opinion.
Lahore, no more presumptions on Words. you have a point of patriotic spirit and it is commendable, at least to me.
and Words, no more assumptions on what ideaology and patriotism has in their link to each other. u know it just as well as we all do. & u cannot generalise the vibe from the experience of cinema.
