"Patriotism
in its simplest, clearest, and most indubitable meaning is nothing
but an instrument for the attainment of the government's ambitious
and mercenary aims and a renunciation of human dignity, common sense
and conscience by the governed and a slavish submission to those who
hold-power. That is what is really preached wherever patriotism is
championed. Patriotism is slavery."
- Tolstoy
Workers
have no country and patriotism is a delusion and nationalism is a
snare. Nationalism
denies humanity, and instead interposes nation, and denies humanity
to other nations. It also emphasises the idea that the world
cannot change, since the nation is an organic whole as it is and is
unchangeable. Let's not forget, that nationalism doesn't "just
happen" it is the product of a vast process of material
production, from mass media, to civic performance. The material
culture of sports helps produce, reproduce and reify nationalist
ideas. International sporting events are perhaps the finest
example of nationalism being expressed after war. With the
ruling class, patriotism is the mask of self-interest: with the
working class it is the brand of utter ignorance. Let us be
internationalists.
Working
people have no country of their own. Their land is the property of a
master class and the worker rarely owns enough to bury his or her
coffin. Patriotism
runs counter
to the interests of working-people. It is therefore opposed by the
Socialist Party who do not offer "policies for Britain"
etc, but demand a world community without frontiers. The aims
and ambitions of nationalists and patriots are not identical with the
principles and ideals of international socialism, and that there is,
in fact, no necessary connection between the two things. Too often in
history workers have been urged to concern themselves with the
interests of nations - to fight to defend one against the other, or
to establish new ones.
Let
every Scot face the fact that Scottish nationalism is not socialism
and that the achievement of the SNP even up to the highest professed
ideals of traditional patriotism, namely, the complete separation of
Scotland from Britain, would not “free” Scotland one iota in any
sense satisfactory to the world socialist and absolutely demanded by
socialist principles. This struggle of Scottish “patriots” to
“free” Scotland is therefore from the our point of view an utter
chimera. In the name of humanity and of sanity let every
international socialist in the United Kingdom have done with the
traditional follies and foolishness of nationalism or of unionism.
Let us direct all our energies to the emancipating the workers from
the chains of wage-slavery. Every professed socialist who lends
countenance and encouragement to the deluded Scottish separatists in
their vain efforts to gain a sovereign Scotland is guilty either of
betraying socialist principles or be ignorant of what socialist
principles really are, a knave or a fool. Associating the
concepts of nationalism and socialism has done nothing but to add to
the confusion in working-class minds about what socialists really
stand for. Scottish nationalism has more than its fair share of
leftist confusionists.
The
working class of the world have a common bond that transcends every
tie of race or nationality. What matters the name of the country of
your birth, if you are a slave in that country? What binds you
to the capitalist? You are chained to his machines, in his factories
and workshops, and driven by the lash of hunger to produce wealth for
him while you sink deeper into poverty. You are the robbed, he is the
robber; you are the slave, he is the master. A bond of shame, a tie
that is a degradation to every wage-slave and patriotism is the
acceptance and approval of this bond.
When
hands clasp across national boundaries in solidarity the workers will
know that borders and nations have no meaning or significance for
them. These two, nationalism and international socialism (and there
can be no socialism that is not international) are opposite as the
poles, as antagonistic as fire and water. When patriotism and
socialism enter the worker's mind, patriotism will be quenched or
socialism will evaporate. The socialist patriot is an impossibility.
If any is loyal to those in the class that exploits, he or she is a
traitor to our own class. The capitalist class will practice
nationalism and preach patriotism just so long as it serves to
obscure the class struggle and keep the workers divided. When
they face an enlightened and united working class, they themselves
ignore every boundary in their need to combat the workers. The
Socialist Party does not care whether the capitalist class divide
the UK among themselves. What concerns us, is the class ownership,
which we work and organise to abolish. Nationalism is at the top of
the list of political illusions used to blind capitalism's victims.
Workers own no country, so why should we care which section of the
class of thieves owns which national portion? Workers have a world to
win, not nations to fight for.
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