So
the Nicola Sturgeon is rallying her followers at another
pro-independence parade today. On this march the word patriotism will be
upon everyone’s lips and there will be much waving of the Saltire
and the royalist Lion Rampant. The Socialist Party can agree with the
Indian writer, Arundhati Roy that “Flags
are bits of colored cloth that governments use first to shrink-wrap
people’s minds and then as ceremonial shrouds to bury the dead.”
Patriotism requires
allegiance to the flag, which means obedience and readiness to kill
another father, mother, brother, sister. Scots claim to be a
peace-loving people, opposed to violence and hate bloodshed yet Scots
regiments policed the British Empire with brutality and swelled the
Scottish hearts with pride. To-day we too often see the spectacle of
the working classes uniting to applaud the crimes of their
exploiters. Such is the logic of patriotism. The message of “My
country right or wrong” will be seen for the abomination that it
is. When we deny the patriotic lie, we clear the path for when all
separate nationalities are united into a universal one family, where
“Man to Man, the world o'er, Shall brothers be for a' that.”
If
Scotland be our motherland then it is a cruel stepmother who we
detest. Working class internationalism
springs from the recognition that the working people of all lands
have a common interest in creating a world in which the exploitation
of man by man no longer exists. Scotland is
not "our" country. The title and land deeds belong to our
masters. Why should people strive for its independence? There are
only two countries in the world: that of the privileged and that of
the dispossessed. It is a fact known since the time of the ancient
Greeks when Plato observed "Any
city, however small, is in fact divided into two, one the city of the
poor, the other of the rich; these are at war with one another."
Our
compatriots are not the Scottish capitalists. Our compatriots are our
fellow-workers of the whole world, who wage everywhere the same
battle as ourselves for the establishment of a better society.
Socialism
has ended all national sentiments. Patriotism assumes that our planet
is divided into little regions, each one surrounded by a wall and an
iron gate. Those who have had the fortune of being born inside these
walls consider themselves better than those living outside. Such a
belief poison the minds of the children and if need be the sacrifice
of children in wars. The Socialist Party finds nothing reasonable to
inspire any of our fellow-workers in the thought that they are slaves
of one governmental system run by their masters rather than another
and a rival one. Hence our adoption of the slogan “Proletarians of
all lands unite.”
We
all know what nationalism means today. A gang of thieves by fraud to
acquire the office of government and gain the the seat power. There
are those left-nationalists who tell us that socialism is
international in principle, but not necessarily anti-national. But
they forget to say that internationalism socialism must inevitably
counteract the importance of the nation-state, and weaken the
sentiment of patriotism. The cause of the working class is lost if
they allow ourselves to be caught again in the net of nationalism.
The left-nationalists try to persuade us that the resurrection of a
nation of by-gone times is of primary importance rather than the
unity of humanity. Nationalism is objectionable since it means the
placing of one’s own country, its interests and well-being, above
those of the rest of humanity, invariably at the expense of the
welfare and interests of other peoples. Dedication to the socialist
ideal rather than devotion to a patch of particular soil on which one
happens to have been born is what motivates the members of the
Socialist Party
If only the Socialist Party could persuade just one among all those demonstrating for national sovereignty for Scotland to see how you are being hoodwinked and duped by nationalist lies, and instead to join us in the World Socialist Movement to hasten the day when the working class of the world will finally abandon the national flags of their masters, and range themselves under the red banner of international socialism and solidarity, our efforts will not have been in vain. Let us do away with nationalism, patriotism and national chauvinism altogether and substitute in its place the “ internationalism” of the class-conscious worker. It is not a question of fighting for the political independence of one nation, but for a new society for all lands – for the Socialist Commonwealth.
“Ubi
bene, ibi patria,” (Where
it goes well with me, there is my country.)
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