This is a difficult thing for a great many, and this difficulty should not be scorned. One should love the place of their birth, it is only natural. But we do not live in the most natural world out there, not anymore. The truth is that the world has become more mishapen, and perfidious than before so that it is difficult to appreciate the place of your birth.
But one should examine also the meaning of the term born, in the Oxford dictionary it roughly means; ‘verb come into existence as a result of birth.’ Now it must be asked also, ‘why were we born in the countries we were born into?’
Both are complex philosophical questions. To some (even myself), it is a struggle to appreciate the country one is born into, as there are many unlovely parts to these nations. Some such as those that populate the Middle-East are difficult to love, given the nature of the regimes there, there is also those countries in Africa where difficulty is the rule of the day, and countries such as Russia where tragedy seems to be a constant in recent history. There are also countries such as Japan that are serene and beautiful, yet full of sudden bursts of tragedy such as those created by tsunamis and earthquakes.
It is easy to love countries such as France and Scotland, with their timeless beauty, their hardy and God fearing people, and natural love for liberty and justice. But they too have warts, as they have powerful elites who despise their lands. The Comyns have been purged from Scotland, and yet their heirs, and those of the perfidious David II Brus have come in force to grind down Scotland and her naturally beautiful sons and daughters, with wicked ideology that has no place there and that runs contrary to the ideals of liberty and the Declaration of Arbroath Abbey. The ideological forces unleashed by the likes of Robespierre & Pétain in France have weakened her, and undermined her natural glory, her pride and her beauty. Yet still she remains a beauteous maiden, who outshines all of her peers and makes them shake jealously, and look longingly at her form and shape.
Countries such as Poland are diminished but still great, Hungary remains unchallenged in the dreaming West. America has diminished also, the forces of madness unleashed and the menace of conflict and division weakening her, so that everyday is a constant fight, an endless tirade and struggle to keep one’s pride intact.
Yet still these countries gleam and glitter, their jewels beautiful to behold even to this day, jewels that are known by the names of ‘culture, accomplishments, literature and history’. Yet in recent days those states of Vietnam and Argentina and El Salvador have begun to shine and glitter, have come into their own once more. Reborn in magnificence that may someday be unparalleled so that they shine almost as brightly as Scotland and France once did.
Other states, of once incredible dignity and accomplishments such as Ireland, England and Canada lie by the wayside. If Ireland has reason to hope though, the latter two seem utterly used, and on the cusp of some dark, nameless future. The question is; what can be done to cure the malady that haunts England? I do not know. But love is what she needs most. Love and faith that she might shake off the illness that haunts her, and that she might shine as bright as before. Her people have more reason than many other people on this planet to love her, for she has history, culture and literature aplenty to boast of (near as much as France or Japan, and has more than proven a worthy match to them in a myriad of ways, with her sons and daughters of a beautiful nature).
Love for one’s country is especially difficult for those of disappeared or conquered nations. What should the West Berliner, or Eastern Germany love? And what of the sons and daughters of Québec? They who love their land, but are a conquered people, a people reduced to abject servitude just as Judea was in the days of Babylon? Should they love Canada? Certainly if they wish to. Choice is everything and it must be, for there is much to appreciate about Canada. Just as there is to love an independent Québec, which has long been the envy of Canada, the wealthiest, the most culturally advanced and the fairest of the provinces. It is through her that the bounties of Europe, the power of the Occident flows into Canada, and it is thanks to her that Canada has enjoyed and owes much of her prosperity.
As to those of the states of East & West Berlin/East & West Germany, they are in a infinitely more complex situation. The Germanies they lived in, in their youths are gone. Nothing remains of them, and they have only the modern Germany which is little more than a tool for the European Union (that great enemy of all European states). The solution may in fact be found in the annals of history; for at one time the Saxon was simply a Saxon, and not a German, the Bavarian a Bavarian, and the Prussian a Prussian. Germany herself was born from the remnants in many ways of the Holy Roman Empire, which was formed from the union of a great many principalities and mini-states.
Does this mean that these smaller German states’ patriots and Québécois patriots scorn other Germans or the Canadians? No. It simply means that they are a different people, and given that there is a shared history, love and respect is natural. Canada may be descended from the English who conquered Nouvelle-France, but this does not mean that the men and women of to-day are enemies of Québec (or vice-versa). Just as the Germans of Saxony, or of Bavaria are not rivals, but cousins, ones who should look on each other with respect and appreciation. Linguistics and history have made them brothers and sisters, and this means that they are bound to one another by destiny as much as by any other reason.
It has been written by Mark Twain that all the French have a mother, and her name is France. How true this is of even those French born in other countries, for our culture and civilisation is that of France. Because of this, we belong as much to her as we might say to Gabon, Cote d’Ivoire, or Québec, and may find in God a father, and in France a mother.
This is what it means to love your country. Should you ever find yourself orphaned, or alone in the world, adrift after losing one’s parents, one must remember that one still has a mother; thy country. Americans shall always have their native state and the United States. The Scots belong always to the Highland homeland that birthed them, the French have France, and the Polish Poland, and the Japanese Japan. This is how it has always been, and how it shall always be. Men and women must love their countries, their people and must honour them as one might a beloved parent.
And should one take up in an adoptive country, one should love that country just as much. To do otherwise is dishonourable and a sign of weakness, it is proof of one’s ungrateful nature and of the darkest con within man’s nature. Adoptive homelands are to be honoured, loved and prayed for, since it is their people who have taken thee into the bosom of their family. To fail to do so, should merit immediate deportation and rejection. An adoptive homeland is a great gift, one that is beautiful beyond words especially if one’s children are born there or one’s wife or husband are from there, for it is an in-law who adopts and cares for you, and who has sacrificed that you might partake of the joy and goodness of the adoptive country.
Nations are crucial, love natural and hatred for one’s home an abomination. Purge it from thy soul, and if one should be from an annexed or dominated people, and you favour your personal home to the other, that is fine also. Never compromise that love, for to do so is to prove ungrateful.
Those who accuse you of ‘ingratitude’ or of being ‘false’ are themselves false, and ungrateful, and are to be scorned and ignored for they contribute nothing and show a lack of chivalry. But to be a Saxon need not mean hatred of West-Germans, or being in love with Québec and the ideal of her independence does not necessarily mean one hates Canada. It is simply part of the desire for freedom, to live by the laws of one’s own people, and may well be an alternative to civil-strife and continued bitterness.
To those of Canada, to love Alberta or Québec more, is good. To hate and blame one another though is unnatural and means to give into the manipulations of those who despise both. To those who love Texas and wish her to leave, this is fine just as it is fine to love Texas and wish to remain, same with Alberta or Québec. Home-countries are difficult to define at times, and the bonds of family are the most important of links that ties oneself to a country, just as it is the mountains, forests and rivers that tie oneself to a nation.
I absolutely respect leaving, I’m so sorry you’ve been put in that position. I hope your next home is more welcoming. It’s so meaningful to me to be able to talk about these things with people from different parts of the world, like yourself. It reminds me that people all around the globe feel all the same things and maybe exactly where we are on that globe shouldn’t matter so much as how we treat the people we’re on it with.
Thank you for writing this. It's very powerful, and beautifully composed. This issue is something I struggle with a lot. I'm in the United States and, boy, is that somethin' nowadays. My family and I often talk about the question of leaving out of fear that it will become unbearably unsafe, even going so far as to say 'We really should leave'... but we never make any plans and I suspect we never will. I sometimes think about the Jews in 1930s Germany who saw everything that was going on but didn't leave while they could, and it's easy to think they were foolish and you'd be different, but then there's this love of home, this faith that the country of your birth wouldn't really try and destroy you, that makes you stick with it even as things get darker. I appreciate how you write about the love of adoptive countries as well, for those who do leave for one reason or another, but as you say it really is like loving a parent. Sometimes parents treat us terribly but, on some level, we can hold on to loving them anyway. Maybe we should or shouldn't, I don't know, and maybe a lot of people don't, but I do. It does make me want to try harder and fix things, and maybe that's what the world needs more of right now. It's a complicated issue. You write about it well.