national pride

human grouping and the inevitable ensuing xenophobia are disturbing phenomena. whether the group be based on race, language, religion, nationality or length of one's nose, once people start huddling or even drifting towards people more like themselves, the basic tenets of civilization start faltering.

living beings have some unspoken rules they follow when they live in the proximity of each other. for instance "we will not deliberately hurt each other" or "we will not steal from each other, openly". you take these tenets for granted and rarely ever expect to be stabbed by random strangers while walking down the footpath. these considerations of yours are rewarded by social acceptance ( which allows for trade and shared resources, higher security... and further down the line, government, public transport etc ). if however you decide to follow the rules only with people from your own nationality ( or nose length ) and give less respect / consideration to a foreigner, you probably will continue to get the requisite social acceptance ( from the majority of your neighbours. you don't care about what the minority thinks of you anyway ). this only becomes a problem when you are in a foreign land and the people there start following this ideology.

xenophobia seems to be abundant and common despite the advance of communication and trade [ some would say, advancement of civilization, but i would laugh at them. "civilization, bah!" ]. you'd think it'd be easy now [ even necessary ] for people to interact with people outside "their group". now telugu people write software in new jersey and australians run bars in phuket, and yet this "global village" hasn't changed our attitudes towards the people who live on the next street.

in this atmosphere, it's scary that educated, level-headed people would show a strong nationalist leaning. being a nationalist is a strong group tendency for people belonging to the same politically demarcated country. in mumbai, for instance, it is necessary for movie halls to play the national anthem before every movie ( the indian national anthem, not the russian, which sounds cool ). everybody stands up in respect, when the anthem is played. inside a movie hall. with buckets of popcorn and coke in their hands. some even try to sing ( so much for pride and respect, punctuating cheap entertainment with a national anthem ). there seems to be a lot of this "pride" thing around. talking to people shows how much public hatred can be generated by drawing a political boundary ( angry indians after a terrorist incident, for instance. the line being the mcmahon line ).

what seems to be so incredible is the fact that so much emotion ( whether pride or hatred ) can be based on something as trivial as an imaginary line drawn by an otherwise inconsequential set of politicians ( who we love to loathe on every other instance ). look around you, this madness is all over. i know good friends, family even, who have a natural antipathy towards pakistan. an entire country, they have never visited. with a few hundred million diverse inhabitants, otherwise identical to themselves ( save for that line and maybe the name of a non-existent god ).

fear, mistrust, anger and hatred towards a group ( however well defined the group ) can be a dangerous thing for human society. stop playing that anthem in movie halls and for the sake of sanity, please learn to be tolerant. if somebody chooses to remain seated while the anthem is played, please, give him the liberty to do so. you do not have the right to be offended by his choice. maybe he isn't feeling very patriotic today, and that might just be a good thing.