The Sunday News
Michael Mhlanga
The prologue of 2019 is despairing. From destruction of property, increase of poverty levels within a short space of time for the average Zimbabwean, masquerades who have tarnished the image of those who should protect citizens to an abominable culture of screaming for attention from those who once and still want to colonise us.
All these events are not good for a country battling to find its feet after decades of plunder, isolation and ineffective politics.
It boils down to one statement: Zimbabwe is not so good shape. But all hope is not lost. Its remedy is collective action to recollecting the rubbles of what’s left and rebuild.
Once on this space I wrote about rebuilding a broken country and argued that we need to be patriotic in that endeavour.
I went further to discuss patriotism distinguishing it from patronage showing that what we need is not even scientific, its simple issues of ethics, humanity and humility by all who identify as Zimbabwean. Well, such an argument is met with a conundrum of characterizing what patriotism means in a largely polarised country as Zimbabwe, where patriotism is minimalized and restricted to an ideology.
To prove that there is nothing so bad about propaganda, I draw lessons to share from a well-known propagandist, although he made the notes after formal resignation from the British Broadcasting Corporation Propaganda division (which I believe still exists).
His lessons on patriotism come in handy in trying to provide a remedy to the problem of those who find themselves labelled sellouts and the feeble who celebrate colonial endorsements and “undercover escorts” who are now presidents of an opposition party.
To some extent, I now believe that patriotism is more than identifying as a member of a group and protecting its best interest. I now believe that patriotism is not celebrating endorsements by beneficiaries of colonialism whose current actions institutionalise coloniality enveloped as moral obligations. I strongly believe that patriotism is not pleading with global masquerades of human rights who want to micromanage developing countries to keep them in the periphery for as long as they can protect structural dependency. This only explains what patriotism is not, but what is patriotism under these circumstances we are living in, what can we learn from the propagandist Eric Blair’s Notes on Nationalism?
For two years between 1941 and 1943, what Animal Farm stuck fanatics know as George Orwell whose real name is Eric Blair was BBC staff member 1889, hired as a Talks Producer for the Eastern Services to write what was essentially propaganda for broadcast to India.
Communication students know of Eric Blair’s distinction of propaganda which he coined as “honest and dishonest propaganda” hence I refer to the thesis of this article as “lessons from an English Propagandist-probably the best together with America’s Walter Lippmann to ever live.
The propagandist, Eric Blair known by the feeble as George Orwell, in a 1947 essay titled: Notes on Nationalism did not find fault with patriotism, as long as a clear distinction is made between the concepts of nationalism and patriotism, a trait characterised by military and cultural devotion to a particular place, without any intention to impede the rights of other people.
To him, a nationalistic movement was one which brought the nation together, infused a deep sense of patriotism and created citizens of valour. Gorge Orwell’s writings, whose dissenting conversation, convinced me that patriotism is the love of one’s country regardless of politics.
Patriotism has nothing to do with power but everything to do with selflessness in upholding the social contract that should bring sanity to a society. It is a politics of self-defence for all those local societies that aspire to achieve some relatively self-sufficient and independent form of participatory practice-based community.
Recognising the existence of difference of opinions and the legitimacy of the freedom of expression in a democracy, in many occasions some have been “sell-outs” to least describe them.
Our suffering has been at the hands of the few whose hate of the Republic is bent on discussing us with “them” and giving a bad, extremely and exaggerated bad about us. The effects are evident in the streets, bridges, mshikashikas and prisons – people are getting hungrier by day – those are the offspring of unpatriotic behavior.
To develop my submission, a major question amongst many reading right now is how do we develop patriotism in a nation where no one loves another? Where politics is divided (still in the electoral mood even if we have moved past).
You are probably asking, how do we make patriotism favourable when there is no incentive for being so? As I have written before, the remedy to Zimbabwe’s woes is simple, we need to be patriotic. The answer is, you can’t develop patriotism through a “patriotism development plan.”
You can’t force somebody to be proud of their country to such a degree that they would be willing to fight and die for that country, to ensure that the ideals on which it was founded will endure. What you can do is build a country worthy of the patriotism of its people.
You can build a system of government that people will look to and will want to continue. You can build a system where each man is guaranteed the freedom to live his life in the way in which he sees fit. You can build in the guarantee that basic, natural rights will never be violated by the government.
You can make a system which has the capability to change if everyone agrees, but is strong enough to be the timeless foundation on which the rest of the nation can be built. Once you have done that, then you live out the example.
You fight and die for that country. You believe so strongly that your nation should endure that you become willing to give your own life in defence of that way of life. That heritage of sacrifice shows future generations that there are enough people who believe that the experiment in your nation should continue that they would sacrifice themselves to see it happen. And they begin to feel the same.
From Eric Blair, two lessons are drawn, the first being politics of self-defence, meaning collective defence of the country from external ridicule, choosing to not participate in denigrating discussions about our nation with ‘them’. The second is the respect of other people’s rights within the setting to be patriotically protected. These fundamentals should always be a benchmark in the progress of the New Dispensation whose success is meant to be guided and guarded by patriotism.
The love for one’s country develops on its own when you have a country worthy of such love. I want to disambiguate something before the trolls come along looking for treats.
Patriotism is different from nationalism. Patriotism is fundamental to liberty because pride in one’s nation-state, and a willingness to defend it if necessary, is the basis of national independence. Patriotism is the courage of national self-determination.
Looking at the philosophical aspects of patriotism, I would say that patriotism arises from feeling part of the society and the culture that you are in.
To use a slang term, patriotism comes from having “some skin in the game”. If you feel isolated or cut off from society or if you feel that what you do, doesn’t matter in your society, then the bond between yourself and your social group is most likely not strong enough to.
Zimbabwe will only be built by our level of patriotism. The day we distinguish patriotism from patronage is the day this country will rise.
Phambili ngeZimbabwe!
