By Roland Michel Tremblay
featured writer
Dandelion Salad
The Marginal
Nov. 22, 2008
Whenever 50,000 citizens across the country decide to walk on the streets to denounce something, that they feel somehow it is important enough for them to get out and denounce that something, surely there should be a device in place to automatically launch a referendum on the subject. So everyone could individually vote on the issue, since we can no longer trust politicians. Or else, where is democracy then, what more do we need to do to convince others that their decisions are wrong and unwanted?
National pride has been for far too long a weapon of mass destruction. It has been used to justify the worst atrocities, like illegal wars and torture, in the name of honor and nationalism, all under a floating flag over some land somewhere. We’ll have to think twice from now on before acting collectively on pride, we’ll have to pay attention and see through the manipulation of the masses by any kind of authority, be it the government or religions. Are we never going to learn the lessons of history?
Pride. Proud of being who you are, of belonging somewhere, of your personal accomplishments, of your collective achievements. All sounds very important, and yet insignificant, unworthy of any attention. When you take a good look back, what is there truly to be proud of? I can’t think of anything. And yet, pride can be such a powerful weapon, as long as you have the public vote, as long as you can manipulate the public opinion to your own advantage so it suits your agenda, even your war agenda.
You might find it difficult to identify to a group if, for example, they are all Black, or all Chinese, or all Indians, and you are a White British born in Manchester. But if you are a White British born in Manchester, why should you have more in common with all the other White British born in Manchester? To the point that you all have to support the same football team (soccer team) and hate all other teams and British cities, in what we call healthy rivalries?
If you are an American born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, or if you are an American born in Boston, Massachusetts, there you are, already it is not so simple anymore to be proud, to have a sense of belonging to a collective. Do you have then the same identity? Are you proud to be Republican or Democrat? Are you proud of being White American or Black American? Can you be proud of being a human being when compared with all the other animals in the animal kingdom? And when will you ever be proud of being from Earth, if ever? How many millions have seen UFOs and aliens, can we all be nuts? I wonder.
I was never into sports. I was never really into politics. I was never truly into being proud of being French-Canadian or Canadian. I was never proud to be American (Canada is in America). I never had to be proud of belonging to any group or team of any kind. For me national pride is a mystery.
I find it difficult to understand how pride can be used to create a sense of belonging, strong enough to justify going to war with any nation. We are Americans, we are the strongest nation in the world, we will take the world by force, because we can, we are Americans. Our values are the best in the world, everyone should want to be American, to claim our flag as their own, because it means freedom and democracy. Not so true nowadays, but never mind about that for now.
A flag is often the symbol of our pride as a nation. It is the argument to justify anything. To provide a sense of belonging, to give a reason to our existence in a collective. I was never part of any collective, I always considered myself an individual, never really paying too much attention to international borders and their significance, apart from complaining about how hard it is to cross these borders and go live somewhere else.
I guess that pride comes at a cost. That if you are not like them somehow, becoming part of them might just turn out to be impossible. And if somehow you succeed, then you might as well be a traitor to your own people, your own nation, a traitor to yourself and what you personally believe in.
Unless of course you forget who you are, where you come from, your flag, your identity, who you really are, and start supporting Manchester United, just like everyone else. Assimilation complete, you are now a true Brit, even if you speak Russian or Punjabi, or French in my case. Who should care about Manchester United or Chelsea?
Or else, let’s then eradicate and take over Iraq/Iran, that has always been the main so-called collective agenda since the very day I was born. Will we ever, together, succeed? This is all part of the same thing, local and national pride. This is how we are being manipulated.
Why should you be proud of anything just because you are born in a certain place on this planet? Why should you be proud of a flag just because you are living within the borders of a land that this flag symbolizes? Why do you feel the need to belong in any way with a certain group of people, and then be ready to go to war with another group with perhaps different ideas or religion?
National identity is the first step towards war. City identity is the first step towards city rivalries and chauvinism. You would not think of using weapons to kill the people in the next city or county, why should you feel the need to go to war with another nation?
Because you are still proud of being not only from that city, county, province or State, but also of that country. And well, it must be different when you cross those international borders. The only language they must be able to understand is the one spoken by bombs. Urgh, where has my logic failed?
You could never be proud yet of being a human being compared with all the other animal species on this planet. You could never be proud yet of being a human belonging to Planet Earth. Until at least there is only one nation in this world, one flag, and hence, only one identity.
But by then, the only reason such a thing could happen, would be to the benefit of some tyranny, or global Big Brother government, a New World Order in the likes Hitler so desperately wanted to build. At that point, being proud of anything would be impossible.
Pride of any kind can only create rivalries and wars. As soon as you belong to any group or subgroup, that’s it, you have established that you were against the ideas and values of another group or subgroup. War in any form can then begin, as it somehow never fails to happen.
Pride is a very dangerous weapon. It is used to justify wars, it is used to justify killing millions of people. Not that we really care, since these people cannot be proud of what we are proud to represent, proud to be. They are not really humans or civilized, are they? They become insignificant.
It would never occur to many that pride is only a pretext, a pretence, and really, wars have nothing to do with pride or identity, or religion. It is a tool to manipulate the masses into believing anything, to do anything, in the name of identity, in the name of a flag, a fake symbol which does not ultimately mean anything significant, and should not reasonably be used to justify atrocities and genocides.
I can barely believe that I have just written this. I never thought when I was young that I would be trying to convince anyone that war was wrong, as I was so convinced there would be no need to by now. However, wars, just like everything else, are cyclical, they always come back after a certain amount of years. We never learn anything from the past, from history. And the same old arguments, symbols and tools are being used again and again to justify any political agenda. Amazingly it always works.
Pride is an essential component to all this. And the sooner we realize that we do not belong to anyone, to any political party, to any set of already established philosophies or political ideas or religion, the better we will be.
We are not a mindless collective controlled by a few bad men, a flock of birds with one collective mind. We are all individuals capable of having opinions, capable of stating what we want. Take a step back, and understand that a flag, a feeling of belonging to any group, does not justify anything.
And most importantly, we need to understand that governments can fall and should fall as soon as a majority of the citizens wishes it. Under the democratic rules, I would have thought that many more governments would have fallen within my lifetime. As it stands, I have never witnessed such a thing, no matter how unpopular any decision any government made. We simply accepted it and went on our way. Or decided to wait for the next elections, and we know now that fraud is rampant everywhere, at every level.
Democracy is gone, we have to move to new tactics in order to be heard and operate change. As soon as 50,000 citizens walk out across the country to denounce anything, a referendum needs to be called, across the country.
No, no, it does not matter that Obama has won, electoral fraud still happened in California with Proposition 8, will still happen again on any new proposed law, and more likely also at the next presidential elections. We are not out of the woods yet, far from it.
Don’t even think that once we succeed in getting back to paper ballots, fraud would have disappeared. We are aware now of what has been going on for so long, we have proved it. We need to be doubly careful in the future, and insure some sort of democracy still exists, not just a pretend one.
If you truly feel the need to be proud of anything, it should be to be proud of yourself, who you are as an individual, what you are capable of accomplishing on a personal level, not on a collective one.
You are quite certain that you have nothing in common with your next door neighbor, why should you think that you have so much in common with a whole nation? You could quite easily kill your neighbors, because you know by now that you simply cannot live next to these people, and they deserve to die. And yet, you do not kill them. Why should you then decide in your mind that you are proud to be the same as million others living in your country, and find it acceptable to go to war and annihilate entire nations on the other side of the planet?
Be proud of yourself, of your own little family, but do not go beyond that nucleus. Go any further and you will no longer be acting under the influence of what defines you as an individual, you will no longer be establishing your own values and beliefs, you will no longer belong to yourself. You will belong to others, and those others will make sure you will be obeying their will, their rules, not yours.
Pride is a dangerous weapon, never forget it next time you see the flag of your nation. A flag will always be but a flag, it is meaningless, it cannot be used to create a false sense of belonging and justify wars through pride, through being part of something larger than you could ever hope to be. You do not need to be part of something larger than you. You are yourself, an individual with rights and freedoms guaranteed by law, and that is all that is required.
Think for yourself, be proud of yourself, do not stop thinking or expressing your opinion. As soon as you begin to be proud of something larger than you are, you are lost, humanity is lost, whether this influence is political or religious in nature. Others have now taken control over you and what you will be proud of.
Most certainly one day, you will be ashamed for having so blindly followed any idea or course of action dictated by others, without first considering all that is truly involved, the real motivations behind any decision. As soon as you are proud of something other than yourself, you belong to other people, and other people will decide your destiny.
So, any reason you should be proud of anything you did lately? No? What a shame, I guess this is human nature. That you can barely be proud of yourself, when you can be so readily proud of just about anything else. We will not be fooled again, we can no longer afford to be proud of anything in this world.
History teaches us, how easily pride can be turned into shame, and yet, we learn so slowly, it might take us another millennium to finally get the message, once we are all completely extinct.
More direct democracy through referendum involving every single one of us is what is required at this time, if we have any hope of salvation. And please, no more pride! We are all human beings here, we are all equal, every single voice count and shall be heard. More direct democracy is the new buzz word around here, do repeat it everywhere until it becomes a reality.
50,000 people walking on the street to denounce something, is a clear sign that something is not right within this world. Call a referendum so we can all, in our own individuality, decide what should be. And please, please, please, let’s get rid of electoral fraud, or else, this is all meaningless. We all know now that proposition 8 has not really passed in California.
We have a long way to go in order to restore democracy. At the moment, the law is against you, everywhere you turn. Such important issues must come only once in a lifetime. This is it, this is saving democracy. Without it, nothing is possible. That is the first hurdle to overcome, having a real democracy. So, stand up and say and do something about it! Voice your opinion and walk out! Just make sure you don’t get shot.
Roland Michel Tremblay is an author with six books published in France. He is a French-Canadian born in 1972 who has been living in London UK for 15 years. He can be contacted at this e-mail address: rm@themarginal.com
see
The National Initiative for Democracy (video)
What Can Be Done To Change The Broken Political System by Guadamour
Dandelion Salad 
“You are quite certain that you have nothing in common with your next door neighbor, You could quite easily kill your neighbors, because you know by now that you simply cannot live next to these people, and they deserve to die. And yet, you do not kill them.” I love this stuff…