“LOVE YOUR COUNTRY AS MUCH AS YOU CAN,
BUT LOVE THIS WORLD MORE THAN YOU CAN”
Love for your country and loyalty towards it can be summed up in the word- ‘Patriotism’/ ‘Nationalism’.
Everyone must be proud of his land, people, culture and language. But is it really sufficient to be patriotic only for your country? Certainly not. As we belong to our nation so we belong to this earth. Nature has not drawn any boundaries. Mountains, rivers, forests, oceans and sky do not have any borders. It is we, human beings who have drawn boundaries on lands and also on our hearts. Science and technology has induced this world into a small global village. The problem of one nation affects the other because we are too much interdependent and cannot survive alone. I f something happens in India it has global repercussions too. If the stock market crashes in New York or Wall Street, it sends alarm to markets worldwide. Our customs and attire may be diverse but our emotions, feelings, love and pain are the same.
Concern for humanity and mother earth is the guiding philosophy of 21st century. The whole idea of patriotism seems barbaric. Borders and LOCs are not the issues today. The issues are more global – energy crisis, depleting ozone layer, environmental degradation and global warming. The problems of economic instability, oil crisis, terrorism are the concerns of the whole humanity.
Supporters of patriotism call it a ‘virtue’. But patriotism often causes conflicts, destruction, killings and bloodshed. What kind of a virtue is this? So globalisation, not patriotism must drive the world and steer it across the hurdles.
Let us stop plundering the mother earth which sustains us and pray for world peace and prosperity. The whole world is a family- “Why can’t we live as one when we all walk under the same sun and draw all that we need from the same mother earth?”
The message that comes out loud and clear is, what the world needs today are global citizens, not Indians, Americans, Pakistanis or Afghanistanis!
Let us leave our narrow prejudices behind and grow global and international in our approach.
