Sep 9, 2006 11:50:00 AM cite

Tania Bruguera: Maybe what happens is that he doesn´t continue to love defend [inaudible] partly because of the way in which one has been [inaudible] respect for what the native country is, repsect for what is the country of one and what [inaudible] means. I think that also one never loses hope, hope can change, hope can [inaudible], hope to be able to do the things in a different way, decide in another way one´s [inaudible] and to change the attitude [inaudible]. Therefore one always keeps on loving [inaudible] loving it´s not that much the country but the idea [inaudible] the idea as one has in mind [inaudible] if one is loving is the possibility maybe not of the place as such but the possibilities which this place can have and maybe what one defends is their right to be able to create this future world, this world [inaudible]. [inaudible] there is one thing, it´s that [inaudible] in the recent time [inaudible] there is a continent [inaudible] it´s a bit archaic, a bit [inaudible] in this sense it´s an idea of having a native country [inaudible] I think that it would be better to see the native country as a totality of ideas of their [inaudible] which they put to the test a totality of ideas and therefore the native country of one doesn´t have to be the place where one has been born but it can be the place where one feels to have an opportunity to propose these more ideas and one thinks that or sees that the things are fulfilling, that is, the native country doesn´t have to be then like a fisical state but a mental state or a political state.

by Tania Bruguera

Sep 9, 2006 11:50:00 AM cite

Tavis Smiley: Well, as one who happens to be a black American, I absolutely share that concern and understand the feeling about defending and loving a country that treats us like unwanted children. Well, in short, black folk in our tradition have learned to love folk, in spite of and not because of. We have learned how to love people in spite of, and not because of. What Dr. King, the greatest American I think we’ve ever produced, teaches us, reminds us, is that love is the most transformative force. There is nothing like the transformative power of love. And that’s our challenge, to love people in spite of and not because of. There really is no other alternative. We live in—we live in a world where we have much to say. We have much to say to the world about the crises and the challenges that the world faces right now, but we’re not listened to. But were the world to listen to us, they’d understand better how to deal with terrorism. When Emmett Till was lynched, his mother at his funeral said, “I don’t have a minute to hate. I’m going to pursue love and justice for the rest of my life.” Dr. King in the face of Jim Crow and Jane Crow offered love as the answer. Our history is replete with examples of loving people, again, in spite of and not because of. It is the grandest part of our tradition. And it is a tradition, quite frankly, that we need to continue, and God knows, given what the world is facing today, there’s so much to learn about love from our example. And so if for no other reason, we need to keep teaching, keep preaching this message of love, especially today.

by Tavis Smiley

Sep 9, 2006 11:50:00 AM cite

Tegla Loroupe: Answertext will be available soon.

by Tegla Loroupe

Sep 9, 2006 11:50:00 AM cite

Thenmozhi Soundararajan: I answered this question as a woman of color in the United States and as someone who is a Dalit, an untouchable in India. I don’t necessarily love the countries that oppress me, but I still fight from within the ‘bellies of the beast’ for justice and self-determination, because I feel like if I - everywhere that I go I want to know that I create a circle of freedom and self-determination where everyone around me who engages with me can feel that little moment of freedom. Even if that freedom’s in our head, I feel like it’s critical for us to imagine what that feels like, because if we can’t imagine ourselves free we can’t fight for freedom. That said, I think that you can hate the state and hate the government policies that create systems of oppression, but you can’t not have empathy for people. When I think for me, even with people who have privilege over me, I always think of what is the loss we have as human beings when we don’t have empathy for each other and we cannot - when we can’t cross our aisles of difference. I think that struggle is really important to really look at and the way that we can really look at dealing with this. I also thought I would like to kind of share a little bit of a song connected to this, and it’s about the intergenerational work of struggle. Sometimes, I think, when we fight for freedom like this, we find freedom in the struggle, and so in the process of movement, in the process of building relationships to liberation, we do in fact reach liberation. I know that in my struggle in trying to make the United States more just and to make India more just, I know I might not feel it and face it in my lifetime, but I hope my children’s lifetime will see it and I hope their children will achieve it. I think when we have that long-term view to what resistance and freedom looks like, I think we can set - we can make that other world possible faster than we think.

by Thenmozhi Soundararajan

Sep 9, 2006 11:50:00 AM cite

Tu Weiming: I try to understand this sympathetically in terms of a member of minority in a society where discrimination is pronounced. I mean Chinese in America. As we know for sure that because the Exclusion Act of 1882, the Chinese for more than a century had been marginalized. And even since 1945, over 106 Chinese were admitted to be citizens of the United States still as minority. It’s difficult for Chinese to think they are integral part of the mainstream. The situation has dramatically changed in the last 30 years, to be sure. So in this sense, I can see what the real problem is. If you look at the exemplary teaching of Martin Luther King, he certainly is critical of the race situation in America but he is – was also a patriot and very much committed to the basic values of American society. I think to be an integral part of an unjust system is painfully difficult but doesn’t mean that a person must alienate himself or herself from that system. Socrates, very early on, mentioned this inseparable relationship between individual flourishing and the wellbeing of society. So he suffered. He actually died because of this commitment to social solidarity. And it’s understandable that people who are oppressed who are marginalized still consider themselves an integral part of the society which is the cause of their suffering because it is an enduring belief that a situation can be changed, can be restructured and especially the society embodies some universal value such as human rights, dignity of the individual or [audio ends]

by Tu Weiming

Sep 9, 2006 11:50:00 AM cite

Udi Aloni: USA. This is really the mystery of humankind. How in the end patriotism is stronger than any other feeling of community. We saw it in the first war, world, when the all the socialist parties said that they will not go to the war, and the day the war open all the socialists in front joined the French war and in Germany. And the solidarity of the socialist party failed. And you see it in Israel now. So many people that really believe in peace and know that it's not so difficult to make peace with the Palestinian people, once the war start the whole become nationalistic. So I think that it's always surprising how really a minority in the place when the war is happened, they become so loyal to the place just to be loved by their master. In Israel, for example, there are many Jews from Arab countries, Arab Jews that they could show solidarity with the Muslim, the Arab Muslims, instead they are fighting the Arab Muslims in order not to look at minorities an Arab Jew. And try to treat nice the Western Jew, or to be nice to the master. I don't know why exactly the answer why it's happened, but it's always shock me. In the end people are more loyal to the patriot than to their own family. Parents send their kids to die for the patriot, for the states, even if they don't believe in this war. So I think there is a lot to say why only why minorities protect their…go be loyal to their own country. Why also people from a family are loyal to their country more to their own family. This power of patriotism is a essential part of we belong to the tribe. It's fascinating. It's terrible, but it is fascinating. And how we can dismantle it, how we can said what Muhammed Ali said, "I'm not going to Vietnam, because they don't treat me nice." It's a good [audio end]

by Udi Aloni

Sep 9, 2006 11:50:00 AM cite

Valentina Melnikova: Speaking about love to their country people speak about their own choice, because love is a personal feeling and it is a feeling which every person can prove. If we speak about homeland where we were born and brought up, and about loving it, we can use an analogy with family. There are violent or stupid or irresponsible parents and there are parents who abandon their children, yet children love even such parents and sometimes are searching for their mothers and fathers who abandoned them in childhood for years. That is why love for a country is an inner feeling. A person accepts such love to such a country, such a fatherland and lives there. But if he doesn’t accept it he would look for another country or try to change life in the homeland in a way that it would be love in return. We try to change government’s attitude towards Russian people in a way that every citizen could say “I love my home country and it loves me too and protect my interests”. In Russia it is still not the case, and many groups of people feel like alienated and unloved children too.

by Valentina Melnikova

Sep 9, 2006 11:50:00 AM cite

Vesna Pesic: Answertext will be available soon.

by Vesna Pesic

Sep 9, 2006 11:50:00 AM cite

Viviana Figueroa: I think that actually someone loves his/her country, the place where you are ( /echo), so for example in my case - I am from the village "Guaca Mauaca", it's in the Republic of Argentine, I love my country/land, because that is where I was born, where my culture was developed, where my identity persists, where my past persists, behind where I will leave my descendants or where we all have the same culture in common. It's the place where you can find yourself and where you intend to develop your personal identity. There are a lot of opportunities in my country where we can find ourselves, but there exists a negation concerning our existence [...]We will continue to like our place/land, our dream, our "Pacha Mama". That's why we continue to respect and to recognize our place/land, because this is our "mother". It isn't a question of nationality, it's a question of strong feeling which [... our place/land] where we were born, where we grew up and where we will go, when it's time to leave this world / when we have to leave this world.

by Viviana Figueroa

Sep 9, 2006 11:50:00 AM cite

Wim Wenders: It is such a weird and infuriating and depressing fact that people have a tendency to pass on their own oppression and frustration to the ones that are even more oppressed and worse off than themselves. Those who are trampled on find others even lower ones to trample on. That is my only explanation for the phenomenon. For instance, that in the poorest regions of your own country Jason, where black Americans are living in extreme poverty like in the South and Mississippi for instance, that these people are the most ardent patriots. When I traveled and shot their the winter of 2001/ 2002, there was not a house without an American flag. And during the war in Iraq, I came through very depressed areas in America and again the cars that showed the flags and stickers that families had sons or fathers in Iraq were so much more frequent than, let’s say in Los Angeles where I lived. I couldn’t help the feeling that this new enemy was welcome at least partially to be able to release pain and frustration on the propaganda and the lies that led to Americans supporting that war, fell on most fertile ground in those parts of America where people had the most reason to feel mistreated themselves or neglected by their very own country. I have watched similar phenomena in other country and in different context. I have no other explanation than the one I initially offered. Those who are trampled on need to find others to trample on.

by Wim Wenders

Sep 9, 2006 11:50:00 AM cite

Yungchen Lhamo: Answertext will be available soon.

by Yungchen Lhamo