Sep 9, 2006 11:50:00 AM cite

Simon Retallack: Well, I can only assume that ethnic minorities that are either persecuted or treated as second class citizens in developed countries may still feel a degree of patriotism towards their country because they are proud of their country and because they have a deep sense of forgiveness, I think. They must do. It’s hard for me to say. I haven’t experienced that but if – I mean if I was in the shoes of a black American who was treated with suspicion on a systematic basis by the police, who knew people that tried to vote in presidential elections and who weren’t able to because of the color of their skin, who were not given the same job opportunities because of the color of their skin, I would be pretty cross, and I would feel disempowered and angry, I think, with my fellow countrymen. And I don’t know whether that would make me feel less – feel less supportive of my country. It would make me want to change my country, I think; and there are plenty of examples in the states of black leaders who have sought to do so in a fantastic way. Of course, you think of Martin Luther King as the greatest example of, I think, of a black American who wanted to change his country but sets the world alight, I think, when it came to civil rights. And there’s a lot we can still learn from his example, I think. He loved his country so I think it is…[audio ends]

by Simon Retallack

Sep 9, 2006 11:50:00 AM cite

Sohrab Mahdavi: I think Jason, since he is an American, I think America is not a country. It’s the empire. And there is a big difference between an empire and a country. An empire sees only the end of its powers. It only sees how to come bigger and expand more and as such, the American Empire, the USA, is bound to begin war and to build its edifice on the backs of people, of minorities like Black Americans, it has no other choice.

by Sohrab Mahdavi

Sep 9, 2006 11:50:00 AM cite

Song Kosal: Because the country is, is like our mother. Where we grow up and live with our parents and our family.

by Song Kosal

Sep 9, 2006 11:50:00 AM cite

Stephanie Robinson: Jason, thank you very much for that question. I would just say to be black in America is a contradiction in the very form that you have expressed the question. Black Americans have loved the United States, they have fought for the United States, they have died for the United States and they still do love the United States notwithstanding the history of bigotry and prejudice that has been visited upon black Americans from the very beginning. The contradiction speaks to both the benefits and the burdens of being in America. The U.S. is really bursting with the possibility and the promise and the robust conception of American democracy allows for the belief that Americans and it’s citizens can overcome the problems of race, as you articulated in your question, but the problems of race in America just as surely as we replace slavery with freedom how imperfectly that may be realized. So to say that black people in America don’t love this country, haven’t always loved this country, and will continue to love this country and are an integral part of this country and actually built this country. Have riches beyond your wildest imagination about this country. I would say that is why we have and will continue to love this country and will fight to make sure that we are a part of this country. And it is something that I hold very, very dear. The organization that I represent here today as the president is The Jamestown Project and in fact that is exactly what we endeavor to do we endeavor to say that from the very beginning African Americans were part of this country as many other marginalized groups were part of this country and to realize a true democracy, an inclusive democracy that realizes the promise of this country in order to do so we have to lift up voices of color, we have to lift up leadership of color, and by taking a collective of diverse new voices, bringing that to bear on understanding the history of this country and how it impacts the present of this country is [audio ends]

by Stephanie Robinson

Sep 9, 2006 11:50:00 AM cite

Steve Earle: As a white American I have no idea why you as a black American would continue to love and defend a country that indeed treats you like an unwanted child. That's one of the most embarrassing things about being an American, especially a white American. And that's saying something in this day and age.

by Steve Earle

Sep 9, 2006 11:50:00 AM cite

Sulak Sivaraksa: I think it is wonderful to love your family, love your country, to love the world. Sometimes people are oppressed; they hate themselves, they hate their family, they hate their country, they hate their world. I think that is very negative. I think it is good to love your country. But to defend your country, you must also be wise, particularly in the USA that the ruling elites in the name of defending the country harm other peoples, and even youth minorities, to harm other country like Iraq, Afghanistan, and they claim that the best defense is to be offensive. I think the word ‘defense’ should be more non-violent. If you love your country, love yourself, you must love it without selfishness. You love your country as much as you love other countries. Even the so-called enemies should be loved. Because, the enemy is deep down, is not outside yourself, but in yourself. Greed, hate and illusion in yourself are the enemies, not outside. Once you get rid of enemies inside, you love the country, the family, or yourself would be really non-violent. You will really cultivate the culture of awakening, not become mere patriotic in the very selfish way which is linked directly to violence, which in fact, link directly also with international corporation, with war mongers, and the international corporation who produce more and more arms at tax payer expense. In fact, this money should be used for minorities; for the black, for the oppressed, for the poor, for the old, and for the young alike.

by Sulak Sivaraksa

Sep 9, 2006 11:50:00 AM cite

Susan George: That’s really hard for me to answer because I have been a white person in white dominated societies all my life. So -- and even as a women, I don’t know what it means to be excluded because I have always been a privileged person. So, I am perhaps not the person that should have the temerity or the -- what shall I say, should start and answer that question. But, let me say that it’s probably not just because – it’s not just a country that you would be defending, it’s your idea of what that country could be and could become if it really lived up to its ideals, if it lived up to its initial declaration of independence, its constitution, you are also defending your family, your neighborhood, your friends, that all of that is what's in our immediate surroundings is part of that country and it’s very good that you can feel that you love a country because we all should be able to love as widely as possible beyond our immediate surroundings and go to the level of the country and then to the level of the world humanity, of everything that is on this planet and everything indeed that’s in the universe and love all of creation. So, I would congratulate Jason on that sentiment and say that it’s up to him to say why is it. But I would say, not knowing him, that probably it’s because he is thinking of an ideal country which has always put its ideals forward and for many periods of history abused them and traduced them and betrayed them; but in other periods its history has been a savior to others, has been, and has been [audio ends]

by Susan George

Sep 9, 2006 11:50:00 AM cite

Swami Pragyapad: Answertext will be available soon.

by Swami Pragyapad

Sep 9, 2006 11:50:00 AM cite

Sydney Possuelo: Jason. Oh my boy. You will continue to love the United States. It is your country. They are your people. And your people is not only people of your colour. It is stupid to distinguish people by their colour. But I understand this [opression]. I understand []. We should not dislike our country, you should not dislike your country. The human being is very complexe, Jason. There is such a big mixture of feelings in you, as black and Northamerican being expulsed by your proper society to which you belong to. Those are things we have to change. This is not a problem inside yourself which goes outside, but it’s a problem from the outside going into yourself. It is a problem which the Northamerican society brings to you and with which we and you have to [] with. Why do we love a country that treats us so badly? We are so needy, we are so affectionate with our [], we love our countryside, our villages, our cities, our beauties, our uglinesses, our miseries, all this is mixed up in us in such a way that sometimes this conscience, the conscience of knowing that it is a negative aspect this type of social rejection that should not promote more bad things that it is already provoking. I don’t know, it is very difficult.

by Sydney Possuelo

Sep 9, 2006 11:50:00 AM cite

Takashi Kiuchi: I think because you know what the country does to you. And people, whether you are black or white or whatever are in very weak creature. We like to depend on something. And because of that, they love and defend their countries.

by Takashi Kiuchi

Sep 9, 2006 11:50:00 AM cite

Tamas St. Auby: Anybody who loves a country is indoctrinated to feel so. Even if not, this love-passion has many kickbacks like un-required love, infidelity, treachery, and self-sacrifice for external interests; the interests of the oniomaniacs and pleonexiacs. Patriotism is a tool in the hands of the power of the sick. Patriotism is a tool in the hands of the sick and anyway, all these questions are analyzed since ever. The libraries are full. That's why I consider myself here as a statistic datum.

by Tamas St. Auby

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