Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel

Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel

The above, was famously coined by Dr Samuel Johnson, who lived in the United Kingdom in the 18th century. His equally famous biographer, James Boswel, assured us that Johnson was not indicting patriotism in general, only false patriotism.

In the National Assembly election campaign, President Michel and his political party, SPPF, tried to adopt the cloak of patriotism. Almost all the local singers they could buy turned up on the stage at the SPPF rally on May 6 to sing the praises of the Seychelles, while a song was composed specially for the occasion. Soon after the election results were announced, SBC – the state funded and SPPF controlled broadcasting media, ran a special video featuring the same singers who had appeared at the SPPF rally singing a song entitled Pour Lanmour Sesel – the slogan Mr Michel has declared to be the nations theme for 2007.

The famous Nigerian writer and Nobel Laureate Chinua Achebe, wrote about patriotism as follows: A patriot is a person who loves his country. He is not a person who says he loves his country. He is not even a person who shouts or swears or recites or sings that he loves his country. He is one who cares deeply about his country and all its people.”

Achebe states further that patriotism is an emotion of love directed by a critical intelligence. A true patriot will always demand the highest standards of his country and accept nothing but the best for and from his people. He will be outspoken in condemnation of their shortcomings, without giving way to superiority, despair or cynicism.

Achebe wrote about patriotism in his immensely rich volume - The Trouble With Nigeria. In this book he reflected about his native land Nigeria and posited further that patriotism “is not going to be easy for a country that is badly run like Nigeria (read Seychelles) is. And this is not made any easier by the fact that no matter how badly a country may be run, there will always be some people whose personal, selfish interests are, in the short term at least, well served by the mismanagement and social inequities. Naturally, they will be extremely loud in their adulation of the country and its system, and will be anxious to pass themselves off as patriots and to vilify those who disagree with them as troublemakers, or even traitors. But doomed is a nation which allows such people to define patriotism for it.”

Achebe says of people who peddle this kind of patriotism, “ . . . their protestation is only mouth-deep; it does not exist in their heads nor in their hearts, and certainly not in the work of their hands.”

Patriotism can be achieved only, as he states further, “When the people who rule and those under their power have a common and genuine goal of maintaining the dispensation under which the nation lives. This will, in turn, only happen if the nation is ruled justly, if the welfare of all the people rather than the advantage of the few become the cornerstone of public policy. National pledges and pious admonitions administered by ruling classes or their paid agents are entirely useless in fostering true patriotism.

“In extreme circumstances of social, economic and political inequities pledges and admonitions may even work in the reverse and provoke rejection or cynicism and despair. One shining act of bold, selfless leadership at the top, such as unambiguous refusal to be corrupt or tolerate corruption at the fountain of authority, will radiate powerful sensations of well-being and pride through every nerve and every artery of national life.”

It is worth quoting further from Dr Samuel Johnson’s book The Patriot:

“A patriot is always ready to countenance the just claims, and animate the reasonable hopes of the people; he reminds them, frequently, of their rights, and stimulates them to resent encroachments, and to multiply securities.

But all this may be done in appearance, without real patriotism. He that raises false hopes to serve a present purpose, only makes a way for disappointment and discontent. He who promises to endeavour, what he knows his endeavours unable to effect, means only to delude his followers by an empty clamour of ineffectual zeal.

A true patriot is no lavish promiser: he undertakes not to shorten parliaments; to repeal laws; or to change the mode of representation..”

How these words, 300 years on, still resonates today.