Your best won't be enough when you're thrown to the fire

[sovay]

Some have lost a hand, some a leg—everyone is asking for water. And still men continue to speak about the glory of war and try to prove its advantages. In the name of patriotism and nationalism, they go on to cut each other's throats. There is nothing as narrow-minded as nationalism in this world . . . If the word 'patriotism' (or 'nationalism') did not exist in the European dictionary, there would have been far less bloodshed.

In our country, too, in the name of patriotism, many leaders are teaching small schoolchildren how to kill. Murder, the greatest sin, becomes morally acceptable when committed in the name of patriotism. If a person, by guile or force, takes away another's property, it is burglary or dacoity—again a sin. But when a nation snatches away another's land—then it is celebrated as empire. Well, there's little point in discussing all this now—just hope that the war ends soon.

—Kalyan Mukherji, 4 October 1915 (trans. Santanu Das)

Comments

[minoanmiss]

Well said.

[sovay]

Well said.

I know he has other projects on his plate, but I am still hoping that Das will publish a full translation of the Kalyāṇ-Pradīp (ed. Mokkhada Devi, 1928), the combination memoir-memorial from which this letter is excerpted. Mukherji died in 1917 and he's not out of date yet.

[asakiyume]

It always makes me grit my teeth that on the Sunday closest to this holiday (and Memorial Day), our church sings so-called patriotic hymns when sitting right on the same page is this one:

This is my song,
O God of all the nations,
A song of peace for lands afar
and mine.

This is my home, the country
where my heart is;
Here are my hopes, my dreams,
my holy shrine;

But other hearts in other lands
are beating
With hopes and dreams as true
and high as mine.

My country's skies are bluer than
the ocean,
And sunlight beams on clover-
leaf and pine.

But other lands have sunlight too
and clover,
And skies are everywhere as
blue as mine.

Oh, hear my song, O God of all
the nations,
A song of peace for their land
and for mine.

Lyrics are by Lloyd Stone, and it's sung to the tune of "Finlandia".

(Maybe I've made this comment before in regard to the nonsense of nationalism... it's one of my kneejerk reactions--but if so, apologies for the repetition!)

[ladymondegreen]

The Indigo Girls have an excellent cover of this: https://youtu.be/0qwehv3xfr0?si=CpvQ4R5bJafMtiMB

[asakiyume]

Ooh, this is lovely!

[muccamukk]

I'm feeling this one so hard this year. No, you cannot have even a little bit of patriotism as a treat. It will not go well.

[sovay]

(Maybe I've made this comment before in regard to the nonsense of nationalism... it's one of my kneejerk reactions--but if so, apologies for the repetition!)

I don't think you have mentioned it before and even if you had, it's worth reminding. O God of all the nations.

[sovay]

I'm feeling this one so hard this year. No, you cannot have even a little bit of patriotism as a treat. It will not go well.

*hugs*

It's what put me in mind of the letter, too.