If you claim to defend your country but reject freedom, then you do not defend your country

When talking about patriotism, there are certain common misconceptions that serve to whitewash totalitarians.

Pope St. John Paul II: His Words on Patriotism and Nationalism
El efecto de identificar como patriotismo a ideas que no tienen ninguna relación con él

One of these misconceptions is the assertion that within the realm of patriotism, "our people" are all those who claim to defend the Homeland, and that therefore we should join forces with anyone acting under that claim. Some defend this position by arguing that the opposite would be sectarianism. I completely disagree with that.

First of all, I think some people forget that it's not enough to say you're defending your Homeland: how you defend it also matters. There are people who believe that in this area, as in others, the end justifies the means. For some, defending the Homeland justifies anything, even terrorism. It's worth remembering, for example, that supporters of the terrorist group ETA call themselves "abertzales," a Basque word meaning "patriots," because they claim to be defending their Basque homeland. Regardless of whether that nation ever existed, murdeing in the name of your homeland is to dishonor it.

There have also been self-proclaimed "patriots" who believe that defending the Homeland even justifies committing genocide: this is the case of national-socialism, a totalitarian and criminal movement responsible for the Holocaust, one of the greatest genocides in history. With this mass crime, what the Nazis achieved is that even today many Germans feel ashamed of this dark episode in their country's history and that German patriotism has been frowned upon for decades, despite having flourished in the 19th century thanks, among others, to liberals like August Heinrich Hoffmann, author of the Deutschlandlied. Deutschlandlied (1841), the anthem of that country.

On the other hand, history shows that certain "patriots" are, in reality, the executioners of their Homelands. The 20th century gave rise to two clear examples of totalitarian political leaders who appealed to patriotism: Hitler and Stalin, two mass murderers who turned their respective countries into reigns of terror, in which millions of people were killed for political, social, or racial reasons. Sadly, this is not just a thing of the past. I have already cited the case of Nazism, a clear example of a political movement capable of justifying all kinds of crimes in the name of the fatherland, and two years ago I already warned here about a certain communism disguised as "anti-globalism" that uses patriotism as bait to catch unsuspecting people.

I am very clear about who "my people" are, and certainly there is no place among them for nazis or communists, nor for any other totalitarian who seeks to use patriotism as a mere lure to turn my country into a regime of terror.We can discuss whether these Nazis and Communists are part of a charade created by those in power to generate confusion, as some claim, or whether they are truly people who believe that the best way to serve their country is to turn it into a vast concentration camp. Personally, I believe the latter is more common, because political power doesn't need to create fanatics with the most ridiculous notions: they appear on their own.

After the horrors the world witnessed in the last century with those two totalitarian ideologies, I believe we must be very clear: someone who claims to defend their Homeland but rejects freedom, then is not defending their Homeland. A patriot is a person who loves their country and wants the best for it. Imposing a regime of terror on a nation is a way of humiliating and destroying it, not of helping it. Those who defend totalitarian ideologies like nazism and communism may be nationalists, but they are not true patriots, and I refer to the words spoken by a Pole who suffered under both totalitarian regimes:

"True patriotism never seeks to advance the well-being of one's own nation at the expense of others. For in the end this would harm one's own nation as well: doing wrong damages both aggressor and victim. Nationalism, particularly in its most radical forms, is thus the antithesis of true patriotism, and today we must ensure that extreme nationalism does not continue to give rise to new forms of the aberrations of totalitarianism."

These are the words of Pope Saint John Paul II spoken on October 5, 1995. He truly understood patriotism, having suffered at the hands of impostors of all stripes who invoked the Fatherland to humiliate it, subjugate it, and turn it into a dictatorship.

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Photo: Tony Wiek.