History /
Benefits of being Polish nationalist: is there any? [17]
There's one heck of a difference between being a nationalist versus a patriot!
The former is usually an unthinking jingoist, my country right or wrong as opposed
to the latter, one who acknowledges both the good and the bad in their history,
strengthening the strong point in order to make them stronger, rather than sweeping
the negative under the rug and blaming internal criticism on the perennial "foreign
enemy", always a convenient scapegoat.
Poland has had a truly glorious history; Chopin, Mickiewicz, Mme.Curie, Apollinaiere, Casimir
Funk, Jan Karski, Karol Wojtyla etc.. That history has also been marred by the likes of
Roman Dmowski, Moscicki, even Gomulka, responsible in large measure for the "brain drain"
from Poland to the West during the end of the '60's!
Germany too, a nation of wondrous contribution to the world, many unrivaled in science, music, research
and the visual arts....and then there was Hitler.
The US has accomplished much within a scant two-hundred-fifty years, among these achievements its
Constitution, the promise of human equality, Thomas Alva Edison who ushered in the modern world,
Abraham Lincoln, whose Emancipation Proclamation remains a beacon of freedom to all.
However our greatness has also been seriously flawed by our history of violence against the Native
Americans, the unrelenting, persistent bigotry towards the Black man and non-white aka European
foreigner.
I therefore consider myself an American patriot, but not a nationalist.
