Thousands
of years ago, many different tribes lived along the Yellow River (the river
Huang He), which was their source of survival and sustenance. But they also
suffered from occasional floods and periods of drought. Individually they were
powerless against the fury of nature, but collectively they could perhaps tame
the mighty river. So they came together to build dams and canals to regulate
the river and mitigate the ravages of floods and droughts. Then, in a long and
complicated process over many decades, the tribes coalesced together to form
the Chinese nation which controlled the entire Yellow River and raised the
level of prosperity and safety for everybody.
From
clans to tribes to nation states, homo sapiens has evolved. Perhaps it
is time for him to take the next collective leap and come together as one
humanity.
The
problems faced by the world today require global, collaborative solutions. Yet,
paradoxically, we are leaning towards extreme nationalism. US President Donald
Trump announced that he is not a ‘globalist’ but a ‘nationalist’. He said,
‘…globalist is a person that wants the globe to do well, frankly, not caring
about our country so much, and you know what? We can’t have that’.
Rabindranath
Tagore and Mahatma Gandhi had some deeply philosophical discussions on the
perils of nationalism. World War I showed the havoc that extreme nationalism
can create and Tagore urged nationalists to rise from ‘Self-interest’ and
instead work for ‘Welfare of the world’. From now onward, he said, ‘Any nation
which takes an isolated view of its own country will run counter to the spirit
of the New Age and know no peace’.
In stark
contrast to the sentiments expressed by Trump, H.G. Wells said, ‘Our true
nationality is (and should be) mankind’.
The need
of the hour is to encourage people to be loyal to humankind and to planet Earth
in addition to their own countries. We can have deep affinity to our family,
our village, our profession, our country and also to the whole human species.
Occasionally, there may be conflicts in maintaining this balance; but there is
no contradiction. In fact, provoking the sentiment of ‘othering’ or ‘we’
against ‘them’ can be dangerously destabilising.
Sometimes
we put work before family, sometimes family before work. Similarly, sometimes
we need to put the national interest first, but there are occasions when we
need to privilege the global interests of humankind. Loyalty to one’s country
and to the world are not mutually exclusive sentiments.
Like the
tribes along the Yellow River, humanity is now living alongside the cyber ocean
which no single nation can regulate by itself. Climate change, technological
disruption, bioengineering and the most recent Covid-19 pandemic are all global
problems that make a mockery of all national borders and cry out for global
co-operation.
Take just
one example of the impact of genetic engineering on humanity. Assume that the
US chooses to outlaw all genetic experiments in humans on ethical grounds, but
if North Korea continues to pursue that agenda, the US will very quickly have
to re-evaluate its priorities. If even one country follows this high-risk
experiment, the other countries will be under tremendous pressure to follow suit
as no country can afford to be left behind in this dangerous race.
We take tremendous pride in our
countries, forgetting that large nations appeared in the history of mankind
only in the last few thousand years – just yesterday morning in the time
scale of evolution. As Tagore put it, ‘There is only one history – the history
of man. All national histories are merely chapters in the larger one’. Indeed,
nation states developed to deal with large-scale problems that small tribes
could not solve by themselves.
Now, in
the 21st century, we face problems that even large nations cannot
solve by themselves. It may have been the Yellow River then and the cyber ocean
now that require taming through global co-operation. So let’s heed the words of
Tagore, ‘Nationalism cannot be our final spiritual shelter; my refuge is
humanity’.
A true
patriot is equally a global citizen.
Note: A lot of thoughts,
including the analogy of the Yellow River, have been taken from the books of
Yuval Noah Harari and a recent interview with him
