Global Citizenship: is the whole greater than the sum of its parts

As some of you may have noticed, one of our family border crossing rituals is to learn the history and current events of a country as we enter it. As much as this preliminary, self-taught lesson has enhanced our appreciation of the country we’re about to visit, it seems to have also tarnished the respect we have for our own. It’s hard to feel national pride when we find out that our beloved country is responsible for countless covert operations in other people’s beloved countries, ranging from staging coups, killing leaders, financing wars, and conducting medical experiments on unwitting mental patients. So far, learning the truth has sucked . It makes us look like sadistic bullies only out to protect our own interests at the expense of other people less fortunate than we are. Isn't our government supposed to be a representation of us, an extension of our will?  Yet, that picture doesn't seem like a fair depiction of you or me, does it? How about your friends, relatives, or neighbors? Of course not. For the most part, we're a land of good people, so how and why is so much evil done in our name, on our behalf?

 The implication is that maybe we’d just rather not know what goes on behind the scenes to insure our freedom and democracy, more precisely expressed as our standard of living. So long as gas stays below three dollars a gallon and the produce isle is stocked with cheap summer fruit year round, we don't want to ask what the impact of our government’s and transnational corporations’ actions is on democracy, social and economic justice, human rights, and war and peace, in other less developed countries. 

The other patriotic buzz kill has been observing the distribution of wealth in the world, or rather, the lack thereof. I could wax poetic injustice for hours about this, but for the sake of simplicity, let me give you two figures. Back in the States, Tree and I spent around $150-$200 a month on coffee drinks. Ridiculous, I know.  In Guatemala, the average family spends the same amount in a month to feed, clothe, and shelter themselves. Our extraneous spending equals their life support.  Not to mention the irony that much of the coffee we Americans happily drink is grown somewhere in Guatemala. I can’t help but be reminded of the concept of the haves and have-nots. Is it that, some people grow coffee and some people drink it? That’s just the way it is? As I wrote on New Year’s Eve, I don’t agree with this line of thinking at all, (read that article here).  I believe that there is enough in the world for each and everyone; we just do a piss-poor job of playing fair.  So what to do? I believe in the principles of justice, namely liberty and equality, on which our country is founded, and I'm tired of being ashamed of the ways my government undermines those values. 

Then it came to me, isn’t my shame really just the inversion of patriotism? Aren’t the two sentiments just flipsides of the same nationalist coin?  Their effects sure seem similar.  Whether I’m boasting about my country or kicking it to the curb, my myopic ranting is probably alienating someone (like Simko...hi Simko!), somewhere. In order to find an inclusive solution to the problem of exclusivity, we need to look outside of the binary, heads or tails thinking that created it. We need to look beyond nationalism.

The problem with nationalism is that it sets up a paradigm of us versus them, and no one wants to be on the short end of that stick.  In regards to it, Albert Einstein wrote, “Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind.”  More poignantly, he said this during the height of Zionism, the movement that fueled the creation of Israel. He was well aware of the bloodshed that comes with borders. In his testimony in January 1946 before the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry, and in answer to the specific question whether refugee settlement in Palestine demanded a Jewish state, Einstein stated: 'The State idea is not according to my heart. I cannot understand why it is needed. It is connected with narrow-mindedness and economic obstacles. I believe that it is bad. I have always been against it.”  Yet, this is not to say that Einstein was not a Zionist; he absolutely was, but he distinguished himself as a cultural Zionist, and not a territorial or political one.

In no way am I picking on the Jewish people by insinuating that they don’t deserve their own country. What I am saying (and I think Einstein would agree) is that none of us deserve our own country: we deserve global citizenship. This idea sounds a tad radical and a bit scary, even to liberal ole me, especially when I think of the chaos that could come with the dissolution of nation states… or even worse, what a unified world order might entail (think Orwell’s 1984).  So, for now I propose that we simply change our consciousness to be more inclusive, and perhaps down the road we can work towards an actual global citizenship that compliments our national citizenship, much like what the EU provides, except for everyone, worldwide.

The other day, a fellow traveler said to us that he couldn’t figure out where we were from because we have so many different flag stickers on the back of the van. That made me so happy! I felt so free…..and big! I love the idea of being a person that has no national bias either way, of being able to objectively hear truth and formulate my opinions absent of shame or pride and in the best interest of all parties considered. How wonderful to be a global citizen, to be a human who feels connected to and cares equally for other humans regardless of where they were born! And think about how much better off the earth would be if we cared about landfills in China and emissions in India as much as we care about our own.  I can only hope that this kind of global identity and accountability would foment a climate of justice and compassion in our otherwise divided and unbalanced world.

Yet, it’s hard for us to want to love and protect what we don’t know.  Usually, we need to feel a part of something to inspire the urge to care for it. But how can we feel like every country is our own? This is where traveling makes all the difference.  Mark Twain wrote:

Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.

The farther we get from our comfort zone, the bigger our comfort zone becomes.  The more we travel, the wider we stretch the net we call ‘home,’ and the more we love and want to protect it.

So what do you think? Can we make this mental leap? Or, is it too hard to give up the patriot that lives in all of us in exchange for the global citizen? What would we lose? What do we stand to gain? Do you believe that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts? I do. -Stevie