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Pen Ultimate / Homeland insecurity
By Michael Handelzalts
Tags: Israel News

Once upon a time, back in 1989, when I was young(er), I had a chat with an American publisher in his office. Those were the days of the first intifada, and I was trying to give him my view of events in the Middle East. He had just published the English translation of a novel by an as-yet unknown Israeli writer named David Grossman, called "See Under: Love."

I was then, and probably still am, about as naive as they come, but even in those years I sensed that something was deeply wrong with the way the Israeli government and army were dealing with the Palestinian popular uprising. So I attempted to give the publisher the bigger picture, with all the "buts" and "ifs" - and to be properly critical of "my side." I summed up by saying: "But, as they say, 'my country, right or wrong.'"

I knew that was a quote, but at the time I thought it was one of those "common truths," not attributable to anyone in particular. In recollecting my interlocutors' response (which actually did spur me to rethink my views, but of that later), I've finally decided to figure out who "they" were and when they made that comment about their country.
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The man to whom that quote is most frequently attributed is Carl Schurz (1829-1906), a general in America's Union Army in the Civil War, the first foreign (German)-born U.S. senator; he was later secretary of the interior and editor in chief of The New York Evening Post. During a debate in the Senate on February 29, 1872, he is quoted as saying: "The senator from Wisconsin cannot frighten me by exclaiming, 'My country, right or wrong.' In one sense I say so, too. My country; and my country is the great American Republic: My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right."

In this instance, the phrase "my country, right or wrong" is therefore not an expression of patriotism, as many (including myself) may have thought. Rather, it embodies a sort of mocking patriotism that requires a caveat: "If right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right."

But there is an even earlier citation, attributed to Stephen Decatur (1799-1820), a commander in the U.S. Navy who excelled in fighting the pirates during the Barbary Wars (in our part of the world - the Mediterranean Sea), and was even complimented by Admiral Nelson himself. After the second Barbary War, Decatur was feted in Washington in 1816, and was dubbed "the Conqueror of Araby." He raised his glass, proclaiming: "Our country! In her intercourse with foreign nations, may she always be in the right; but our country, right or wrong." Again, there is a wishful element here, and a "but," along with a patriotic commitment.

While we are at it, I figured, why not check out the origins of "patriotism"? The etymology of "patriot," defined by Merriam-Webster as "one who loves his or her country and supports its authority and interests," is the Greek patriotes, from pater, father. In this context, "his or her country" is in English "motherland," in Latin patria (i.e., fatherland), in Russian rodina and in Hebrew moledet - both meaning "the country where you were born" - and in German heimat, or homeland.

All this ties in, oddly enough, with this week's Torah portion, as summed up in Genesis 12:1-2. Well, not oddly at all, since that is what provoked my whole chain of thought. Here Abraham embarks on the path to patriarchy, as God sends him on his Jewish way: "Now the Lord had said unto Abram: Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will show thee: And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing."

One can interpret this to mean that being a Jew entails, in its very essence, leaving the country where one was born, the land of his fathers/mothers, and settling in and creating a homeland in a place of the Creator's choosing. The fact that the chosen land may be somebody else's place of birth, or homeland, is not taken into account, in God's intelligent design. Add to that the confusing fact of "Jewishness" being passed on through the maternal line, and of the Land of Israel being defined by many as "the Land of our Fathers," and you can see what sort of mess we are in.

But, as both Decatur and Schurz were well aware, patriotism (or "matriotism" if you insist) is not just a matter of how one feels about the country where one lives. It also concerns whether one feels that, in its conduct, the country is right - and if not, whether it can be set right. But anyone who has tasted the forbidden fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil (ostensibly an innate and not acquired taste), which we read about in Genesis, surely knows that right and wrong are not absolute terms, determined by some deity. Indeed, it is up to every individual, Jew or non-Jew, patriot or matriot, to determine what is right and what is wrong, for whom and to what extent. And it may be that the best we can do is to strive for the lesser of many evils.

Which brings me to the response of the American publisher to my amateurish explication of Israeli politics two decades ago. He quoted Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936). In the essay "A Defense of Patriotism" from his book, "The Defendant" (1901), Chesterton wrote: "'My country, right or wrong,' is a thing that no patriot would think of saying. It is like saying, 'My mother, drunk or sober.'"

What a sobering thought.

No discussion of patriotism can end without that perennial quote: "Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel" - a declaration attributed by Boswell to Samuel Johnson, made on April 17, 1775, before Decatur and Schurz. Dr. Johnson did not mean, as Boswell points out, "a real and generous love of our country, but that pretended patriotism which so many, in all ages and countries, have made a cloak of self-interest."

To which I can only add that the term patriot can be split into two parts. "Pat" is a term used in chess, when both players have no possible options for a move. And "riot" is what ensues when one considers oneself to be a patriot, right or wrong, in any country.
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