I Love My Country
And I love my country up loud
Loving your country does not mean hating another country.
Go watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOeFhSzoTuc. In that scene from Casablanca, the French national anthem, Les
Marseille, was led by Victor Lazlo, a Czechoslovakian, whose wife Ilsa was a Norwegian,
at Rick’s Cafe American. Yvette, the
crying French woman who shouts Viva la France, was dating a Nazi soldier earlier
in the scene. The Nazis were fearful of inspiring
the love of a country other than their own.
Now listen to Tchaikovsky’s 1812
Overture to see how ironically the same song, Les Marseilles, was used to indicate Napoleon’s
attempted conquest and failed invasion of Moscow. The Marseilles fades as a Russian folk
song becomes triumphant. This overture of the Russian
love for their country has become a fixture of America's Independence Day since Arthur
Fidler picked it for Boston’s celebration of the Fourth of July.
Love of one’s country is to be something to be admired,
even if you yourself are from a different country.
Loving your country can be perverted and confused into hatred and domination of
another country. We may not all like the
same music, but love of country is not a matter of musical taste. It also does not mean that we prove our love
by hating another country.
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