Why should a man be proud of country he lives in?
All of us were born somewhere, with some typical marks which belongs to that particular nation, country.
All of us were born somewhere, with some typical marks which belongs to that particular nation, country. We were raised by our mothers, teachers, and people living in our home country. We owe them a lot, respect, love, our lives, because they were taking care of us at time when we were too young and too weak to take care of ourselves. They gave us a lot, and we should give it back to that society we were raised by, we should show respect, honor, and be proud that we had such help from their side.
Nowadays being born somewhere means nothing to “modern” teenager. Usually they age and flee out of nest of their mothers and never more mention their home. They are ashamed of country they were brought to live in, they are ashamed of themselves. But why do they do so? Why do they think that it is better to be American, British, French, or Japanese more that being Slovak?! There’s no rationale reason why it should be so.
All of us were studying at schools, having medical care and other advantages paid by citizens of our country; it would be ingratitude if we will just forget about it. They paid that money knowing that they will help somebody who should in future help them. Everybody will get old, and at that time the money he paid to society will society pay back to him. It is how it works; the generations are helping each other knowing that once somebody will help them. It is arrogant to just quit that circle saying “I am not proud about country I was born in, I want to be … more than Slovak”. All of those who were taking free medication, education, and social services while young and now are leaving Slovakia paying nothing back “because they aren’t proud of they country and want to live somewhere else” are hypocrites, because when society was giving something them for free they are taking it, gladly spending state’s money and at the same time saying that they’re not proud about Slovakia. And after all, when society wants something back, they disappear, traitors!
Besides that everybody should be proud of himself, because self-respect is base for good mental and physical condition. And it also includes the respect to his origins, family, nationality, and mother language. Even if we don’t like it, our nationality defines us in some way; it defines our look, habits, accent, lifestyle … The nationality is part of ourselves, and when we gossip our country we gossip also ourselves.
Nowadays many people want to be other nationality than that one they were born. They say that the other is better for some reason, usually that they like its culture, language, living standard or so on. But they don’t calculate with fact that they already belong to one nation and will newer belong to another. They will newer become American, British, French or Japanese by the will. They can wear make up, they can speak perfect language, but they will newer be different, so they should get used to that fact, and stop gossiping themselves and their parents while trying to be somebody else.
In modern times, I think, it is important to keep national identity of individual more then ever before. It doesn’t means that we should be racist of xenophobic, we should be tolerant of course, but we should also be proud of ourselves, show respect to ourselves and our ancestors. What is it that makes Americans better that we are? Nothing! We are as good as they are. We should tolerate and be tolerated by other nations.
Ondrej Bukovský
