This article is a response to a comment lolwut.
I thought I would address the comment given that I have been
asked similar questions by people when they find out my racial
background. Here is his comment:
One thing about you which interests me is
your strong desire to save the West despite being Sri Lankan
yourself; I remember reading on other articles on your site
that you are even critical of your home country. Do you
consider yourself more of a Westerner? Do you not care anymore
about your Sri Lankan or Southeast Asian blood?
A Little Bit of Foreplay
I cannot remember who came up with this idea, but nationalism
can be divided into three categories. In no particular order
these are: Blood, Soil, and Creed. Ideally you would have all
three, loyalty based on love of a certain people, love of a
certain place, and really love of a certain ideal of a place and
people. I don't like the word nationalism, due to the
connotations with populist movements for the plebs like MAGA
(Make America Great Again), or UKIP (United Kingdom Indipendence
Party), but I can't think of a better word. When Orwell
spoke of Nationalism, he said that by this he meant
"the emotion I am speaking about does not
always attach itself to what is called a nation — that is, a
single race or a geographical area. It can attach itself to a
church or a class, or it may work in a merely negative sense,
against something or other and without the need for any
positive object of loyalty." He also made a silly
distinction without a difference between Patriotism and
Nationalism because Orwell was an English nationalist and
leftwing, and nationalism is a bad word in leftwing
circles, so he clinged on to the label of just being patriotic.
The point is that by this definition, and like Orwell I use the
term "nationalism" for lack of a better term, is that things
like Marxism, the Catholic Church, even Libertarianism, or
Randian "Objectivism", are not too unlike nationalism. It's just
a different in-group. It is not like you can't have a nation of
people without some actual land, the Jews were like that for a
wee while as are the Kurds. People who are rabidly
anti-nationalistic sometimes have more nationalistic tendencies
than nationalists themselves - even though it may manifest
itself as nationalism for another country which is not their
own. For example, in Orwell's time he pointed out that the
loyalty British Marxists showed towards the Soviet Union was
effectively nationalistic, as a nationalist may look away from
the fault of his nation because it is his own so too did many,
many Anglo-Marxists look away from what was going wrong in the
Soviet Union. As with faith, or a Creed if you will, then the
question is usually not whether you have this nationalistic
tendency but rather towards what and whom you will
direct it towards it to. Very often it is not a choice, as
Orwell couldn't help but be nationalistic towards England and
towards the Left simultaneously, and so he ended up undermining
both - because he couldn't really place one unequivocally over
the other. In fact, a lot of leftism can be summed up as
nationalism but for other peoples who are not your own. In other
words, I have done the same as those Marxists just for different
reasons and ends.
To quote Orwell's definition in full "By
‘nationalism’ I mean first of all the habit of assuming that
human beings can be classified like insects and that whole
blocks of millions or tens of millions of people can be
confidently labelled ‘good’ or ‘bad'(1). But secondly — and
this is much more important — I mean the habit of identifying
oneself with a single nation or other unit, placing it beyond
good and evil and recognising no other duty than that of
advancing its interests." The first half of the
definition is clearly pandering to his leftwing friends so that
they won't call him a fascist (spoilers: they will think of him
as basically one anyway, and they will try to prevent him
publishing his books for his anti-soviet remarks). The second
part is more like it, though I wouldn't say that nationalists
place their nation (i.e. their in-group) beyond good and evil
but rather squarely in the quadrant of good. To be honest
though, it doesn't even need to be an in-group preference, it
can also be an out-group preference, so it really is just a
group preference.
What is the Blood?
The blood really is the racial aspect of natioalism, after all
you are more familialy related to other people of your race, and
so due to these extended familial connections it is natural that
your interests would line up with theirs to an extent. Or in
other words an appeal to blood is an appeal both to
self-interest as well as the interest of those immediately next
to you, your kin. But it is not unknown for people to place
values above themselves and above those around themselves too.
However you cannot build your society around these exceptions,
most people (except a lot of white Europeans, for reasons I will
explain below) are going to be loyal to their blood just because
it is in their own personal and often familial interest to be
so.
What is the Soil?
"Sri Lanka," or as I prefer to call it, Ceylon, hasn't been a
nation-state even for even a hundred years. I know I am going to
piss off many a Sri Lankan nationalist but for thousands of
years it was just a bunch of warring kingdoms only briefly
united. The current nation-state was united and created by the
British. What is the land? Is it the land where I was born? Of
course not, for if that were the case then I would be an Italian
just because I was born there. No, the land really is an
abstraction for the land of your ancestors. Having said that
there is such a thing as love and loyalty for a place, however
what I subjectively feel about it is not enough. I am not
arguing for some kind of ever expanding definition of civic
nationalism, otherwise the west will end up being ruled by
foreigners. Perhaps it was a mistake due to mass migration that
I was born here in Europe. No scratch perhaps but I can no more
change the past than I can change what I feel on this matter. I
am not a good writer, so I am not going to try and say anything
poetic but suffice to say I find Europe more aesthetically
speaking. When I hear the noise of Buddhist temples I just find
it annoying. I have been to see all the ancient ruins and great
temples and processions and none of it moved me at all like
anything I had seen growing up in the beautiful and pleasant
architecture and landscapes of Italy. The only problem with
Italy as a place, I think, is that it is a bit too warm for me.
In Sri Lanka of course I was obviously melting in a permanent
state of sweat and swelling from mosquito bites which kept which
both kept me indoors.
In the end the soil is not the land separated from the people
who inhabit it, but it is both, because even most "natural"
landscapes have been shaped by the people. In other words I
can't escape from the judgement of the people by just talking
about the land, the place as opposed to the people living in it.
Like when people say hell is not a place but other people.
What is the Creed?
I am a Roman Catholic, a minority of 6% in Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka
is a Buddhist country, not a deeply religious country but at
levels of faith I would say the United States was in the 1940s,
still Article 9 of the constitution clearly states the state
ought to ensure the supremacy of Buddhism in Sri Lanka. I know
that the country is on it's way to being secularised but it was
very clear to me that in effect I was part of what remained of
European colonialism in that country by virtue of my religion.
It doesn't help that on my father's side I do have some Scottish
ancestry. Basically in my father's family tree, from my
grandfather onwards they all have British names. In fact even my
family's surname was changed from an English to a Sri Lankan one
by my grandfather because after "Sri Lanka" got independence
from the British, it was harder to get work if people could see
you were connected to the previous British regime.
I moved to Sri Lanka from Italy at the age of 8 and I was
immediately put into an English language school where the
British syllabus was taught, in fact everything was taught in
English, so rather than Sri Lankan history and literature I was
taught British literature and history. In fact I had to teach
myself how to read and write the Sinhalese language because I
didn't really need it. Even now my vocabulary is limited to that
of a child when I speak in Sinhala (the native language, there's
also Tamil but as I said this isn't surprising for a nation that
was recently created). Now you might say that it was wrong that
I and thousands of other Sri Lankan students effectively learn
nothing of their own history, literature and language but the
truth is that any Sri Lankan parent who could afford it would
give their children an English education. To be honest I can't
really blame them.
Soil & Creed
Blood and Soil in the end are subsets of Creed, after, all for
example most anti-British activists are English, Scottish and
Welsh (let's not pretend Northern Ireland belongs to the UK
after the "Good Friday" agreement), many anti-Italians are
Italians, most anti-Germans are Germans (*hint* *wink* *nudge*
*cough* denazification *cough*) then this means that Creed is
more powerful than Blood plus soil.
If I can recall correctly, my criticisms about my "home
country" which lolwut refers to amounted to my pointing out how
the perceived moral superiority of my fellow countrymen over the
west is compensating for material inferiority towards the west
98% of the time. And how the revealed preference for moving to
the west in droves when given the opportunity to, proves this.
But it not just their revealed preference but also mine, for I
may wax lyrical about "The Greatness of the West" but the fact I
would most likely live in an inflation riddled socialist
hell-hole if I stayed in Ceylon certainly did factor into my
choice of moving here. Some may say that I should have stayed
back and fixed a country I never felt any loyalty to but only
ever felt disgust at first and understanding now, that I ought
to feel loyal to this failure because it is mine, or rather
because I belong to it, but I am going to pull an Ayn Rand and
say that the West is better than the East and like her I won't
settle for anything but the best, though unlike her I would say
Britain is superior to America culturally speaking even though
America is economically richer - so materialism is not all I
care about but I would be lying if I said I would like to work
for $32 a month, I know that's a lot more when you account for
purchasing disparity but trust me it is still shite, and as
strange as it sounds I felt much of foreigner there than I ever
did in Italy, England or Scotland. In fact I would go as far as
to say I was treated more like a foreigner in Sri Lanka because
they could immediately sense maybe because of the simplistic way
I speak Sinhalese that I did not really belong there, then again
I don't think I can fool anyone about belonging here either - I
don't know in general I have found that Europeans do not care
about that because they do not suffer an inferiority complex
towards South Asians feel towards westerners because why would
they when their countries are relatively richer. According to
victimilogy, I guess I would be a victim of multiculturism, but
that would be a lie, for one I do not feel sorry for
myself (don't press X to doubt) and secondly the true victims of
multi-culturism are those whose communities and ways of life
have been destroyed by what is euphemistically called "the free
movement of labour."
In conclusion
I think the comment which I left to him as a reply back then
answers the question he asked better than any of the bloviating
I have been doing in this post, so I will quote it in full:
I might write a blog about my specific
circumstances but long story short, I don't think a man can
serve two masters or cheer for two teams in the same match, or
be loyal to all sides in a conflict, so I made a choice to
place my loyalty (whatever little that counts) to the west. I
would say that all people of mixed heritage who live in the
west should be made to pledge their undivided loyalty to the
west or should be made to leave the west. I have chosen to
stay in the west so it is only natural that I should wish to
save the west above all else and to be loyal to western
civilisation perhaps even more than actual westerners because
just because I was born here I do not have the birth right to
live here as they do, I have to earn it.
Orwells Footnotes:
1) Nations, and even vaguer entities
such as Catholic Church or the proleteriat, are commonly
thought of as individuals and often referred to as ‘she’.
Patently absurd remarks such as ‘Germany is naturally
treacherous’ are to be found in any newspaper one opens and
reckless generalization about national character (‘The
Spaniard is a natural aristocrat’ or ‘Every Englishman is a
hypocrite’) are uttered by almost everyone. Intermittently
these generalizations are seen to be unfounded, but the habit
of making them persists, and people of professedly
international outlook, e.g., Tolstoy or Bernard Shaw, are
often guilty of them.
By Otaking, or The Good Student