Patriotism, Good and Bad

I am researching the brief career of Joseph Trumpeldor for a book I am writing. No, the book is not at all about Trumpeldor. He does not even appear in the book. But he touched the life of my heroine, Marah Fallowfield, and he influenced her views on communism, socialism and communal sharing of resources. She met Trumpeldor when she was thirteen years old on a collective farm in  Migdal,  Palestine, and by the time she was a prisoner of the Japanese in Weihsien, Shandong Province, China thirty years later, her mind was already made up.

Joseph Trumpeldor spent some time as a prisoner of the Japanese, too,  just like Marah Fallowfield. It was during the Russo-Japanese War  Trumpeldor was on the Russian side at Port Arthur. He lost his left arm in that war, and he was taken prisoner. Interestingly, he had good things to say about the Japanese after that experience. The Japanese were very tolerant and allowed each prisoner to practice his own faith. Trumpledor printed a newspaper in captivity and plotted with other prisoners to start a Zionist collective farm in Palestine.  Coming from Russia, Trumpeldor was impressed by the kindness of the Japanese.

Anyway, in time Joseph Trumpeldor settled in Migdal as a Zionist, where, according to reliable sources, he was a hard worker and a dedicated fighter, but kind of annoying in the way that all zealots are.

A short except from http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-3135845,00.html

"Trumpledor, the Zionist military legend, held vivid conversations with the local members. To the men, he lectured in the evenings, while he insulted the women when he said they were not as willing as they should be to live on very little. About his Spartan diligence they said that with his single arm he was a better worker than three two armed laborers."

Like all idealists, Joseph Trumpeldor had his good qualities and his not so good qualities. It is hard to ignore his dedication and his bravery, but at the same time, he probably was responsible for the failure of the collective farm at Migdal because he rode people too hard and did not take account of the limitations of human nature.

In time, his historic moment would come in another settlement, where he died defending the place. When mortally wounded, he uttered the famous words that every Israeli school child is taught: "It is good to die for our country."

It sounds a little insipid, but Trumpeldor was a scholar, and he was probably trying to think of a quick Hebrew translation to the old Roman standard, dulce et decorum est pro patria mori, while he held his one hand over his guts to keep them for spilling out.  There is no doubt that Trumpeldor was brave!

But what do people make of him today?

This image comed from http://thinkjustdoit.blogspot.com/2012/07/inter-2103-johnson-vs-trumpeldor.html

I did an internet search and found this meme. Looking at the fat, bewigged Samuel Johnson who was no doubt a very politically astute man and comparing him to the lean and earnest, as well as soon to be dead in battle, Joseph Trumpeldor, my heartstrings tug on me to go for Trumpeldor. He was no scoundrel, and his motive was not greed.

I think the meme represents a simplistic divide that we currently have in all of Western civilization. Either patriotism is stupid or evil or ... or we have to conscript men and send them to their certain death in order to defend all that is holy. (Or we can just use our poor as cannon fodder by promising them jobs and benefits, free medical care and college educations at public expense.)

But there is another way that no one is talking about.  That way is the way of Jean Laffite, the famous privateer who saved America. War can be privatized.

Joseph Trumpledor was not a scoundrel. He was an idealist fighting for a homeland that did not yet exist. He was a man without a country, just like Jean Laffite, and he was willing to die for a place where he would really belong.

But Trumpeldor did have a blind spot: he did not understand that private ownership was one of the best motivators. Instead of lecturing to the women on his collective farms that they lived too lavishly, he should have challenged them to make as much money as they could for the sake of their own families. Jean Laffite understood that, and he offered every sailor on his ship a percentage of the prize to do with as he saw fit!

Private enterprise is the right way to achieve goals, even patriotic goals.

Is every patriot a scoundrel as Johnson suggested? I don't think so. Patriotism is merely love of country. It is not so different from other forms of love. Some men will tell a woman that they love her and then run out on her when it is convenient. But others are true to their love, just as Jean Laffite was true to America.

Patriotic Dissent

Can you be critical of the actions of your government without being seen as unpatriotic? Can you be reverent of the founding documents of your country, but disparaging of the founders, some of whom helped to draft those documents? Can you love America while criticizing important Americans? Or even Americans in general?

 I once heard someone say that she really admired the Quran, but she hated Moslems. It sounded so funny to me at the time. I chided her on this, asking how that was possible, and she said that Moslems universally misinterpret their holy book. I have since heard someone say the same thing about the Bible and Christians.

Any really broad use of a term invites misunderstanding, which is why I changed the blurb of Theodosia and the Pirates: The War Against Spain from what it used to be to this:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/1618790099/ref=cm_sw_r_fa_dp_RYBbub1JWTMS5

What was the blurb like before? It was more or less the words to the War Against Spain book trailer:

When understood in context, these words are very patriotic and show reverence to America's ideals, as put forth in the constitution. But when read out of context, they can be seen as unpatriotic.

That is actually what Theodosia and the Pirates: The War Against Spain is all about. How can you remain loyal to the ideals of your country when your countrymen violate them with impunity? Do you have to go underground with your patriotism?  If you can't practice freedom openly, do you have to furtively support those ideals? Is your country the land, the people, the government or the ideals?

It is young Jules who expresses some of these questions toward the end of the book.

We don't have to put anyone's head on a plate to set the record straight. Nor is it unpatriotic to point out when any governmental action or citizen's attitude is in conflict with the founding documents.

But since people who have not read the book may not know this is what it is about, it is best to be a bit more expository in the descriptive blurb. They can wait until after they have read the book to ponder what it would mean to be "more American than the Americans."

Unrequited Love of Country

As the publication date for Theodosia and the Pirates: The War Against Spain approaches, I am having to find new ways to describe the book. Publicists and readers alike want to know: what is your book about? Why did you write it? What's in it for me?

There are many, many different ways to answer that question. Today, I want to give an answer that focuses on patriotism. And not just any kind of patriotism, but passionate,  unrequited love of country.

When I set out to write Theodosia and the Pirates, I was a little tired of unrequited love. I had just finished writing the first half of Our Lady of Kaifeng, which is a story about a woman who travels halfway across the world in the hopes of having a conversation with someone she loves, but who does not love her.

It was quite a release to be able to write a joyous story of love that is reciprocated, and in part, that is what Theodosia and the Pirates represents for me. But as I was writing it, I became aware of a theme of rejection that ran just under the surface. And this rejection was not about the love between a man and a woman. It was about being rejected by your own country, or by a country you love and long to help.

How does this theme manifest itself? Here are a few instances:

• Zora Nadrimal, Jean Laffite's grandmother, was a loyal Spaniard. And yet she and her husband were arrested and tortured by the Inquisition, and she was forced to flee the country after her husband's death, never to return. Spanish was still her native language. She raised her daughter speaking Spanish. She spoke Spanish to her grandchildren and educated them in the culture of Spain. But how did she really feel about her native country? What about her behavior inspires Jean to take up his "War Against Spain", an endless vendetta against the country that rejected his grandparents?
• Theodosia Burr Alston was a loyal, patriotic American. Yet her father was accused of being a traitor, and even after he was acquitted of the charges, his name was dragged in the mud. If you open a history book today, Aaron Burr is known for two things: killing Alexander Hamilton in a duel, and plotting to "separate the Western territories" from the United States. Burr went into exile for a time after his acquittal, but he returned to the United States and lived in poverty and obscurity for the rest of his life. How did Theodosia Burr really feel about the country that could do this to her father, after he had been a revolutionary war hero, had served as Vice President, and had always championed the freedoms of all Americans?
• Jean Laffite, despite being a hunted man, gave the Americans information about their enemies the British that was designed to help them avoid being conquered. What did they do in response? They sent a raiding party against him. He ordered his men not to fight back against the looters, and even after his ships were stolen and storehouses looted, he contributed to the American cause by donating gunpowder and flint, artillery and trained cannoneers, and he fought for the US cause right alongside the men who looted him: Patterson and Ross. Yet when the conflict was over, he was never compensated for what was taken from him, and he was forced to find another place to continue his privateering business. Not content with driving him out of Barataria, the Americans required him to leave Galveston, too. And even when he was enlisted in the Columbian Navy, the  Americans were still out to get him. What would you feel toward a country that did that to you? Paradoxically, Jean Laffite felt only love for the United States of America, despite the actions of its government. 

Some people feel that everything in life is based on turn taking and reciprocity. It's all you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours. But real love, whether it is for a person or a country, is not like that. True love transcends the need for reciprocation.

That's the big theme in Theodosia and the Pirates. It was present in the first book from the beginning, but it is given a final expression in The War Against Spain. Sometimes love of country is so strong, that it transcends borders and rulers. It is like a weed that flowers despite everything that is done to eradicate it. In this sense, the book is a tribute to the triumph of love over hatred.