'My country right or wrong'

Is nationalism synonymous with patriotism? These are surely cognate concepts but not quite identical.Both relate to territory but nationalism more so than patriotism would seem to be linked to a particular people or group, united by some common affiliation; religious, ethnic, cultural or linguistic. Patriotism is perhaps more inclusive in scope and application, especially so in a world that is becoming increasingly globalised.

Recently in a newspaper column, that I read with interest whenever I am able to, there was a passing mention of the late President Iskander Mirza of Pakistan and his penchant for the phrase "My country right or wrong". It took me back many years in time, to the decade of the 1950s, when we were in High School and Iskander Mirza successively held high political office.

In our English language examination, 20 marks out of 100 would be for an essay on some topic or other. The topic, of course, was not known ahead of time but there were always likely subjects on which students would bone up, in a manner. One of these was "Patriotism". To lend gravitas to an essay or to underscore a point,one would slip in an apposite quote. The preferred quote for "Patriotism" was from Sir Walter Scott: "Breathes there the man with soul so dead, Who never to himself hath said, This is my own, my native land!" Among others, Iskander Mirza's "My country right or wrong" was also used but our language teachers, American catholic missionaries, were a little ambivalent about it. The phrase we were told was not without connotations that could be polemical. It was not coined by Mirza but by an American naval hero more than a century earlier; more on this later.

What manner of man was the late Iskander Mirza? I do not know how or if he is remembered in Pakistan. Certainly his use of the phrase quoted, would suggest an individual with an intense, almost consuming, love for his country and, by extension and inference, people. A somewhat different image, however, emerges from the memoirs or diaries of someone, who wrote from a vantage point that afforded a unique perspective.

The late Qudratullah Shahab was a distinguished and respected civil servant, who held many important assignments in Pakistan. He was also a writer of considerable merit and maintained a diary from 1938 or so till the time of his death in 1986. This was published posthumously as Shahabnama.Shahab's assignments included a nine-year stint, from 1954, as Secretary to two Governors-General, Ghulam Mohammad and Iskander Mirza, and two Presidents, Iskander Mirza and Ayub Khan. He was thus a privileged and dispassionate observer and also recorder of events, official and not so official, in high places. His account provides many fascinating insights.

When Mirza succeeded the ailing Ghulam Mohammad as Governor-General, he was married to his second wife, Mrs Nahid Mirza, an Iranian lady. Coincidentally he was her second husband. Nahid Mirza, in one of her early chats with Shahab, suggested that he dispense with the services of the comely and competent Miss Ruth, the Governor-General's personal secretary. No reasons were given. Miss Ruth was an expatriate Britisher, who had been serving from the time of Ghulam Mohammad, who, Shahab noted, was not oblivious to female pulchritude. Miss Ruth did depart not long after for Britain.

The Mirzas liked to entertain and frequently enough there were parties -- with liquid refreshments flowing freely -- that went on till late hours. At one such party, Mirza felt the hem of an attractive lady's sari and complimented her choice of clothes. Mrs Mirza emerged out of nowhere and admonished her startled guest not to "monkey around" with her husband. The thoroughly nonplussed lady protested feebly that she had done nothing unseemly and that Mirza had merely complimented her taste in clothes. There were reasons, however, for Mrs Mirza's abruptness. Apparently an innocuous compliment about her sense of clothes was the opening line Mirza had used when they had first met. He was at that time the country's Defence Secretary and she, the wife of the Military Attache of Iran in Pakistan.

Shahab recounts a very revealing episode about Mirza's view of the constitution of 1956, under which he had become President. Holding the constitution in his hand, he once asked if Shahab had ever read the "trashy book." Mirza's efforts and energies, as Shahab relates, were geared to one principal purpose, his continuation in office. Mirza was apprehensive that general elections could lead to a change in the Office of President and so elections had to be deferred under some pretext or other. Eventually on October 7, 1958, he abrogated the constitution and declared Martial Law. Once the deed was done he realized that he had forfeited political legitimacy himself. Less than three weeks into Martial Law he was ushered out of the Presidential Palace, first to Quetta and then to exile in London. He thus precipitated his departure from the Office of President rather than prolong his tenure.

A senior colleague, who possesses a remarkable gift of being able to relate to people, often across generations, related to me an anecdote about Mirza's last hours in the Presidential Palace. He had heard this from Shahab. Almost in a daze Mirza had mumbled to no one in particular "Woh jamadar ka beta hi jith gaya" (that son of an NCO has won). A compliment of sorts, I suppose, to his successor as President. Mirza, above all else, perhaps exemplified the Peter Principle; a man rising to the level of his incompetence.

As mentioned earlier, the phrase "my country right or wrong" did not originate with Mirza. In 1816, an American naval hero, Stephen Decatur, had proposed a toast, which has over years become a favourite of ultra nationalists everywhere. Decatur had said:

"Our country! In her intercourse with foreign nations may she always be in the right; but our country right or wrong". In response John Quincy Adams, who was soon to become one of America's most cerebral and outstanding Secretaries of State and later President, wrote to his father -- a former President -- as follows: "I cannot ask of heaven success, even for my country, in a cause where she should be in the wrong... My toast would be, may our country be always successful, but whether successful or otherwise, always right". A most mellow and acceptable form of nationalism surely. In 1899, Carl Schurz, an immigrant, who had attained high political and diplomatic office in his adopted country, the US, afforded an even more mature and hospitable face of nationalism to which none can be averse. Addressing a conference in Chicago, Schurz said: "Our country right or wrong. When right, to be kept right; when wrong, to be put right".

A nation is the unity of a people, as Coleridge put it. Assuredly nationalism can be a most constructive and potent force for development and nation-building. It is one of the pillars of our constitution. In the 18th and early 19th centuries, nationalistic movements even had international dimensions as these sought to accept and embrace national differences. And yet we have also seen -- only recently in the Balkans -- what a malevolent force ultra or acute nationalism can be.

Is nationalism synonymous with patriotism? These are surely cognate concepts but not quite identical.Both relate to territory but nationalism more so than patriotism would seem to be linked to a particular people or group, united by some common affiliation; religious, ethnic, cultural or linguistic. Patriotism is perhaps more inclusive in scope and application, especially so in a world that is becoming increasingly globalised. Comments or reflections on patriotism in more recent times are far less solemn or earnest than those like Sir Walter Scott's of old; more subtle and complex in concept. George Nathan (Testament of a Critic, 1931) had this to say of patriotism: "Patriotism, as I see it, is often an arbitrary veneration of real estate above principles". And Professor Galbraith wrote with a touch of levity (A Life in Our Times, 1981): "I have never understood why one's affections must be confined, as once with women, to a single country".

Whether or not there exists a shade of difference between patriotism and nationalism, one would tend to believe that the ultimate objectives of both enlightened nationalism and true patriotism cannot be too different. Somehow these must reflect certain universal values and instincts. In the words of an eminent international civil servant and savant, the common goal of humankind can only be "a new comradeship, a universal fellowship, a world communion, a deeper understanding and.....the peace that passeth all understanding".