Nationalism, Good Governance and Ethics
 Last week we discussed the importance of the need for a sense of
nationalism among the masses that constitutes a nation to propel it
towards development and that nationalism is the collective identity of a
mass of people bound together by reason of language, culture or
geography to ensure their collective protection, well-being and the way
forward.
In the international arena, your passport is your first piece of
identity of who you are to the rest of the world and the Government of
country to which the person belongs issues that guarantee. The weight of
this guarantee depends on the weight of the country that stands by you
and hence in foreign travel you are first judged by your passport before
they 'size' you up for your other personal attributes such as your
profession, your social position, your wealth etc.
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Passport is your first piece of identity of who you are to
the rest of the world. File photo |
In practical terms this 'recognition of the Passport' is so important
because in the scale of international recognition this general tendency
could even stretch to a point where they treat an ordinary citizen of a
'world super power' ahead of the Foreign Minister of a 'third world
developing country'.
National identity
In the Middle-East where persons from all over the world are
recruited to supply human labour to their administration and industry,
the employees are paid according to their passport and not according to
their job per se. The argument here is that if you need to hire an
American Accountant you need to pay so much to get him to accept the job
while you can employee a Sri Lankan accountant for a salary ten times
less. Hence we see the relevance of a person's passport to his
well-being and such realizations should spur us to augment the position
of our Passport i.e. the national identity in the eyes of the world.
Hence naturally a person who has travelled abroad would necessarily have
a better sense of nationalism than a person who has not and further it
is for this personally beneficial position that some people change their
nationality and with that their Passport.
Therefore Sri Lanka's position as a nation in the world has a direct
bearing on the personal reputation of every Sri Lankan no matter who he
is, they are all judged against the 'standing' which is world perception
of what a Sri Lankan is. For instance, the post independent Sri Lanka
was known for its quality tea and then as a 'country of lotus eaters'
for our over reliance on the global capitalist system. Then with all the
adverse publicity for the war, Sri Lanka became a 'war ravaged country'
with war escalation and then as a 'supplier of servants' in the Middle
East.
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Founder of humanistic psychology |
When we won the Cricket World Cup our reputation soared in the
Cricket playing countries. Hence just as much as we strive a lifetime to
enhance our personal standing, every Sri Lankan should realize the need
to enhance our national standing in the eyes of the world and that
depends on our strengths as a nation.
Human need hierarchy
It was Abraham Maslow, that theorist on human motivation that
theorized the human need hierarchy, stating that each person has a
hierarchy of needs ranging from basic physiological requirements like
food and shelter, through social requirements such as reasonability and
fairness, ending up in self actualization needs.
What is important about this needs hierarchy however is that a
person's or a nation's upward mobility depends on the satisfaction of
the needs at the preceding level. This is proof enough to say that a
person's standing in the society, national or international, is as
equally important as his own hunger or shelter given the position he is
placed in the hierarchy. Hence the advanced nations in the world have
utilized these needs hierarchy, knowingly or unknowingly, among its own
citizens to spur the nation in to development. After all a nation could
only be as capable as the people who constitute that nation.
Good Governance
In national development, we often talk of the need to practise Good
Governance, transparency on administrative actions and then corruption
as a national malaise. But these are not mere practices that can be
introduced in a vacuum. People need to realize the importance of
national development from a nationalist perspective and then only they
will appreciate the need for good governance, transparency, and
ethicality in their transactions. First they have to realize the
benefits of these practices to the nation as a whole for them to
recognize their relevance. Hence a 'nationalist government' is always
better motivated to instill a sense of better management in national
affairs than a Government that advocates those practices merely because
'the others have become successful by applying those'.
However it is a fact that the performance of Sri Lanka as a nation in
its post independent history has not been very successful in harnessing
the talents and the capabilities of our people for its own development,
mainly due to lack of coherent thinking on the lines of nationalism and
hence most the cream of our national talents have been used by other
nations in their development. This is an area that needs careful and
practical consideration if we are to forge ahead to the heights that
other nations in the region have achieved during the recent past.
Nationalism is a collective form of selfishness and selfishness is
not any less altruistic than offering arms to the needy. You are in a
position to offer arms because you have amassed enough wealth to be in a
position to do so. Therefore, nationalism is a very positive force on
which every nations' and hence every man's existence rests.
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