4 Patriotism is the Last Refuge of a Scoundrel

This statement of Dr. Samuel Johnson is a half-truth, void in the form of an epigram. If patriotism is the first urge of the best, it is sometimes the last resort of the worst people of the world. If a history of patriotism were written, it would be found to be essentially a Roman virtue. Pro patria morl - is a Latin phrase from Horace, the famous Latin poet; it means, to die for ones father land. Bertrand Russell in an essay, while tracing the .origin of Western civilisation, observes that the ancient Romans were the first to develop the conception of loyalty to the state and selfsacrifice for the countrys cause. It is, however, a mistake to think that patriotism was the monopoly of the ancient Romans. In ancient times, Darius the Great of Peria, fired by the ideal of patriotism, led huge hordes against the Greeks in revenge for their interference in Asia Minor in the fifth century B. C. Alexander of Macedon also was inspired by the lofty ideal of patriotism when the undertook world conquest in the fourth century B. C. In later times, In the first great European War of 1914 - 18, there arose an English poet, Rupert Brooke, who died, covered with glory, in the Battle of Gallipoli. Rupert Brooke has written some beautiful War sonnets, which are widely read. In one of the sonnets, he describes the fallen heroes of the Great World War as restoring to England the long-forgotten ideals of Honour and Piety. Rupert Brooke, indeed, speaks very highly of patriotism as the noblest aspiration of man. But Johnsons epigram is not a mere jugglery of word~>. In recent times, whole nations and peoples have been mislec by politicians and statesmen of the meanest type. Hitter, for instance, rose from the humble position of a solider to that of the Fuehrer (or

leader) of the nation, himself intoxicated by the ideal of racial superiority of the Germans. He instilled that ideal into the mind of every German man and woman and boy and organised a supremely powerful party known as the Nazis. The Nazis or the National Socialist Party of which Hitler was the accredited leader, as we all know, attacked Poland in 1939 and later involved the rest of the world in the Second World War. Many competent critics of international politics and history adjudge Hitler to be a low specimen of humanity who resorted to patriotism as a means first for personal advancement and then for the nations supposed good, for the German nation was for him nothing but his own shadow lengthened out a million-fold on the wall of European history. Mussolini of modern Italy is just another convincing example of a scoundrel practising politics apparently for national but, in reality for deeply personal ends. Son of Alessandro, a blacksmith a heavy man with strong, large, fleshy hands Mussolini, after many changes of fortune, rose to power after the World War of 1914 - 18, and organised after Hitler, the Fuehrer of Germany a powerful party and a movement, known as the Fascists and Fascism. Drawing his inspiration freely from the Roman imperialism of ancient times, he dreamed of an Italian Empire with farflung colonies in Africa and elsewhere. Both Hitler and Mussolini were dictators; both were blindly led by the possessive instinct; the one stood for the ideal of racial superiority, the other for territorial greed; and both are now gone out of the picture of international politics. Shakespeare teaches this lesson in his political play, Julius Caesar. In this play, he dramatises the conflict between republicanism and dictatorship in ancient Rome in the days of Caesar. Caesar was the dictator and Brutus the leader of the conspiracy against Caesar. Though Brutus was a selfless idealist, Cassius another member of the conspiracy, was always inspired by personal hatred and malice against Caesar. If Brutus was the noblest Roman of them all, Cassius was truly the scoundrel for whom patriotism was ths last refuge.