I have realised that I really hate use of the word “we” in reference to participation in historical events which we clearly did not take part in. If you don’t know what I’m talking about when I say this, I mean uses of the word “we” like this (in a tweet I saw earlier today):

History? Wassat? http://shar.es/m9ksY 40% ages 18-29 don’t know who we fought in American Revolution. #fail

Perhaps sadly, my gut reaction to this was, “Ha! Stupid people.” But then I thought about it a bit more, and I realised that I really didn’t like the ideological message subtly embedded in this tweet. “What ideological message?” you may ask. Well, very simply, this phrase: who we fought in the American Revolution.

Well maybe 18-29 year olds don’t know who “we” fought, because they, as part of this “we”, were not there because the American Revolution did not happen within the last 18 to 29 years. Given the high immigration the US has experienced, I think that the vast majority of Americans are not even descended from people who fought in the American Revolution, almost two and a half centuries ago. If you asked someone, “Who did we fight in that revolution two and a half centuries ago?” they might respond — if they were smart — that they hadn’t fought anyone because they couldn’t have participated in a revolution two and a half centuries ago (unless they are even older than that 157-year-old woman in Indonesia).

Before you nag me for ignoring the idea of ~building a nation~ (which I did an entire history unit on, and it was my best subject this semester, so stfu!), I am well aware of that and that is the exact ideological message I am objecting to. The “nation” is an artificial construction. Prior to the eighteenth century, there wasn’t a clear idea of what a “nation” was. Then someone thought of it, and in the nineteenth century, the elites of all sorts of European countries took to the idea of nationhood just like chewed gum takes to anything it touches — they realised that this was quite possibly the greatest way to inspire their people to fight on their behalf of all time. Prior to then they’d had to rely on coercion, the threat of death, etc., which did work but resulted in kind of crappy troops. Indoctrinate them with ideas of the NATION, however, and suddenly they were falling over themselves to sacrifice their lives for the elites, in the name of the nation!

This is essentially what the idea of the nation is all about, and as you can see, it is pretty fucking bullshit. It is an ideology deliberately designed to encourage people to see their fellow human beings as less than them, less important because they’re not a part of the nation. This reaches absolutely disgusting levels in Australia, where the vast majority of the population wants to see asylum seekers left to drown in the ocean, rather than permitted to settle in Australia. Seemingly, people have been indoctrinated into thinking that people are not allowed to flee the most terrible situations imaginable, because Australia is too special to welcome them. Well, fuck that. Australians are not some kind of “superior race”, and it is despicable that anyone could think they have the authority to tell people to die, because they’d rather they died than have them live in this country.

And this is why I disagree with the word “we”! I reject the idea that being Australian means that I belong to any kind of group about which we can use the word “we”. I am not responsible for the invasion of Aboriginal land, and refuse to be a part of the “we” which “settled” this continent in 1788. I did not try to invade Turkey in 1915 on behalf of Imperial Britain, and refuse to be part of the “we” which landed at Gallipoli. I am not militaristic, and I refuse to be a part of the “we” who Julia Gillard says support the wars our government wages against other countries. This is not “us”, this is other people.

I’m aware that the points I’m making could be used for progressive causes or deeply conservative ones, for instance: “I’m not personally responsible for the Stolen Generations, therefore I won’t apologise.” (John Howard!!) I’m not looking to justify racism, however, nor any other abhorrent view. For a start, the state is something entirely different to an individual, but that’s another matter. What I do want to do in this entry is criticise nationalism, and the idea that I belong to some group of “us”, some “nation”, which means events in the eighteenth century somehow personally happened to me.

I think this attitude is a very backwards one, too. We shouldn’t be attached to historical members of our “nation” just because they’re members of our “nation”. For instance, should I defend the British Empire and its disgusting nature, simply because Australia is a former “white dominion”? Should I defend Alfred Deakin’s disgustingly racist speeches, just because he’s a prominent figure from our nation’s history and even has a university named after him? Uh, no. Identifying emotionally with the British Empire and Alfred Deakin is clearly an impediment to recognising them for the horrifying things they are. And there is certainly nothing better about the “Australian nation” as opposed to any other nation which means I should want to identify with it, however erroneous that identification would be in the first place.

Nationalism is just a bad ideology in the first place. It encourages people to identify with people they shouldn’t, encourages them to overlook horrors that should never be overlooked, and encourages racism, above all. And it might seem like such a small thing, to use the pronoun “we” to refer to a nation, but coupled with righteous indignation about these youths not knowing our proud nation’s history, it is quite sickening. Never mind the nation, I’d rather identify with the human race, thanks.

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