About patriotism and Ray from Mummulgum

Ideas of patriotism vary widely from person to person, and from country to country.  Our definitions vary a lot and we store them in our hearts or our minds. The way how we relate to the issue depends on the type of storage we choose. If I was conforming to the most accepted Polish definition it would be stored in my heart and I would consider that any patriotic person needs to die for the country without hesitation. I always had a problem with such an approach, maybe because in my times this was not necessary. I thought that to love the country was to work for it, do something  to make it better. I had the definition stored in my mind rather than in my heart.

But still, there was something also in my heart storage because I remember a fiery discussion, not to say a fight about patriotism with one of my IBM colleagues - Ray of Mummulgum. Ray was a young guy straight from the Uni and the township of Mummulgum. He claimed that the population of the place in the 80ties was 11 and dropped by 10 percent when he went to Uni. I am not sure how true it was but I liked it. Ray was a cheeky person with violently red curly, hair and freckles. In the discipline of freckles we would have a problem to decide who had an upper hand – he or me. I really liked the guy and we had frequent discussions on various subjects. At that time I was a very serious person and Ray, to keep a proper balance between us, was not serious about anything. Maybe a bit about educating Anna in Australian type of life. He even brought some meat pies from his mother from Mummulgum and I had to eat it in Aussie way, or a right way according to Ray – it had to dribble down my elbows or otherwise it was not eaten according to the savoir vivre. I am not sure I really mastered the required etiquette, but I tried  and it was messy but fun.

Back to patriotism – I do not remember how it started but Ray expressed the view that patriotism was a vice not a virtue. My definition stored in the heart kicked in and I got seriously upset about the whole thing. Now I think that Ray’s definition must have been close to nationalism and in this sense I am totally with him.