A Plea for Patriotism

Here at home, this week began with the announcement from Prime Minister Trudeau of his resignation as leader of the Liberal party.

Expanding the lens just slightly to the south, Canada also found itself centre stage in US media, as President-elect Trump has upped his rhetoric about annexing Canada, and making Canada the 51st state.

And while Trump continues to fan the flames with his strongest allies, there is also hope that a hostage deal, albeit partial, may finally happen, in which Hamas will release some of the hostages prior to Trump's inauguration in just over a week. 

Indeed, one shudders to think of what "hell to pay" - as Trump has threatened will befall Gaza should a deal not transpire before his inauguration - will look like for Gaza, the narrow strip that has been decimated, left in ruins, after over a year of brutal war.

Our current environment, whether at home, in relation to the US, or in Israel-Palestine is one of rising populism, authoritarianism, and democratic backslides, and to combat it, we can take some lessons from Israelis who have been fighting for democracy en masse for over two years now.

After President Biden's resignation and the subsequent loss of the Democrats in the US election, much of the discourse and analysis argued whether the party had moved too far to the left, or to the right. Pundits and journalists made cases for each, each pointing to their own evidence.

A similar debate is now happening here in Canada, with equal amounts of critique of Trudeau's Liberals of both moving too far to the left, and engaging in "woke" and identity politics, or moving too far to the right, abandoning traditional Liberal values on core issues such as immigration or climate change.

It is more apt, however, to assess the entirety of the political landscape, and recognize global trends, which do not divide into left or right, but rather populist, authoritarian, and illiberal vs pluralist, democratic, and liberal.

In fact, the reason one can compellingly make a case for a political party's shift right or left, is because these issues can exist on both the right or left of the political spectrum, and we can pick and choose when we defend or reject them.

The idea that Canada's sovereignty would be threatened was unthinkable even a couple of months ago, but we're - seemingly overnight - in a new era, in which our political leaders are appearing on US mainstream media to explain why we wouldn't want the US to annex us.

And because such a threat has been so unimaginable up until now, questions of our patriotism and nationalism have not taken the main stage in a long time.

But our fight now, and our politicians' messages now, must underscore the importance of our Canadian identity and love of country, and that importance must defined by our values - of pluralism, democracy, and liberalism.

Here, we have a lot to learn from our Israeli counterparts. In the early days of 2023, as the Netanyahu government began its quest to overhaul Israel's judiciary and erode its democratic institutions, civil society in Israel mobilized across political lines, because the issue simply wasn't a matter of left vs right.

The issue was the country you want to be. Which institutions, and which mechanisms by which the institutions operate will determine whether or not you can be that country.

The best way to fight for that future is through the love of your nation. Inexplicably, it seems even patriotism has become a partisan issue but without fighting for something, without recognizing there is something in your country worth fighting for, the fight is ineffective, and that's true for all political parties and ideologies.

Israelis realized that which is why defining features of the protests for over two years now have been Israeli flags and the singing of the national anthem, HaTikva.

Some critique the protests, arguing that the concern is too focused on Israel within the green line, or democracy for Jews only. Their point is often valid, and yet there isn't any chance at all of Palestinian liberation, an end of the occupation, or true equality between Jews and Palestinians within the green line without first having a strong democracy. It is, after all, the democratic values of civil liberties and human rights that necessitate the freedom and equality of Palestinians.

Every protest movement or mass organizing effort will have its fair share of critics, and the freedom to critique is also a right afforded to us by our strong democracy. What we should appreciate and embrace is how patriotism can unite an otherwise divided society, and how an unabashed pride in our nation can rally for political change.

Whether in Canada or Israel - we are not broken, nor are we perfect. We are not beyond repair, nor can we or should we stop our aspirations to be better. And this place, where we can imagine something better for our country and therefore fight for it unrelentingly -- that is patriotism.