Sophie Scholl, is one of the most iconic youth figures in Germany’s resistance against the Nazi regime. Alongside her brother and other members of the White Rose movement, she was arrested a year before the outbreak of World War II for distributing anti-Nazi pamphlets. They were tried and executed by guillotine.
A video has recently gone viral showing an interview with a young Indian teenager. The interviewer persistently tried to coax him into chanting, “Long live India, death to Pakistan.” The boy, however, calmly responded with well-wishes for both countries. His quiet defiance struck a chord online.
This distinction is crucial: patriotism is not an ideology. It is an instinctive drive within a nation to preserve its survival, ensure collective welfare, and maintain its way of life. Ideologies, by contrast, are rigid frameworks that impose a specific definition of how life should be lived.
For this reason, patriotism is often vulnerable to manipulation. Governments can easily twist it into an ideological tool—one that justifies exclusion, aggression, and blind loyalty. When patriotism is weaponized to serve the narrow, unilateral interests of a single nation, it becomes a dangerous catalyst for conflict and devastation.
Patriotism in its truest form is constructive. In a world where every nation is, in effect, alone, people must protect their national identity much like they would defend a family. But nations must also remember: they do not live in isolation. When they create unnecessary tensions, interfere in others’ affairs, or pursue expansionist ambitions, they sow the seeds of catastrophe.
Reason dictates that governments are merely instruments for enabling life. Anything that disrupts the conditions for living—whether in the name of ideology, power, or pride—is an enemy of both humanity and national interest.
The courage of individuals like Sophie Scholl and that young Indian boy lies in their unwavering commitment to the value of life itself. Their examples serve as a vital reminder: the interests of the people often diverge from the interests of the state—and it is the people’s voice, not the state’s ambition, that history will remember.
Written by Soroosh Arya
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