1964 Awake! - Theocratic Collector.com

man beings or Japanese human beings. Our
humanity is a more basic fact than our
nationality. If the human race goes down
the drain, all human nations will go with
it. It follows, surely, that our loyalty to
the hwnan race should be paramotmt."
But are men primarily concerned with
the human race? On this matter Ivo Duchacek
in his book Conflict and Cooperation
Among Nations says: "Nationalism
divides humanity into mutually intolerant
units. As a result people think as Americans,
Russians, Chinese, Egyptians or Peruvians
first, and as human beings second
-if at alL"
So the failure to recognize people first
as members of the human race has split
the world into a host of opposing factions,
the leaders of which claim that the paramount
loyalty of subject peoples belongs to
the State, "right or wrong." All too frequently
this has been "wrong," and people
have supported wicked, corrupt leaders in
the name of nationalism.
This has been true especially in our
time, with frightful consequences. The idea
of nation first, "right or wrong," has been
directly responsible for intelligent, industrious
people turning en masse to a state
of mind that would put the barbarians of
ancient times to shame. Lying, stealing,
rape and murder' have been tolerated in
the name of nationalism, "for God and
country."
A tragic example of this in recent years
was the degrading of many of the German
people during the Hitler regime, all in the
name of the "fatherland."
Thousands, yes, millions of intelligent
people permitted themselves to be used by
Hitler to overrun other nations and bring
great harm to millions of innocent men,
women and children. People of other nationalities
died in wholesale numbers,
many in horrendous death factories, to satisfy
the lust for power and blood of a few
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political rulers. These fantastic crimes
were condoned because they were done in
the name of the nation, in this case the
Third Reich.
That nationalism could degrade hwnans
to such an extent was noted by Eugene
Cardinal Tisserant in a letter to the archbishop
of Paris, dated June 11, 1940, as
published by the Italian magazine Il Mondo.
Tisserant said: "The Fascist and Hitler
ideology has so affected the conscience
of our young people that they will not
shrink back from committing murder of
any kind." It was not much different in
Russia under Stalin or in Japan during
World War II under the warlords. Even
the Anglo-Saxons wiped out hundreds of
thousands of innocent women and children
in massive air bombings. And all these
things have been the direct result of putting
nation first, "right or wrong," and of
putting humanity a very poor second, "if
at all."
Nationalism Takes Precedence
How powerful a force nationalism is can
be seen by the fact that these horrible
things have been done to other humans
just because their nationality was different.
Thus, nationalism grinds underfoot
any uniting forces and proves more powerful,
even when it results in harm or loss
of life to others. It takes precedence over
other factors that might work for the good
of all people.
One might think that at least racial
similarities could thwart nationalism and
prevent it from running wild, but this is
rarely the case. Being of the same race is
of no help when nationalism is involved.
This can be seen in our time when whites
kill whites during wartime, when darkcolored
peoples kill other dark-colored peoples,
and when yellow-skinned individuals
kill other yellow-skinned individuals.
AWAKE!