A response to The Harper Review’s autumn 2024 proposition, “You should love your country.”
Dear editors,
It is rather rare, if not impossible, to find two people who can stand firmly on the same ground when it comes to the “whether,” “why,” and “how” of love—much less on something as abstract as love for one’s country.
I have long stood on the shaky hyphen that separates my identities as an Iranian and an American, a line that has, in recent history, often served as more of a battleground than a bridge. Yet, at this fraught intersection of identities, a profound love for both of my countries has kept me grounded and steady. I have loved my birthplace of Iran through injustice and betrayal, for the memories and experiences that have shaped who I am today, and for the vibrant soul of its history, heritage, and people which strives to shine through the suffocating shadow of the clerical regime. And I love America, even as I grapple with a sense of belonging in a place where my roots do not run as deep. Here I have received sanctuary from persecution and the protection of freedoms that the 12-year-old me—sitting in the back of a morality police van for showing too much hair—could hardly have imagined.
As I navigate the love I hold for both my countries, I find myself confronted by the complexities of patriotism, which, despite its warmth, often invites scrutiny. For instance, patriotism has faced extensive critique in intellectual circles for its perceived irrationality and parochial pitfalls. In “Patriotism as Bad Faith,” the philosopher Simon Keller argues that patriotic sentiments often cause individuals to overlook unfavorable truths about their country’s history and actions. Acknowledging a nation’s mistakes is no easy task. Instead of allowing one to confront uncomfortable realities, Keller writes that patriotism breeds a blind sense of fidelity that leads one to parrot the mantra, “My country, right or wrong” and turn one’s back on truth and accountability. It justifies a nation’s most outrageous flaws in favor of an imagined higher unity, and in doing so it propagates a political reality filled with lies, evasions, and hatred.
Arguments such as Keller’s, however, risk conflating a country and its regime and operate under the assumption that criticism for your government’s misdeeds and patriotism cannot co-exist. But a patriot who abandons their country at the first sign of despotism was never a patriot to begin with, and one who pledges loyalty to tyranny in the name of patriotism is no better than a tyrant themselves.
Love for one’s country does not demand absolute obedience. Rather, it is an intimate connection to the people, memories, experiences, and values that shape our pasts and futures—not to masquerading politicians draped in flags. Patriotism, at its core, is proud but unyielding. It does not shrink in the face of corruption and betrayal. It stands tall and demands its country to be better because it believes in it enough to know that it can. It is not a self-righteous, chest-thumping ideology that erases blemishes from history books. It is a transformative force that expects the present to not only meet but surpass the past. Patriotism’s mantra is not simply “My country, right or wrong,” but “My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right,” as the American statesman Carl Schurz said.
All said, our understandings of what patriotism entails are not merely a matter of reason, but also of heart. If, thus far, I have not succeeded in clarifying my definition of what a true patriot looks like, then I ask you to walk with me to the streets of Isfahan and stand outside the iron gates of Dastgerd prison. Here, 30-year-old Majid Kazemi was hanged just hours before sunrise for participating in anti-government protests that swept across the country under the promise of “Woman, Life, Freedom.” And as the sound of the morning call to prayer fades into silence, if you listen closely enough, perhaps you can still hear the echoes of the words he uttered only hours before the noose tightened around his neck: “Death to dictator. I sacrifice my life for Iran.” That is how I aspire to love my countries—not blindly, but with eyes wide open, courageous enough to question, to resist, and to hope.
Rightly or wrongly,
Fateme Tavakoli