Patriotism has been described as “the last refuge of a scoundrel’’; but everybody does not take that view. Some of those who do not are the London newspapers, also the Liberal, Labour and Conservative parties. They all say that patriotism is a very fine and noble thing, and that we should honour the courage and devotion of the patriot who fights to defend the land he was born in against foreign invaders. There is Abyssinia, for example. The Manchester Guardian reports that widespread guerrilla warfare is still bring waged against the Italians, and the writer in the Guardian (September 8th, 1938) goes to some trouble to explain that the Abyssinian patriots are not just “bandits." But if we turn from Abyssinia to Palestine, where the Arabs are trying by force of arms to overthrow the detested British rule and oust the Jewish settlers, we find a remarkable difference. All the London daily papers, with hardly an exception, habitually report the efforts of the Arabs as the activities of “bandits." Actually the Arab fighters talk the same kind of language as all the other patriots. Here is a sample:—
Were it not for the justice of our cause, the holiness of our demands and the victory promised to us by God, the enemy would have succeeded in its intentions. —(Daily Telegraph, September 8th, 1938.)
Not that we wish to idealise the Arabs, but it would be more fitting if the gangs of patriots in all countries recognised that they are all worshipping the same barbarous ideals in the same bloodthirsty way.
[From the Notes by the Way column by Edgar Hardcastle, Socialist Standard, October 1938.]
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