There is a band of people who are misfits in every country. We don’t subscribe to the concept of nationalism. “India is so great”, “the US is so great”, “you may not criticize your country” – these statements mean nothing to us.
People like us treat countries like individuals. They may be wonderful, we may be in love with them, but we focus on the room to grow, to improve.
You will not find us in national marches, standing for anthems, or bowing before political leaders. The only asses we kiss are our lover(s).
People like us don’t belong to countries. The music of India touches us, as does the music of Pakistan, equally, the music of Scotland.
We don’t chant ‘India! India!’ but cheer for the team that has worked the hardest, and plays the best. We get tears in our eyes when the Kiwi captain of a ship changes course to support an incredible female swimmer swimming in New Zealand waters, and hoists the flag of the United States, to honour her.
We are men and women of honour. We stand at attention for effort: be it from a dung beetle, the great yew tree, or the efforts of a Kyrgyz boy. We laugh with the children of the world, we cry when injustice is done to a North Korean. We applaud the courage of a disabled child. We are a fan of the ParaOlympics.
We don’t stick by family and team, taking their side no matter what. We don’t hide foibles – we air them. If I did wrong against someone as a child, my parents wouldn’t protect me – they would put me out, and would protect whoever I hurt. We are the people who don’t hide corruption and lies because they belong to people we know. We know people who don’t lie, and have integrity.
These are the people who don’t do jobs or act for personal gain; they do it for the global good. For people like us, our family doesn’t have a last name; it has a planet. Our family is not even just human – it is animals, plants, even rocks and the air. We seek to protect purity and integrity in every form – in our souls, in the shining eyes of children, in clean air and water, in organic, unadulterated food.
We don’t belong to countries, we belong to the country of good. We celebrate, and practice goodness. My people are all over the world – who help a stranger for no reason at all.
I was on my way to Everest Base Camp this year, and developed respiratory distress north of Pheriche, Nepal. I couldn’t walk, and kept coughing. I was sitting in a restaurant, exhausted from the rescue walk down from the mountains, and a Kazakh woman smiled at me from across the restaurant.
She had long black hair, she came up to me and asked, ‘are you okay?’ I said no. She went to her room and came back with four neatly wrapped Vicks packets for dry cough, her internet card for me to access the net and get help, and a chocolate (for the rough times).
I arose, and she came into my arms, and I planted a kiss on her shoulder – an intimate kiss, one accorded to the dearest of friends. I will never see that woman again, nor she, me. She didn’t go out of her way to help with such love and tenderness because she knew me, or because I was from her country, or because I was a woman. She would have given the same tender love to a tiny plant on the mountainside.
I am a citizen of the United States. But really, I am a citizen of the country of heart. People like me – and there are thousands, we don’t believe in patriotism – we are the matriots – of the country of heart, planet Good.
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