Gory Glory?

From a very young age, we’ve been indoctrinated into developing patriotic feelings towards the country where you’re born and are always told that ‘One day, you must make your country feel proud about you’. Well, fair enough, I’m not opposed to that in principle, either but then, how should we achieve it?

I don’t know how it became that way, but then, only people belonging to two lines of profession are considered as those who bring glory, one being sports and the other being the armed forces. A victory in sport makes the whole country gaga; ‘Xyz does the country proud’ would be the repetitive headline across papers for the next few days. While I understand that it is a great personal achievement, I fail to understand as to why people go around saying ‘I’m proud of my country as I hail from the same country as Xyz’. If you take inspiration from Xyz, use the resources provided by the country which Xyz could exploit and achieve the success and manage to replicate the same or go a step further, I’d agree with the pride but mere pride on account of sharing a passport, I find it to be utterly pointless.

The second point I am coming to is – who exactly brings glory to the country? I’m not denying that soldiers and sportspersons don’t bring glory to the country but the idea that I reject is that these are these are the only two professions that does bring glory to the country. In my opinion, what really drives a country is a group of committed individuals who play their part with absolute dedication in sincerity, starting from the clerk working in the office of the head of state till the head of state.

We glorify sport a lot, let us go to the most commercial sports which are usually played by a team and let me take the example of the world’s most widely watched sport – football; there are varied roles; the role of a goalkeeper or a defender seems lousy from afar or at least, not glamorous enough but if they don’t perform, the team is going to get screwed and same with holding midfielders and central midfielders. Akin to the real world where we seem to glorify only soldiers and sportspersons as bringing glory to the team, the status as legends go only to those who get all the glory, usually the forwards and the inside forwards but then, the one who win is the complete team, Paolo Rossi wouldn’t have got the glory if not for Claudio Gentile and Dino Zoff.

The whole point that I am asserting is, the football team example could even be taken to a macro level, and the politics of running a country is also a team game which has roles much more than the eleven roles in a football match and each role is important to steer the country forward and yes, the ones who bring the country forward ultimately are every member of the populace, starting from the all and sundry till the one who performs the role of getting all the glory. However, the attitude right now seems to be like, how in football, it is deemed as sacrilege if you say anything against Ronaldo or Messi, similarly, you can’t say anything against those who’ve been glorified, even constructive criticism is condemned. After all, a successful economy is the one where most individuals (all is practically impossible and utopian) perform their role to precision, similar to a team in a sport.

The point I am trying to make is to not stop glorifying those who’re into the aforementioned activities but then rather answer the question that I initially asked as to how you make your feel country proud about you; the country has every reason to feel proud about you so long as you play your part properly, you get the share of the glory too. After all, once a team wins the world cup, every member of the squad gets the medal and similarly, every person who has elevated the country to the position can feel they’ve done the country proud and need not be envious about those who are gifted enough to bear the flag.

Have a nice day,

Andy