Passport and nationality

One of the most messed-up thing that you hear is people saying, "Don't ask what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country," or, "It is time to give back to your country." But when you ask what the country has given you, then because of lacking of any sound argument or reason, they harp on mythical and manufactured constructs: identity, pride, place in the world. I say, what do you mean by identity. My parents transmitted to me both my billions years old evolutionary and genetic history and thousands of years old cultural history.

If you mean passport by identity then what's so great about having a passport? There are like, what, 1 percent people in the whole world who are stateless? You are asking me to take pride in a thing that literally the whole of world has. Even if I was born in any Godforsaken country I would still have the passport. It is like saying that you should be thankful to your country that you are alive! In-fact every state takes the identity which is rooted in hundreds of years of history and continuity of culture and linguistic traditions and impose a homogeneous and hegemonic political identity which is as mythical as it is artificial. So, tell me again what my country has given me?

And should I take pride in belonging to an abc country? Sure, if it has done things which are of significance to humanity then I must be proud of it. But every country has done horrible crimes in name of its people. They have attacked other countries, have taken parts in insurgencies, have sold weapons to dictators and worst human rights abusers, have deprived millions of its own people of basic human rights and needs through policy manipulation, have made lives of people of a neighboring country hell, if it believes that the neighbors are enemy number one. Should I also be ashamed of the crimes committed in my name, while propagating that people of other countries are being killed to make me safe?

It is time to have a transaction-al relationship with your country, not an emotional one. You pay it money and it provides you services. It can be seen no other way if you deconstruct the myths of nation-making ('nation-state' to be exact). And if anyone has to give it back it is the country, its elites, its generals, its industrialists, its feudal lords, its bureaucrats, its politicians, its 1 percent that have to give us back. I have nothing to give back. It has already taken enough from me and enough in my name."