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Many small towns promote an Old-fashioned Fourth of
July celebration,
and mine is no exception, starting
with an afternoon parade and concluding with fireworks
after dusk. Judging by old newspapers and the memories of
old-timers, we miss several old-fashioned
aspects of
the celebration: modern kids don't enjoy much access to
potent fireworks like silver salutes and cannon-crackers,
and there is no public reading of the Declaration of
Independence.
To remedy the latter shortcoming, my wife and I often
visit the community radio station on the Fourth, and read
the Declaration along with some exposition and commentary.
I don't know if anyone listens, but it makes me feel more
patriotic; the Declaration, along with the Bill of Rights
and public lands, are what I love most about this country.
Or, as the bumper sticker puts it, I love my country but
fear its government.
But sometimes I wonder if we need a better word than patriot and its derivatives. It is rather sexist, since it is related to words like patriarchy, and it ultimately derives from the Greek words pater (father) and patris (fatherland).
Fatherland can have a rather ominous sound, since
that's one term that Germans of the Nazi era used for their
country, but the dictionary at hand (American Heritage
Second College Edition) avoids that connotation, with two
definitions: a person's native land,
and the
native land of one's ancestors.
Motherland -- what many Russians call their
country -- has a similar definition: the land or country
of one's birth,
and an identical one, the native
land of one's ancestors,
as well as a third: A
country considered to be the place of origin, as of a
movement.
Thus it seems odd that we often read of patriots and patriotism, but seldom see matriots and matriotism -- they ought to be pretty much the same thing. On the other hand, if we're trying to avoid sexism, matriot is no improvement on patriot.
Perhaps that's why the current administration, in the
process of fabricating a new bureaucracy, called it
Homeland Security.
Homeland, as opposed to
motherland or fatherland, does avoid sexism,
but if we go by the dictionary (one's native land
),
it applies only to those born in the U.S.A. No matter how
one feels about immigration of any variety, it is a fact
that millions of immigrants have become citizens and have
made this country their home. One's place of birth, after
all, is something one has no control over.
Further, it's pretty difficult to construct an analogue to patriot or matriot from homeland. Latin gives us something like domiot.
The Greek word for home is oikos, and it's already the root for works like ecology (home logic) and eoonomy (home management). But oikiot and ecoiot are awkward-sounding terms that would lend themselves to ridicule.
Somewhere there must be an inclusive word for one who
cherishes the country without turning it into a fatherland,
motherland or homeland. But so far, I haven't been able to
find it. Perhaps there's a useful term in Spanish or Ute or
Navajo. In the meantime, though, there's life, liberty
and the pursuit of happiness.
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