Am I a Polak? Does it really matter what nationality you are from?

As a polish school child you learn to recite this poem

“Kto ty jestes?

Polak maly.

Jaki znak twoj?

Orzel bialy...” (In polish)

“Who are you?

A Polish child.

What’s your emlem?

The eagle in white…” (English translation)

This poem keeps going with identify a child with polish nationalistic identity. You learn that you are a Pole from the very beginning when you enter the Polish public school system. You quickly learn your identify from what has been taught to you at school or by your parents. You identify that everyone living in the fatherland of Poland is your brother and sister. There is interconnectedness from right away when you learn to recite this poem that those are your people around you. In United States every young kid in the public schools get up with the right hand over their heart with a

“I pledge Allegiance to the flag
of the United States of America
and to the Republic for which it stands,
one nation under God, indivisible,
with Liberty and Justice for all.”

Right away you are interconnected that this nation is under God, that this nation is indivisible, and there is liberty and justice for all in this land. Those are socialistic poems, songs, or recitals that unite people with common themes in mind. These nationalistic feelings provide bonding and identify a marker with you of how you look at people as your own or people of the land as yours. Social coherence has its pros and cons. It feels good to belong to a large group of people. To have oneself identify as part of a group. To belong to a large group of people means a better chance of survival. No one wants to be an outcast. To be banished from a group long time ago meant a death sentence of starvation.

The feelings of nationality can bring a sense of pride for which you stand for, but there is a concern for injustice in the theme itself once you identify yourself within a group of people. Those nationalistic prides can lead to genocides and wars like it did in WWI and WWII. Jews are chosen people of God, Philistines are not; land belong to your group of people, not them. Nazi Germans are fighting for their freedom in Horst Wessel Song and praises sing “Be saluted, you died the death of honour!” for the expansion of land that Hitler has outlined for you. The Poles and Russian are persecuting the old German tribes; it a good pretext to take the lands back from them and savage the old German regime. The Jewish and Polish national anthem start with “hope not yet lost” and talks about regaining lands back that belong to the people of the nation. Many of those nationalistic poems or anthem have one thing in common- “fatherland”- the land that belong to the specific group of people. That land is always oppressed by people that are not your own people. You have to take your sword or gun and take those lands away from them and then your people will be free creating a “land of the free”. Whose lands belong to a certain group of people you may ask? Answer is simple to the political priests or leaders- to the group of people that God gives them too. It’s not ok to kill one of yours, but it’s ok to kill one of them; the ones that is not yours; especially if priests tell you that God commands you so. The air you breathe belong to who? The lands you grabbed belong to who? Disputes over lands and by which group they should be run erupt in wars all the time. Injustices has always been served especially when you divide the people into “us” and “them”.

The Polish Common Wealth was not entirely Polish, but also ruled by German, Swedish, and Lithuanian princesses who became Polish kings. The Polish people interbreed with Germans, Belarusians, Hungarians, Slovakians, Ukrainians, French, and Jews. So am I Polak? My grandfather was a Pole who lived in Vilnius, Lithuania. He identified himself as a Pole, but these Poles lived in Lithuania. Are Poles living in Lithuania still Poles, or are they Lithuanians now? Lithuanians by the order of Stalin who closed the borders, but Poles when Pilsudski was in power before WWII. Adam Mickiewicz was born in Belarus, grew up in Lithuania, but is considered somehow the greatest Polish poet? By what account? – That he spoke and wrote in Polish? Frederick Chopin’s father was born in France and not Poland- is Frederick Chopin considered a Pole or French?

Concerning the pledge allegiance to America -What justice or liberty have Native Americans or blacks brought from Africa received in this country? Did God ordain the lands to be given to the white men from Europe and take them away from Native Americans? Many of our founding father called Native Americans barbarians, savages, and stupid. Is a man stupid to fight an unequal war with bow and arrow against a powdered gun if he knows that his people will be wiped out anyways? Is this land indivisible by God when Civil War broke out in the United States of America and United States was split in half? Which group of people are we talking about when we say “justice for all”? Let’s hope that by now it includes everyone that lives in America.

Were Jews always Jews? Jews intermarried within people whom they lived among or whose lands they conquered. Other races have followed similar suit. In the book Numbers 25-26 we read how God orders Moses and him men to “slew every male” but take the Midianite women and children captive. In Numbers 31 we learn of the spoils that the Jews take including 32,000 Midianite virgin women. Did Jews not intermarried with Midianites then? Those same order or commands were done with Ammonites, Canaanites, and Philistinian people. Men are slaughtered in times of war, and women taken as wives.

If African American a true African? How many of our men in power did interbreed with women who were considered of lower ranks or different race even though some of these man preaches that it was a sin to breed outside of your cast? How many masters had taken advantage of women who had no rights in the land of the free? In turbulent and injustice times men raided, pillaged, raped, and took advantage of a racial groups which had no means of defending themselves against armies or barrel of a gun-leaving offspring of unfortunate behind which became the souls of one’s nationality. Was Abraham the father of Israel or Arabs by choosing which women he had slept with? -But look at how brother slays a brother even though they share the same patriarchal grandfather. When we look at all this nationality stuff it is just plain silly. The land borders have always shifted, interbreeding between races have always taken place, and lands have always been renamed. So I might ask myself am I a Pole or perhaps American? So who are you?- a homosapien (human) with a bag of mixed gene pool I might answer. Who is your brother if you are a Jew- a Jew or a Samaritan? -A good Samaritan Jesus disciple’s answer.