Jim Richardson on Going Around the World -- National Geographic

Jim Richardson on Going Around the World -- National Geographic

Patriotism: What does it mean?

  My dad and I have conversations that range from business, religion, secreat societies to conspiracy theories and of course politics. Politics, in my own words, is a nasty game, which I hope to never be entangled with. One of these talks led up to patriotism, and I've come to notice that many of my fellow countrymen/women aren't aware of what it means to be a patriot. I'm planning to publish the following post in the editorial section of Guyana Times and the Stabroek News, for good measure in case it didn't make it in the Times.

I would like to ask every one: Do you know what that word means? No? Well how very sad ,as my Social Studies professor from high school would have said. I’m sort of shocked, no, not really. Point is though I’m not telling what it means.  But then I might. We’re supposed to know, we’re supposed to be teaching this to our children so that they’ll teach theirs, and so on.

I love my country. A country that has been through a lot, then again, which country didn’t have bumps and bruises of its own? I love Guyana(that’s where I’m from) and I want to be honest with everyone and myself that after a lot of thought I came to that conclusion; me loving my motherland. Yes, after a lot of thought, and I’m ashamed of myself for taking so long to realize this, but thanks to my parents’ constant lecturing, I’m on the right track.

Guyana certainly had a history of her own. But what do some of us care, that’s all in the past, right? Wrong. Dead wrong.