Hear the talk:
I, and many others in the 21st century, have lived my life all over the place. I was born in Antwerp, Belgium, but before that, both my parents were born in Poland.
Our family can trace our ancestors back a couple of hundred years in Poland. It just so happened that for a long time, Poland gave shelter to Jews. Of course it was, in part, because they were good business people. But for whatever the reason, Poland was the place 80% of all Jews in the world were living in in the 18th century.
But after World war, and after anti-Semitism of the most virulent kind -- called Pogroms -- both my parents left Poland, met in Antwerp, Belgium, and Belgium loved Jews because they dealt in Diamonds -- a wonderful, taxable, commodity. Before World war II, Antwerp, Belgium was the Diamond Capital of the world.
Then the Germans invaded & three year old Henry and his family fled to Havana, Cuba. Why, Havana Cuba? The reason revolves, yet again, around money. We bribed the proper authorities, got off a boat heading to South America, and lived for five years in Havana, Cuba 1942-1947. And then we came to the U.S., and I’ve lived here, in the U.S. ever since, paid my taxes here, flourished here, was educated here. I owe a lot to the U.S.
But should my allegiance be to the U.S. only? My country right or wrong? But my country, for awhile, was Cuba, and before that, the place that allowed me to be born, allowed my parents to have jobs & money & enough to raise a family was Belgium. And now, because I have a British wife, I spend half of each year in England.
Which country do I owe allegiance to. I owe allegiance to truth, to justice, to the right thing. It would be silly, wrong, to say that one of the countries that allowed me to live within its borders is always right. No one, and no country, is always right. We are all guessing, trying to do the right thing. My allegiance is to truth, to justice -- and so it should be with all of you.
I am not preaching sedition. I did not say overthrow -- I said that all of us should try to improve the country we live in -- America, Belgium, England, Poland. Stay wherever you wish, but wherever you stay, become involved in policies set forth by your country. After all, your tax dollar is funding their actions. Make sure their actions, your tax dollar, are acting morally.
All the preceding was actually prompted by the life story of a man whose migrations from country to country are far more varied than mine. He truly is a citizen without a country, and he likes it that way. He contributed to the economy wherever he lived; he was a good upstanding citizen, but the behavior of no country he lived in, or observed, seemed totally moral to him. He judged behavior. Or put another way, he did not prejudge. He didn’t say, well, I was born in Belgium, so whatever Belgium does is right, or whatever Cuba does is right.
We should all judge behavior. We should all see ourselves as citizens of the world. Yes, we owe a little more to the country, or countries, that gave us shelter, allowed us to raise a family, allowed us flourish -- but that allegiance to whatever country, Germany or France, America or Cuba -- should not be an allegiance that warps truth in favor of a misguided principal called Patriotism -- or as someone said, my country right or wrong, is a lot like my mother drunk or sober. So long…
Copyright © 2007 Henry Morgenstein