On the street in Moscow, two teenagers are asked why their country is at war with Ukraine. After thinking, one of them answers: “To travel to Kyiv without restrictions.” I would not know if he is honest. Or if he knows that in the near future the entire continent can approach the capital of Ukraine without any restrictions – without any war with the Ukrainians for this, on the contrary, even at their insistence. I don’t know if he sees the bitter irony of this situation. The answer, of course, is from the approved set of patriotic answers. Patriotism flows in the streets, through state institutions and television in Russia.

A football match was interrupted at a stadium in Romania. The visiting team from Kosovo walked off the field after the home fans chanted: “Kosovo and Serbia”. Next to the same group is another poster: “Bessarabia is Romania.” They certainly didn’t mean to interrupt the game. They were a little carried away by the nationalist wave, for the sake of their Serbian brothers. Or, in other words, patriotic fervor. At least they have nothing to apologize for, on the contrary. Not quite like in Moscow, so far only at the gallery level, so to speak, this patriotism is still vividly present in our public space.

There is something very odd about this term in context. It would be quite rhetorical to ask a small and concentrated gallery at the stadium or a large one in the country what exactly this means: it is about love for the country, for the people. This is patriotism or nationalism. Simple. It’s just that this particular form of love in reality always looks different, no, the exact opposite of the generally accepted understanding of this term, for example, in family relationships. Loving your country means at least being indifferent, if not actually supporting it, (and) when it does bad things. Or, I don’t think there are too many loving parents who would do the same with their children. From what I’ve read, loving your country means wanting to conquer its territory, make it bigger, as big as it can be. Or, I think a lot of men would be somewhat against knowing that conjugal love is about helping your wife get as full as possible.

But perhaps the most striking difference between the two types of love is that universal love always involves substance, selflessness, and even a certain amount of sacrifice. No one will say that a child loves his parents if he does not help them, does not visit them, does not talk to them. And if, instead, he declares that he loves them as much as he likes and resolutely, pastes their portraits around the house and on the Internet, dedicates poems, songs, costumes or I don’t know what else to them, then he appears either grotesquely hypocritical or, as they say, engrossed raft Now gallery patriotism is given due credit, although it manifests itself almost exclusively in such a very superficial and easy way. It’s an operetta, a soap opera, it’s with feathers, as I wrote a few years ago. It’s not a substance, it’s a package. It’s not a sacrifice, it’s fun. It is rhetorical to ask the gallery what “patriotism” is, but it is no less rhetorical to ask how exactly they love their country and people, what is the essence of the relationship, where is selfless help. Because pretending that out of love for your country you draw a poster and go to football with the boys is the same as a person who publicly declares that out of love for his parents he gave himself a car for his birthday in which he drove his girlfriend to her mother’s .

However, I would not write this just to complain about another case of impostor, there are so many, or that another term has been stolen from the dictionary. If the patriotism present in the public space is superficial and easy, then let’s make it, at least for the purposes of this article, something more substantial and complex. There is no other reason, but I find opportunity even in the episode mentioned above.

Two posters side by side: “Kosovo is Serbia” and “Bessarabia is Romania”. Now, in the relatively recent past, Kosovo really was Serbia, and to our country and to others it still is. But that distinction is less important here, as are the details of the circumstances that changed that status, and all the debate about them. What is important here is the actual reality: the neighboring state, with the support of the population, treated Kosovo as a territory and Kosovo as a population so differently, even to extremes. The territory was and remains dear to them, but the population (people?) there, on the other hand, is not. In fact, on the contrary. They even went to war against the civilian population. And there is no reason to believe that the situation would have changed in the meantime: Kosovo will be Serbia, but if possible without the Kosovars.

In that case, if they did join them in the gallery, the question for Romanian patriots would be what would we choose between the territory and the population in another poster and case. What would be the choice between these alternatives:

1. The Republic of Moldova, a sovereign and independent state that is not united with Romania, but is an ally and a colleague, in which we can move without restrictions and enjoy the same rights on the basis of reciprocity, or
2. “Bessarabia”, the territory designated in this way, “united” (joined) and became an integral part of our country, but the population that previously lived there was completely killed or deported

   Two options, for clarity: what to cross over bridges of flowers to neighbors, to our “brothers”? People or tanks? – Comment on Contributors.ro