nationalism is a disease

According to Dale Dougherty from the O’Reilly Radar those were the words of Nicholas Negroponte, founder of One Laptop per Child, a non-profit association dedicated to research and develop a $100 laptop. He was responding to the question “Do you have to be American to be good?” asked by moderator Martin Varsavsky at the DLD conference:

First of all, I was in Boston 10 days last year, I carry an EU passport, I did half my education in Europe and my family is 100% European. Yes, I did study at MIT and spent a good portion of my life there. But I don’t think of myself as a citizen of any country at all. I have no nation. I think nationalism is a disease and it’s a disease that has really hurt the world.

You can watch the video of the panel How to be good? and forward to marker 26′50″, read the brief account from Dale Dougherty or get the first person account from Martin himself. In any case, I was happy enough to pick the quote above for this post.

With the sudden celebrity status that comes with being nominated for the bloggies, I’ve been playing defense when it comes to my motives for writing this blog. I’ve also been asked many times why would I write in English as opposed to Spanish which is my mother tongue. In fact, I am very conscious about trying to be a voice for the millions of migrants around the world that have been displaced by globalization, but at the same time I try not to fall into the trap of creating hatred against the life style that has made it possible for me to engage in this experience. You see, living in Canada with all the perks that the developed world offers, is what has given me the opportunity to devote a large number of hours to an activity that otherwise it would’ve seen too complicated to tackle. My years in Mexico were great, but were mostly about survival in the sense that there was little time for any activities that would not contribute directly to advancing as an individual. The migrant experience taught me two things: 1) the survival skills are very useful when faced with the challenge of starting from zero in a new country; 2) there is more to life than surviving, but all those things will only appear once you have the basics under control.

Going back to the panel, I believe there is a strong correlation between being a citizen in the developed world and wanting to do good. The reason is simple: if you have elevated your life-style above the basic survival game (often called the rat race) a whole range of opportunities become possible. As I’ve mentioned in the about page, entertainment with capital “E” goes far beyond having fun. It is a whole new life style that more and more people can afford to have.

The debate on national identities has become obsolete. With a whole legion of migrants making their way in the developed world, taking control of their lives and using their newfound energy to focus on their preferred enterprises there is a very powerful mechanism for spreading the ideas that matter, whether they were born out of their original cultures or were bred by the special circumstances of their journey. It shouldn’t matter if I’m Mexican or live in Canada, as long as the net result of my journey has a positive effect to both cultures.