When you know you’re a Liberal Opposed to Idea of Nationalism (LOIN)

Photo by Amanda Kerr on Unsplash

You know you are a LOIN (LOIN; adjective, critical of the nationalist spirit, brave acts by soldiers and / or panderer, pamperer of enemy states) when you don’t care two hoots about the deaths of your nation’s soldiers but instead keep asking why your nation couldn’t foresee every single terrorist attack. You’re definitely a LOIN if you weep and cry foul along with some vested-interest human rights’ group when a potential terrorist is caught.

A LOIN knows it’s in her interest to defend freedom of speech only when siding with a rowdy group shouting  “(fill the name of your country) tere tukde honge!”. Yet, a LOIN chooses to stay conveniently silent during all the years when hundreds of thousands of citizens are killed, raped, looted and driven out of their home-state by people trained, funded and brain-washed by zealots from a neighboring enemy state.

You’re a LOIN who thinks it’s freedom of speech to berate and call a serving, democratically-elected prime minister all cheapskate names, yet think it’s incorrect to call a terrorist a terrorist and insist on using words like ‘misguided youth’ or an ‘unknown attacker’.

You know you’re a LOIN when you look down upon and severely criticize ordinary citizens who think war might be a good option as a reply to 60-year old, non-stop violent misdeeds of a neighboring country, yet yourself choose to turn belligerent and beat your domestic help if she misses to turn up for a single day.

You feel you’ve turned traitor to the cause of the many LOINs like you if you don’t share fake news that berates your army’s achievements. You’re a true LOIN if you support people who call soldiers serial rapists but never once criticize actions of certain political parties, whose statements constantly denigrate and de-motivate brave soldiers fighting for the nation.

You’re truly a modern, forward-thinking LOIN if you have few qualms in questioning your country’s surgical strikes and fewer qualms still by taking a U-turn and saying the recent attacks are a result of the previous surgical strikes!

As a blue-blooded LOIN, your heart goes out not to the families of any of the 40 martyrs but to the stone-pelters-turned-separatists-turned killers.

You never question if it's intellectually okay to accept a fourth-generation wannabe politician as the heir apparent just because her nose resembles her grandma's. You feel you're a true LOIN only if you participate in poverty-eradication conferences in 5-star hotels, discussing starvation while munching Beluga caviar and express severe concern over water scarcity and the environment while sipping premium bottled water.

This is a world that's turned upside down where there are thousands of LOINs who join to protest the rough handling of terrorists but say not a single word when it comes to donating money the families of the martyrs. It's a world that's truly belly up when you as a LOIN bite the nation that feeds you and try to play coy and attractive to the neighboring enemy nation that has never heard of human rights or secularism.

Good going, LOINs.