Marxists are Patriots

by **Celtiberian** Mon Oct 07, 2013 2:43 pm

In response to The Daily Mail's recent defamation of the late Ralph Miliband, The Guardian published an op-ed by Priyamvada Gopal that not only defends Miliband's lifelong commitment to socialism—which his social democratic son, Edward, repudiates, incidentally—but also argues that Miliband's egalitarian political philosophy itself is evidence of his British patriotism.

Priyamvada Gopal wrote:Ralph Miliband was not a patriot because he served in the navy. He was a lover of this country and its people precisely because he understood that institutions like the monarchy and the House of Lords symbolise and perpetuate inequality, and that militarism usually encourages the poor to die defending the interests of the privileged. His patriotism has more in common with long progressive patriotic traditions in Britain, from the Diggers and Levellers to the Chartists and anti-privatisation campaigners. It was about claiming land and country for the majority of its labouring denizens rather than the plutocrats and the powerful who live off the fat of the land while spouting an insincere "nationalism" which serves less to create collective wellbeing than to prevent their privileges being questioned.

FULL ARTICLE