ABUJA (Sundiata Post) I see a lot of television pundits berate politicians for defecting because of personal and not national interest reasons. That is bullshit.
The point is that for operators within a given polity, say the United States or Nigeria, there are nothing and can be nothing like national interests.
National interests come to play only when the given state is in conflict or contestation with an external party or polity.
To give examples. In America, increasing taxes or otherwise, separates the Republican and Democratic politicians and parties. None of those positions is deemed personal or nationalistic. This is despite the fact that many in the Republican party are rich and benefit from less taxes which the party and their politicians canvass.
Now, if a politician in America switches parties, he is never accused of lack of patriotism. The fact of it is that within the given polity, whatever a politician does that is within the law, is not unpatriotic and cannot be so deemed. And this makes sense. Patriotism cannot be spoken of within a framework a given nationality except in contradistinction to other nationalities and external third parties.
It is like a shark. A shark cannot say it is wet and thus or that it is dry. Being wet is her default condition. All she does is in the wetness of water. A shark however when beached may say it is choked for air, it is dry. But that is only when beached. In the waters it is a shark neither wet nor dry. To say a shark is wet is to speak superfluously and thus meaninglessly. So also is it superfluous and meaningless to speak of a politician within a polity as patriotic or otherwise.
So accusing defectors of acting in personal interests is to show lack of familiarity with the register of the pursuit of the profession of politics. Politicians are in the game in pursuit of their representative-personal or group interests. And it is the plurality and netting off of these representative-personal interests that constitute the national interests.
The national interest is not one concrete thing like the Milliken Hill, that is easily identified and identifiable. Or which you can go and touch.
In fact within a polity, as an ”autarky or whole system” no national interests exist or can exist. National interests exists for states and politicians and citizens only when the state is in contention with other contender polities or external third parties.
Too often self important persons make the television tubes and pontificate. Yet they do so while getting their registers wrong. And contribute to the heating up of the system. Ignorance more than fire heats up systems.
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