Maybe its just me or maybe its because I have become cynical and jaded like a large portion of my generation but every year when the NDP comes around, rather then get wrapped up in the sense of national pride and patriotism; I get swamped with feelings of annoyance and the anger at the waste of money on the NDP itself. Now, I am not saying that loving your country is not important, in fact I think the opposite. I love my country. It is my home and the one place where I will always find a connection with. If my country goes to war, I'd be more then happy to fight for it.
But I cannot understand why every year we continue to pour money away at an attempt to whip up feelings of patriotism and celebration of the greatness of our leaders and our armed forces and lets face it, the NDP is nothing more then a showcase of how "cool" and "awesome" the SAF is. And coming from someone who has worked with some of the officers in charge of planning previous NDPs, I can safely say this: they are nothing but a bunch of stupid mindless drones who has NO sense of individuality and ideology.
In a year when the GST in has been raised from 5% to 7%, a small but significant increase. Couldn't the money set aside for the NDP be used for something better? Tax breaks perhaps? I mean, it is NOT cheap to put the NDP together and interestingly, the budget for the NDP has never been reveal to the public but I can say this, it is often a 7 figured sum. I am sure there are ways to celebrate our nation's birth without having to spend that much money. (And as my friend remarked, its showed on ALL 3 Free-to-air channels. Talk about a waste of prime time television slots.)
I love my country; I honestly do. And I love this world we live in; maybe not the people (we are after all causing our very own destruction) who live in it but definitely the Earth herself and in a time when wars and famine are claiming the lives of count less innocents, maybe the money can be really but to a better use rather then thrown away in an honestly lame attempt to make us love our country more, to be more grateful to our wondrous leaders who are often above reproach. (ironically, when watching the NDP, a film called Triumph of the Will by Leni Riefenstahl comes to mind. Great film.) Above all, the NDP tries to make us more patriotic. But if you asked me, I'd simply say this: a great writer once wrote a long time ago, "Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious". Oh yeah, and the name of that great writer: Oscar Wilde.
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