'We'

This post is in response to a comment posted on one of my earlier posts about the reprinting of the Mohammad cartoons in the Danish press. The 'we' in the following comment struck me as yet another pronounced expression of how we construct and live out national myth.

'We danes are a proud people. We dont take orders from foreigners in our own country. We are one of the nations in the world,that spend most per capita in fighting poverty globalwide. Including in the muslim world. Will you boycott our support - then you just let us know...'

It points towards how we as citizens or members of a nation perceive ourselves as a whole and how we internalize criticism from others in to glory. I read an article sometime ago how the Serbs and Croats used criticism from each other as favored attributes i.e. the Serbs are not invaders or aggressors by the warrior people. I wonder why we never pause to wonder that our nation, the one we have been conditioned to think of as the greatest and best in the world, can err too. And that we too can make mistakes and there in no virtue in attempting to glory our follies. Rather there is virtue in accepting and remedying our mistakes in order to be a truly great nation worthy of pride.