However, some of the citizens of Berlin take their feelings too far. The police become a mockery, and parents are not satisfied. A vigilante group forms and the killer is brought in upon identification by a blind man. It is at this point that the line is crossed between being a patriot of Berlin, and being a nationalist. Even if a nightmare happens on your own block of the neighborhood, it is not the citizens' prerogative to take the law into
their own hands. It is not the place of the citizens to place themselves above the law. The hate for someone else and the desire to destroy overtakes the desire to protect. Patriotism is morphed into nationalism.
Even as times change, though, Berlin stays the same in many ways. In the movie “Ali: Fear Eats the Soul,” the audience sees a more current view of the city of Berlin. We see the same patriotism, and the same nationalism. When Emmi, a native of Berlin, befriends an immigrant worker named Ali, she quickly realizes that she has wholly cut herself and Ali off from the rest of the city.
The neighborhood grocer refused to service Emmi, and her co-workers isolate her at lunch time. These co-workers even sink so low as to question Emmi's last name, claiming she is not even a real German. All of this is a result of a fear of people not like themselves. This fear of someone else takes over the love they have for Emmi, one of their own. This is a prime example of nationalism.
However, this glimpse of Berlin is unique in that some degree of patriotism emerged from nationalism. As the citizens of Emmi's world become more familiar with Ali, as well as the relationship he has with Emmi, they begin to come around. Emmi's family apologizes for not supporting her, and Emmi's co-workers even admire certain aspects of Ali. They embrace Ali, even after his relationship with Emmi begins to crumble. Their fears and ignorance is replaced with the recognition that they are more similar to Ali than they are different from him.
Moving further across the globe, the same issues are also encountered in what was not always a Westernized country. During the Ottoman Empire, pride in country flowed richly out of Istanbul. The people of this city were extremely proud of the magnificence of their city, from the people and customs to the incredible architecture and the grand
Bosphorus. Pamuk's grandmother even tells him that she named each of her son's after the Ottoman sultans. These citizens were extremely proud of their thriving city; patriotism was a part of daily life.
However, in present day Istanbul some people cannot move beyond the fall of the Empire. It is ironic that, unbeknownst to Pamuk that he describes the dogs wandering the streets of the city. He says he cannot help “but pity these mad, lost creatures still clinging to their old turf” (44). While Pamuk is referring to the dogs, he is also perfectly describing many of the citizens of Istanbul. These people feel a conflicting mix of patriotism and nationalism. They want to purchase televisions and take pride in becoming Western like much of their world. But they are also caught up in preserving their past.
Religion becomes another such issue of contradiction for Pamuk and his people. We see nationalism when he tells us of employees and neighbors who take time out of choirs to pray as their religion encourages but that are reprimanded by others for “impeding national progress” (182). Pride in their own Turkey is superseded by a dislike for those who do not follow in exactly the same way.
At other times, the audience does see an incredible sense of togetherness in the people of Istanbul; a type of patriotism that is difficult to translate into the English language. Pamuk tells the reader of a term called “huzun,” translated roughly into “melancholy.” While some might look at it as a cloak to shed, the citizens of Istanbul nurture it with an incredibly strong sense of community, as well as “honor” (91). This patriotism, in the form of melancholy, transcends time. It is one of the few constants in the lives of the Turks that carries forward from the Ottoman Empire, and remains in the present in their Westernized city.
In addition to nationalism as a threat to patriotism, the taxi driver in “Wings of Desire” introduces the reader to a new threat to patriotism - self-patriotism. “Everyone carries his own state with him … and waves his one-man-state flag in all earthly directions.” While patriotism is the love of and pride in country and countrymen, and nationalism is a fear and ignorance of those who are not your countrymen, self-patriotism can lead to fear and ignorance - or nationalism -- of your own countrymen. This leaves us to question if a society of self-patriots can survive with a cancer that is destroying them from within.
