Every year, on the 9th of August, I find myself watching the National Day Parade with a familiar mix of emotions. There is always that moment when the camera pans across the crowd, the flags waving in unison, the voices rising together in a song we all know by heart. I feel it then—a quiet tightening in the chest. Pride, maybe. Gratitude, definitely. A recognition that this little red dot did not come into being by accident.
And yet, somewhere between the fireworks and the final chorus, I also feel a restlessness I cannot quite shake.
I remember sitting on my sofa one year, the parade playing in the background, half-watching, half-listening. My mind wandered—not out of disrespect, but out of habit. I had seen this before. Many times. The same language of unity. The same references to sacrifice. The same reminders of how far we have come. All of it true. All of it earned. But I wondered, quietly, whether patriotism in Singapore had become something we inherited rather than something we practised.
Patriotism, as we often encounter it, is wrapped in memory. It asks us to remember our forefathers, to honour the pioneers, to be thankful for the stability and prosperity we now enjoy. And we should. No nation survives without a sense of historical gratitude. Political scientist Benedict Anderson famously described nations as “imagined communities,” held together not just by borders, but by shared stories. In Singapore, those stories matter deeply. They remind us that what we have was built under pressure, scarcity, and impossible odds.
But memory alone does not build a future.
There is a difference between gratitude and nostalgia. Gratitude looks back in order to move forward. Nostalgia looks back and stays there. When patriotism becomes overly nostalgic, it risks turning into something ceremonial rather than lived. Something performed once a year rather than embodied daily. Sociological studies on national identity, including work by scholars like Anthony D. Smith, suggest that nations stagnate when identity becomes too fixed—when it relies more on preservation than reinvention.
I think about this often as an educator and artist. When we only ask young people to remember, but not to imagine, we teach them reverence without responsibility. We teach them how to inherit a country, but not how to shape one.
Perhaps this is where patriotism begins to feel outdated—not because love for country no longer matters, but because the form of that love has not evolved. The challenges Singapore faces today are not the same as those of the 1960s. We are no longer fighting for survival in the same way. We are grappling with inequality, climate anxiety, mental health, cultural erosion, and a rapidly shifting global economy. These problems do not respond well to nostalgia. They require innovation, creative thinking, and moral courage.
In his book The Courage to Create, psychologist Rollo May argues that creativity is not a luxury, but a necessity for societies that want to remain alive. Without it, systems harden. Traditions fossilise. Fear replaces imagination. If patriotism today is only about remembering what has been done for us, then it becomes passive. But if patriotism is about asking what still needs to be done—and daring to try—then it becomes active. A verb, not a feeling.
This is where I believe many Singaporeans feel disconnected. Not because they lack pride, but because they are unsure where they fit into the ongoing story. Ownership does not come from slogans. It comes from participation. From being allowed—even encouraged—to question, reimagine, and contribute. Research on civic engagement, including studies by the OECD, shows that citizens feel a stronger sense of national belonging when they believe their ideas and voices have agency in shaping the future.
Love for country, then, might look less like standing still and more like moving forward thoughtfully. Less like repeating what has already been said, and more like listening for what has yet to be voiced.
This also applies to how we treat culture.
Singapore prides itself on multiculturalism, and rightly so. But there is a fine line between celebrating culture and commodifying it. When culture becomes something we only display during festivals, or package neatly for consumption, we risk hollowing it out. Anthropologist Edward Said warned against the dangers of reducing cultures into aesthetic symbols divorced from their histories and struggles. When origins are ignored, appreciation quietly slips into appropriation.
To truly honour the cultures that make up this country, we must do more than showcase them. We must understand where they come from. We must listen to the stories embedded in language, ritual, and memory. We must resist the temptation to seize every opportunity to cash out culture for convenience or profit. A nation that truly respects itself does not rush to monetise its identities. It chooses care over currency.
This kind of care takes time. It is slower. Less flashy. But it builds something more durable—trust, depth, and a sense of shared meaning. Cultural theorist Stuart Hall once wrote that identity is not something fixed, but something continuously produced. If that is true, then patriotism cannot be static either. It must evolve alongside the people who live it.
When I think back to that National Day Parade, what stays with me is not the spectacle, but the question it left behind. After the songs fade and the flags are folded away, what remains of our love for this place? Does it live only in memory, or does it show up in how we care for one another, how we protect what matters, how we imagine what could be?
Perhaps patriotism today is not about declaring loyalty, but about taking responsibility. About asking harder questions. About daring to believe that loving a country means more than preserving it—it means growing it. To love Singapore, then, is not only to remember its past, but to participate actively in its future. Imperfectly. Creatively. And with care.
That, I suspect, is how a nation stays alive.
Written by: Adi Jamaludin
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