Part 1: Growing up
Growing up, I received multiple and explicit messages about how trashy my country was.
We were the mediocre Latin American Republic that had never delivered on its promise to become something one day. I remember hearing an adult say, “Brazil needs to be recolonized,” repeating the harsh imperialist rhetoric that claims we are “too dumb to rule ourselves or take care of the land.”
Patriotism existed only every four years, when we chanted “I’m Brazilian with love and pride” in front of the televised Soccer World Cup. We won two Cups in my lifetime. I don’t remember the first one, but I was old enough to rejoice in 2006, and up until this day, I cannot recall a greater satisfaction than celebrating that victory.
For a long time, I thought this despiteful relationship with my country was un-healthy. When I started working with international colleagues, I felt an underlying sense of inferiority, regardless of my actual accomplishments, simply because I had been born “in the wrong place.”
I fantasized about growing up in France or in a Harry Potter-like England. From a very young age, I learned that foreign was better unless it came from another developing nation we dared to despise.
Part 2: The Soccer match
In 2018, I moved to Mexico to pursue a job opportunity. That is when I started, little by little, to change my views on my anti-patriotic upbringing.
One of the things that surprised me most in Mexico was the large display of Mexican flags and colors in the street. Not only that, it was actually difficult to eat food from other countries in Mexico, even basic things like Italian food. Mexicans adored their food, culture, and country, despite also displaying some Latin American tendencies to talk themselves down. Coming from a nation that was proud of itself only every four years, it was interesting to see that almost intoxicating aura of Mexicanicality.
In 2018, there was another edition of the World Cup. One June morning, I woke up and saw the first pre-World Cup commercial ad of a beer company. “Juntos al quinto partido!” it said. “Together to the 5th game”? What was that supposed to mean? Well, turns out Mexico had never managed to go beyond the 4th match in the World Cup. Going to the 5th was the ultimate goal, and they would rejoice if they managed to get there.
Now, you have to bear in mind that I was used to higher aspirations, as in Brazil, nothing less than the Champion Title was accepted or wanted. No Brazilian team was ever remembered for having made it to the semi-final or won second or third place. For us, it was a victory or nothing. Coming from that world, the 5th match seemed, quite honestly, a very underwhelming and a bit ridiculous ambition. Why would Mexicans even watch if they didn’t stand a chance of winning?
In 2018, Mexico’s 4th match was against Brazil (what are the chances!). Mexico has never been a great team, despite meaningful recent years’ improvements. On the other hand, Brazil had a team populated by the shiniest stars of the world of soccer. In the match, Brazil had a hard time, as the Mexican team was settled on not letting us score, but we did win. I was happy and, of course, patriotic.
The next day, when I spoke to my Mexican Colleagues, they were infuriated and proud. They said Brazil did not play fair, and Mexico played wonderfully, bravely, like real heroes. I don’t want to get into World Cup discussion here, but there was some consensus around that match. Yes, Mexico did what it could and maybe had the best performance in the history of their World Cups participations, but it’s not like they were a great team. And yet, there were my dear Mexican colleagues, inflamed and inebriated by this Mexicality, not daring to honestly criticize their team’s mediocrity.
That moment, a trivial soccer match follow up, was the first time when I entertained questions about how good patriotism was. Whenever Brazil lost in the World Cup, there were almost zero praises for the team, the coach, and the campaign. Instead, soccer critics, sociologists, journalists, and even politicians would quickly bash and elegantly destroy the team, its players, and the National Soccer Commission. It wouldn’t matter how painted in green and yellow we were the day before. We would quickly jump into harsh rhetoric the minute after. Our patriotism was circumstantial and weak.
Part 3: Abusive Love
If the only issue with patriotism was how you react to Soccer results, I guess I wouldn’t be writing this. I think the soccer thing innocently illustrates how perhaps more patriotic nations tend to respond to national issues.
In 2019, again, because of work, I moved to the United States. If you know America, you will agree with me that even its most critical citizens share some level of admiration and respect for its Constitution, Nation, Origin, and History. Similarly but also differently to the Mexican deference, the American deference to its nation struck me again in a curious way.
I was amazed by how enthusiastically people celebrate the 4th of July or Thanksgiving, holidays that embrace the American spirit, history, and values uniquely. In my anti-patriotic upbringing, fireworks on Independence day would be seen as extremely weird, as they referenced the Military Dictatorship of the 60s, with its love for Anthems and Flags, and Uniforms, and authoritarian legislation.
In America, I had the unfortunate “privilege” of witnessing complicated and difficult moments. I saw my colleagues, African American and White, struggle with George Floyd’s and Breonna Taylor’s murders. I saw how a microscopic second class virus brought millions to unemployment and food insecurity and hundreds of thousands to death. As a foreigner, I always tried to keep a safe and respectful distance of my options about it — this is not my nation, and I think the voices belong to those who live here. But I noticed that the level of criticism that I saw here was less vocal and less intense than criticism that I had seen in my country when we faced trials.
Could it be that the patriotism, the love that Americans have for their land, makes it harder for them to be hard on themselves when they need to be?
Of course, I have seen people and whole society sectors and movements being fantastically vocal about their needs. Kimberly Jones’ video inspired me and gave me hope, for example. Still, the large majority of media coverage, articles, and posts that I’ve read this year were unusually soft.
While I read important criticism denouncing, for example, how America still harbors white supremacists, most news coverages did not show how Americans contribute to systemic racism in their day-to-day lives. Usually, what I’ve read about it said something along the lines of “Let’s fulfill the American dream for everyone .” And I guess what I was hoping for was something more like, “Hey, this is horrible. This is embarrsassing. We should be ashamed. We are acting like trash. And we need to fix it.” See the difference?
Criticism in America seems to be coming from a place of love and has this positive ending note, where the critics remind the public that America is still okay. It just has this one or two issues.
Is this the right way to talk about racism? Or about healthcare? Or death?
My country’s lack of patriotism is relatively recent — a phenomenon of the post-dictatorship years. It did not fix our problems — and there are still people that say absurds like “Brazil is a racial democracy” (which we are not). Still, I find it comforting that we criticize without love when bad things happen, and we are hard on ourselves. After all, if you don’t defer to something so much, it means you can change it faster. If you don’t love it so much, it means you can call it out. We have changed our Constitution 7 times. When the military dictatorship ended in 1989, we just scrapped the whole thing. And I don’t think we could have done it if we venerated it so so much.
Patriotism feels like abusive love to me. Admiring and cherishing a place, a culture, or people is beautiful, but it cannot come with unconditional surrender. Trashing it, on the other hand, is contradictory powerful. It gives you that minimalist mentality, where you are continually striving to keep only what’s right, getting rid of the rest.
Not being patriotic is not going to be the wake-up call solution for any nation. There will still be things that Taboo, Religion, or morals don’t allow us to talk about. But it will give us more freedom to eliminate items and start over, from now and then.
