World-Cup Patriotism

No teams in real life

The World Cup is here, and Brasil lives one more quadrennial brief season of widespread patriotism. During these precious two months, Brazilians change their usual displeased attitude towards their motherland into a very special football-nationalism. Might seem like an exaggeration but it's true, most Brazilians are only proud of being Brazilians during the World Cup. But I was different. I used to be a full-time patriot.

Among all the ideologies I've been exposed to throughout my life, no other had me like patriotism did. Unlike other Brazilians, I didn't dream about living a glamorous life in Europe or a Hollywood life in the US. I used to dream about making my country better. After all, what's the fun in receiving a country ready? I wanted to be able to enjoy something I helped to build.


Unfortunately, it's needless to say that very few shared my ideas about what's fun and fulfilling in life. Most of the others were opportunist hypocrites world-cup-Brazilians, who in my view (at that time) should be cheering for some lame European country or for a certain nation where football is played with hands.

I guess my main reasons for being a patriot were quite noble. You know, not running away from problems, trying hard to make things better... But sadly, I finally noticed that patriotism also brings some undignified characteristics with it. You see, loving your country and trying to help it so much means that there's a limit to how much you can appreciate other pieces of land. Patriotism, like football, inevitably carries the divisive idea of "us and them", which can be fun if we are talking about sports, but it's not so honorable when it comes to real life, and ends up bringing more problems than solutions for everyone.

I came to realize that it's not very noble to care exclusively about other people who happened to be born inside the same imaginary lines as I did. I also figured out that as an individual I'm not really connected to the institutions which were built centuries before I was born on that land. So what, if I had happened to be born in Japan, would I be spared of moral obligations towards poor kids in favelas because that's a problem for institutions from the other side of the world? The same way, being a Brazilian, should I only care about favela kids and assume it's someone else's obligation to care for African kids? Or maybe have those kids' happiness as a secondary goal? It's not like that, morality is universal and independent of borders. The right thing to do does not end up at a border line.

It took me a while to put all these ideas in order and realize patriotism was not as just as I grew up believing, and that in fact, it stands in the way of real freedom, justice, equality and solutions, by separating us when we should be uniting to make society better for all. We're all members of the same species living on the same pale blue dot in the middle of a vast universe, and we are more dependent on each other than we've ever been. We gotta step back and look at the big picture in order to find big solutions which include us all. My dreams are not to make Brasil better anymore, now I aim for the whole world.

There will always be people who grew up watching the same TV shows, telling the same jokes and cheering for the same football team as you, and there will always be people who you can have lots of fun with even though they came from the other side of the world. When it comes to the things which really matter in life, nationality doesn't say much about who you are or what you should be doing. As for the superficial just-for-fun things, well, I'm glad I'm Brazilian and there are 11 men who I've never met or have anything in common with wearing a yellow shirt and kicking some ass in my name! So go go go Brasil-sil-silllll! mwahahaha