Bringing it home: on healthy patriotism

Growing up, many of us receive the nutrients of patriotism with our breastmilk. My parents, for example, started showing me the natural monuments of our country when I couldn’t even tie my own shoelaces to not fall in the mountain grass. School did the rest: history, geography, language…

With the years, the world splits in two, nations occupying two sides of their own border: the patriotic and the outsiders. The latter are those for whom the cons of their country, its rulers and maybe the mentality of its people outweigh the pros. Maybe that’s people who have travelled, lived abroad, sat at the table with other nationalities.

For me at least, patriotism meant I stopped identifying so much with the grandiosity of my country’s past and started worrying more about how we could look past differences and celebrate the diversity of the world. But what I saw in the two days of the World Cup Final 2026 weekend showed me exactly where we can draw the line between being patriotic and being chauvinistic.

On World Cup weekend, I was in Madrid for My Chemical Romance’s final tour concert: a New Jersey band that represents the outsiders, the losers, the bullied, the different. I noticed that, when people asked me how the concert was, I spent more of my words to say how wonderful the audience was. From teens to once-upon-a-time-teens, there was a sense of togetherness and a collective reassurance that only an emo band can give: it gets better.

At one point, two girls with their faces covered in what some would call satanic makeup, started giving everybody bracelets they had made. When they got to a girl who was by herself in the crowd, they took her under their wing and sang until the end with her. It was magnificent and heart-warming.

The match between Spain and Argentina caught us on the train between Madrid and Malaga the next day. We sat quietly, each with their phone, all aware that we were in on the same secret but apart. When the paid wifi code didn’t work, desperation set in, but a boy who, I could just tell, had been at the same concert the previous night, set up his laptop and called those wishing to join to do so.

We gathered around his laptop like lost children around a compass and ah-ed and oh-ed in the same moments. Suddenly, people that looked different, some with the Spanish flag around their wrists, others with dyed hair, third residents from another country, were exchanging jokes and hopes between goal attempts.

The extra 30 minutes we all flocked around the TVs at the bar in Malaga’s Vialia to watch. Our carriage did not split, we stayed together outside the train. At that time, we hadn’t even exchanged names yet. There were other foreigners too, all holding their last breaths for the whistle to announce that Spain had won the World Cup 2026.

The screams and shouts of joy were deafening, but what I loved the most were the hugs, the “You are now Spanish!” the boy with the laptop delivered to me and a few other people with obvious accents.

In that moment, I understood what healthy patriotism looks like. It arrives when you make sure the people around you are okay, when you include them in your community and share good values you wouldn’t want to lose in how you differ.

Patriotism is the belief that belonging is something we build together, not something we gatekeep. It’s the moment you look around at flags turned invitations and realise that love for one’s country means wanting it to be a place where everyone can breathe.

Because in the end, patriotism isn’t about who stands under the flag. It’s about who else we call to join us under it.