Natal it’s like the world Cup, even those who don’t like football are swallowed up by the circumstance. In the same way, atheists, Muslims, Jews can attend, give and be presented without this causing any strangeness.
If, at the World Cup, the idea of rooting for the country serves as a common point, at Christmas, what allows for such eclecticism is the family umbrella, a term sensitive to everyone. Those who appreciate it, those who don’t regret it, but everyone questions their place inside and outside it. As the theme of Christmas is family reunion, it remains to be seen how many it is in 2022, the year that “is taking so long to be so bad”.
Since the 2018 election, disagreements intrinsic to any family became a reason for breakups🇧🇷 The license to express opinions violently and the non-acceptance of the contradictory flooded family gatherings. Disagreeing became an offense and convincing the other, a mission, revealing the religious character of this aspiration. Former enemies found the ideal excuse to no longer have to live together and great disappointments were created in relationships in which suspicions were confirmed.
The indigestible relative, whose opinions were overlooked or ignored, based on the declaration of vote and the corresponding nickname (bolsonarista X leftist), became intolerable🇧🇷 Those who could no longer stand the family ritual found the perfect cue to leave, those who deposited best wishes in theirs felt betrayed and hurt.
The curious thing is that the family that imprinted the mark of discord on the others, encouraging virulence in the socio-familial relationship, proved to be absolutely dysfunctional. the loss of power destabilized the apparently cordial relations between Michelle and Carlos Bolsonaro which would come to blows. Jair Bolsonaro, seen crying in public several timeswas abandoned by other children, who did not give up traveling to watch the World Cup in the father’s darkest hour.
Irony of fate, Christmas in the current president’s family promises to be as ugly as the “works of art” that have been evacuated from the plateau.
If the great value of a family is its ability to overcome difficult times by remaining united, it is so on condition that it is not like a gang, legislating for its own cause along the lines of the mafias. The family “us against rapa” (against laws, against others) is the worst culture in our time.
The family that makes some sense even today is the one that is sensitive to others, creating circles of inclusion, in which the ultimate meaning of Christmas —but also of other religions— can still prevail: solidarity among humans.
Will we be able to rebuild the veneer of civility that allows us to to live in such a disparate nucleus that, unlike the group of friends chosen by affinity, has a lot of random encounters? This is the question that can only be answered in the one-on-one love investments. The balance between what we endure and what we enjoy in these relationships is something that no one can answer for us.
What maintains this relational oddity that we call family, in which the most irreconcilable figures come together, is the story of common origin. Far from any biological appeal, it is the experiences shared by generations that allow us to recognize ourselves as part of this core. Even those who have just arrived, newborn or adopted, are heirs to a place in the family saga.
Sadly, 2022 will be remembered as the Christmas of fomecom millions of Brazilian families going to sleep earlier, since there is nothing to serve in your suppers.
We hope that Transition PEC —spuriously named by this newspaper as PEC from Gastance— allow for a more Christian Christmas 2023.
LINK PRESENT: Did you like this text? Subscriber can release five free hits of any link per day. Just click the blue F below.
