Maybe there are, but the majority of families encourage their children to
discriminate
against others who don't look like them.
Maybe there are, but schools that
fuel division
between kids with no common ground must be miserable exceptions.
At home and in society, values
are taught and preached
that, upon reaching adulthood, seem to become barely a
distant memory
.
For example,
friendship
with those who think differently.
The writer Andrea Ferrari.
Photo: Ale López
A little over a year ago, more than
41% of Argentines
confessed that they had lost friends for
ideological-political reasons
, according to a survey by the consulting firm Giacobbe and associates.
Not only that, almost 27% distanced themselves from friends with whom they shared work because they think (and vote) differently;
while
40.9% decided to cut off family relationships
(a partner, parents, siblings or even children) for that same reason.
Friends and opposites
Can you maintain a
frank friendship
with someone who sees the world in an absolutely different way?
Can it be shared with those who
desire what we reject
, who longs for what we fear, who votes for what harms us?
The writer
Andrea Ferrari
has just published a book of children's and youth literature (LIJ) titled, precisely,
An Impossible Friendship
(loqueleo).
The protagonists are a lion named Simón and the dove Moma.
"Our friendship
is very unexpected
because, normally,
I would have already eaten
her," explains the lion as soon as the story begins.
And the dove retorts: "Normally? Since when
is it normal to eat your friends
?"
More than it seems, although Moma doesn't believe it.
Gabriela Keselman.
Gabriela Keselman
also published a children's book this month.
It is titled
Friends Forever
(loqueleo) and yes, once again the theme is friendship.
Here Rap Rap and Lu are
inseparable
friends until something distances them.
No,
it's not politics
, but it could be because living on different planets is similar to thinking in terms of opposites.
Can it be shared with those who desire what we reject, with those who long for what we fear, or who votes for what harms us?
Can you maintain a frank friendship with someone who sees the world in an absolutely different way?
At home, at school and in literature,
boys and girls are
taught that yes, this is possible.
Even desirable
to build a better world.
Although later, when we reach adulthood,
we forget it
...