After watching the video and start reflecting, I just remember how far away from my reality these scenes are...but one second after, I just recall a very famous gossip in Porto in the 90's about a very known politician and his affair with a girl that had a mode store. One day, the wife found them having sex on the store of that woman and the scandal started on a small shopping mall. The woman had to walk half naked out and end up on one of the main streets of Porto, until she could escape the wife with a Woodstock running after her and calling her bad names.
Then in this moment, I recall that for me, those stories were part of the society, they had a certain normality. Nowadays it is like the middle ages in my mind. In that instant moment I realize again how much I am not Latin anymore and how much Nordic mentalities are so different than the southern European ones.
Looking at the name that they call the husband that is trying to catch the lover, we see a deep macho culture. The folks call him "cornudo" meaning the one that is betrayed and has "horns". The pressure is put up by actually making the judgment of the only one that was the victim in the situation. He was the one that was betrayed. But for the popular Latin culture he is the one that was either not good enough in bed, was not satisfying his wife or just trusted her too much. Or do you see any other way of him interfering in the case? So then he is judged upon something that he became and should be ashamed even if he had done anything. I imagined in the north they would probably finish the relationship on the spot or just wait for the other guy to get out of the house to solve the issue among the couple. I know a true story of a husband having sex on the back of the company building in the netherlands and the survillance cameras caught it - next day, his wife was confronted with the situation as she worked for the security team. But there was never even a word exchange between the colleague that had sex with her husband and the wife. I know they split shortly after and all three kept working for the company.
In a Latin imaginary and cultural context, so goes the story in the bed and so goes the stories all over the society! And so, we can realize that the European dream is just a dream. Because only in the day that a German or a Dutch guy - not even to speak about the Nordics like in Sweden or Denmark - can see themselves in one of the positions in that video, then we have a chance. When you get a Nordic to imagine he would want to beat the other guy; or the wife doing that scene; or the other escaping from the window; or the fireman helping; or one of the cheering folks, then you can think that the Euro is possible and European Union can go on. I personally even doubt that the Fireman would come and if they did, the person would have to pay about 600 Euros for that service. Public Services in the north are not meant for that kind of dramas and popular emotional personal breakouts... and if someone needs it, then they have to pay.
I still like to be emotional and poetic in a way that only Portuguese can be, but for sure I am reintegrated in a Nordic way of socializing and sometimes cannot undertand anymore the culture I come from. If you ask me to decide wich side of me I can let go, I say nothing. But if you say where I want to be, I say: nowadays in the north... With some visits down there. In between, please stop this european madness and get the systems deal with their problems by finding their own solutions and not trying to copy strategies that worked in the north but will never do in the south! THIS IS EUROPE. Between war and European Union, can be a third way (forget about UK but think about Giddens)
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