We explain what fraternity is, between whom it can occur and various examples. Also, why is it considered a value.
What is brotherhood?
Fraternity is the feeling of respect, consideration and affected mutual relationship that typically occurs between siblings, but can also occur between people without a filial bond who consider each other as if they were siblings. It is a synonymous term of brotherhood, since it comes from the Latin fraternitas, word derived from the voice brother (“brother”), and related to that of sorority, that is, "sisterhood among women".
Fraternity has been promoted at different times by philosophical doctrines, religions and political parties. It is considered a necessary ingredient for the coexistence peaceful and harmonious among peoples.
However, it is a term also widely used to give a name to certain organizations, such as secret societies, honor groups or mystical groups, that is, associations of people who act with a common interest and who are distinguished from the rest of the community. society.
Thus, it was very common throughout history to speak of fraternities, that is, of more or less "private" organizations, such as certain religious congregations in which the religious call each other "brother" (giving rise to terms such as friar, from brothers from vulgar Latin), or to secret lodges such as Masonic or Rosicrucian.
More contemporaneously, youth groups such as boy scouts and certain university student groups, very common in the Anglo-Saxon culture, which promote a sense of belonging among its members even beyond graduation.
Fraternity as a value
The consideration of the fraternity as a worth, that is, as something desirable among people, is typical of religions and philosophies policies, and played an important role in times of historical change.
For example, the rise of Christianity as the dominant religion in the Antiquity Greco-Roman, had in part to do with the Christian preaching of brotherhood and equality among his faithful. In this it differed from the previously predominant warrior religions, in which nobles and commoners had different origins and destinies.
In fact, the fraternity, together with the freedom and equality, was one of the three great values proposed by the French Revolution of 1789.
Until then, the order absolutist traditional gave him all the can political and economic power to the aristocracy and left ordinary people to their fate. Against him rose the revolutionaries, who dedicated themselves to building a republican order in which the law prevailed.
In this new order, the will of the king could not be above the constitutional mandates, and in which human beings enjoyed certain Fundamental rights and inalienable, which today we understand as human rights.
A final example, much more recent, was represented by the call of the modern revolutionary left for the union of all workers, under the slogan “proletarians of the world, unite”. This political vision defended the idea that industrial workers, regardless of the country, share unfair class conditions with each other.
For this reason, it was proposed that the workers embrace fraternity as a key value for their liberation, because together they can do more than the exploiting bourgeoisies that it was convenient for them to keep them separated and confronted.
As we have seen so far, fraternity understood as a value has to do with solidarity, respect and help mutual among peoples, without distinction of their culture of origin or their particular creed. A fraternal people is one that is willing to help the needy and sympathize with their suffering, under the premise that all HumansTo some extent, we are brothers.
examples of fraternity
Some examples of fraternal attitudes throughout history were:
- At Christmas 1914, at the beginning of the First World War, German, British, and French soldiers emerged from their trenches to exchange Christmas greetings and chats, and were even encouraged to play a game of football in "no man's land" between the two war fronts, and to carry out funeral ceremonies in honor of the fallen. During that night, both sides remembered that, in spite of everything, they were human beings and they owed each other a minimum brotherhood.
- During the Olympic Games In the 2007 Pan American Games, held in Rio de Janeiro, the American athlete Joshua McAdams wrapped himself in a Brazilian flag as he greeted the public and the then president of Brazil, Joao Havelange, after winning the 3,000-meter hurdles race. This was a gesture of brotherhood that wanted to put an end to the recent bad relations between the athletes of both nations.
- In 2016, the then president of the United States, Barack Obama, paid a visit to Japan, specifically to the city of Hiroshima, where in 1945 his country detonated one of the only two atomic bombs of history thrown on the civilian population.The US president laid a wreath at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial and called for finding "... together, the courage to spread peace and seek a world without nuclear weapons", which constitutes a gesture of brotherhood, by putting life first. without distinction of nationalities, above the political or military interests of the moment.
- The third papal encyclical of Pope Francis, in October 2020, was titled “fratelli tutti” (“all brothers”) and called on the Catholic faithful and the world in general to cultivate “social friendship”, that is, brotherhood among peoples, in order to correct a world plagued by divisions and fundamentalisms, also besieged by their inequalities during the Covid-19 pandemic.
- On the Muslim festival of sacrifice, Eid al-Adha, held in Egypt in 2021, gestures of solidarity and brotherhood between Christians and Muslims were renewed throughout various provinces of the country. This included mutual tributes between the authorities of both religious congregations, and the help of Christian groups in organizing parties in Islamic mosques, handing out masks and other resources to prevent Covid-19 from spreading among the Muslim congregation.