A very different Christmas. Political meditations by Info-Prim Neo ahead of winter holidays

In all probability, the Moldovans this year will celebrate Christmas and New Year in a completely new way. This can be said at least about the Chisinau residents. [Perhaps...] We do not refer to different calendar styles, but to the political connotations that the two peacefully approaching holidays can have. The two Christmas trees – of the City Hall that is indented for Christmas celebrated according to the standard calendar and of the central authorities named the “Country’s Tree” – could become points of attraction and, respectively, of separation of the Chisinau residents according to political criteria. The trees could change the essence of the local elections that took place in the summer of this departing year. It can happen that the number and quality of supporters of the given Christmas trees will essentially determine the results of the 2009 parliamentary elections and, respectively, Moldova’s destiny. It can also happen that the new 2008 year will mean the start of the real end of the new and ambitious local Chisinau administration or the beginning of the sudden collapse of the older and more ambitious central administration, and all this depending on the number of quality of their supporters. [Definitely...] For sure this “conflict of fir trees” means an open renunciation by the Moldovan politicians with real influence levers of the “mioritic”, purely Moldovan style of establishing a new type of social harmony in the country, folowing the tectonic movements related to the dismemberment of the former Soviet Union and the resulting structural social modifications. The submissive Moldovan style is replaced by the active and very often aggressive and perfidious pragmatic political style. Though they say that this is how the contemporary politicians act, it is not clear whether we should rejoice or regret this change... Without doubt, the “mioritic style” played its positive role because owing to it the Transnistrian conflict was not a true war and the conflict in general is not a true conflict compared with others. Categorically, due to the “mioritic style” the people of different ethnicities, languages, religions, education and customs living in Moldova do not clash. The greatest achievement of the given style was the calling of veterans of the Soviet Army and of the Romanian Army to a joint commemorative event at the Chisinau City Hall in the middle of the 90s of the last century. Certainly, owing to this political style the Moldovans are the only ones in the world to celebrate Christmas and the New Year according to the old and standard calendars with the same ardour and conviction. But is it also a certain fact that due to the same style the Transnistrian conflict has lasted for two decades and there is no end emerging, while the social harmony is very delusive as long as a number of social categories are not and do not to be really integrated into what is said to be the Moldovan society. Surely, the holidays celebrated according to both old and standard calendars do not contribute to the resolution of the problem that the sociologists and political analysts call “Moldovans’ identity crisis”. Definitely, the politicians involved in the “conflict of fir trees” will bear responsibility for this change of political styles with unforeseeable results now or later, but obligatorily. The Genie that divides the population into “ours” and “yours”, into “friends” and “enemies” was released from the bottle. It uses to cause social havoc, but also to devour the “liberators” in the end. It is well known that “he that sows the wind will reap the whirlwind”. Certainly, the “conflict of fir trees” is the first real symbol of the change that approaches Moldova and a sign of the real change of the generation of politicians with rights and responsibility to decide what will happen to Moldova and to the Moldovans. It can happen that they surely know something...