By. Francisco G. Santos-Blogger
When I met Tendai in Park Allé, just before his meeting with the mayor, I was impressed with his motivation, still with all his energy, moving forward and against racism. Me also have experienced some race based arguments towards my lifestyle or just my existence. Probably never was stopped to enter a place based on my skin color, but the assumption of being just a foreigner have probably influenced some of those attending a pub door or a festival in town. There is always this “us and them” thing for “us” who are abroad.
If I have felt it, I have been “down” with those comments. Off course. Some of the times people have just engaged in assuming that I am a kind of refugee or someone who lives in Denmark to find prosperity. Well… I am not. Never was. In fact I first came to Denmark to study and to do humanitarian work and found myself enrolled with an organization which isn’t the most “wanted” in Denmark. From that point and intention to finding out what really is rotten in Denmark took some time. But yes. There are some things that are rotten in Denmark. But I will talk about them later on, in some other post.
When I say later is mainly ´cause I am actually not in Denmark right now. Since that summer day in Park Allé I never saw Tendai again, except in facebook :-)) I was heading to work and there was only time for Tendai to invite me to take part in the Aarhus Blog Experience. First I was invited to participate with photography but off course, Tendai knew I am a blogger myself and hold more or less updated 3 or 4 blogs (and their respective facebook pages). All of them are written in Portuguese. Yeah… I am Portuguese myself. Born in Africa, though. In Mozambique. But soon after the Carnation Revolution in Portugal all the colonies still held by Portugal got their independence finally. But it wasn´t the same with other colonies held by other minor European colonialists if you understand what I mean. Björk would understand me 😉
The Carnation Revolution was back in 1974. I was about 6 months then. And I still lived in Mozambique until I could keep some memories from Africa. Not many though. But some.
Now I am in Portugal. Some 38 years after (I will always have the same age of the Portuguese freedom) people are struggling in the streets for what is called a new revolution. A new 25th of April. A new Carnation Revolution in Portugal. And just like the time for carnations is now late – carnations are common in Portugal during spring – Fall has just started and it is turning into a Portuguese Fall when we think about the recent Arab Spring. Similar with the crowds in the streets and the movements launched on the internet, at facebook and other social network platforms, in Portugal we will present this Saturday a 3rd consecutive weekend of struggle.
Facts is that nearly one million people [more on euobserver.com] has joined all over the country and demonstrated against the government despite the slogan was “To Hell with the Troika. We want our lives back”. If there is a political party engaged on bringing the IMF and other economic helps to Portugal that party is the leading government party. Note here that I say leading because the government which has reached its first of four years of mandate in the beginning of last Summer is a coalition government from the right wing. And despite it is called “social-democrat” it holds nothing of social democracy except the name. They are conservative and liberal. So nothing new when it comes to mention that the Prime-Minister Pedro Passos Coelho has been lying from the first day of campaign all the way until now. And it is more than obvious that there is a strong support to the government in the media, from the SIC broadcasting network which is partially owned by Francisco Pinto Balsemão himself a former Prime-Minister and former leader for this “social-democrat” party after the death of the Portuguese Prime-Minister Francisco Sá Carneiro in a fatal air crash which mystery hasn’t been solved yet despite it has occurred back in 1983 and terror plot has been found, or even from the guest Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, former PSD leader, who shows up weekly for a speech on TVI broadcasting network and turned the facts around by saying that the people is against the Troika and not really the government [ see it here in Portuguese only, sorry! ].
Placing the police in front also since the first days – it took only a couple of months to people to start stressing out their difficulties and the problems the new government brought them in an almost physical manner, it has been the prime-minister Pedro Passos Coelho who has gone towards the people (the old people protesting in the street) physically challenging them [see it on youtube.com second 0:30]. When he finally abandoned his intention the police stood backing up his policy and pushing the lady holding her baby on her arms with some violence. It was clear that this government was going to play violent. But the worst violence isn’t even there in the physical contact between police and people.
Well… a very well organized propaganda and a media servitude has been playing the role of the government very smoothly. So smoothly they haven’t even thought about that, I bet. Or have they? They are people carrying big cameras and holding microphones who appear on the screens talking about violence when there is no violence. Mentioning riots when the people have never rioted… OK… here the picture mixes with the people from the dominant party in power who brought up images, fantasies, of a people taking over supermarkets which has never happened in Portugal. Another ex-minister from the same party said it recently. There is this need to create an imagery of extremism, I dare to say, in peoples minds. And at some extend it is working quite easily once the riot police seems to be closer to the protesting people as never before. My eyes have captured pictures of policemen crying behind the glasses in their helmets. All because they know they are part of the people and that they are protecting the real aggressors. The police itself which is expected to demonstrate soon for their rights also. Them who have also lost 2 salaries and will loose even more with this government ruling. All because there is no power in Europe to tax the big capital properly. Or to cut more from the big public wages from the managers.
VIOLENT is the reduction of 2 salaries per year. VIOLENT is to end of medicines subsidies chronic diseased people. VIOLENT is to cut thousands of jobs in public services until they can’t no longer serve its purposes. VIOLENT is the cutting of millions of euros on education and health services. VIOLENT is the privatization of strategic important public companies such has the public TV and the public radio broadcasting services, VIOLENT is the privatization of the national airline company which operates from Lisbon airport which is by its turn one of the most wanted places to land of major companies due to its Geo-strategic positioning and interfaces with Africa, South and North America [more at Finantial Times]. One will ask: If the business is not profitable how come will the big companies buy it? The answer is only one: ‘Cause the managers are together with the big capital an not with the country and its people. This statement fact was also mentioned by João Canijo, one of the most important Portuguese film directors, who I’ve interviewed for my radio program in Portuguese (INFLUêNCIA goes ON THE AIR every Tuesday and Wednesday, from 13:00 to 14:00, on 98,7 MHz). Has the internationally awarded and Portuguese candidate to the Academy Ceasar mentioned, the Joint-Minister and Minister of Parliamentary Affairs (and still President of Municipal Assembly in Tomar – a minor city in the center of Portugal where he is contested [To know more… this time only in Portuguese] ) Miguel Relvas “works” for other interests but to Portugal. We all know that now. We all say it. This Minister has by the way the title of doctor without actually have attended more than 2 subjects [Read the controversy at wikipedia, in English] and have only achieved to pass in one of them, it is said. Together with Franciscoo Pinto Balsemão Miguel Relvas are two who have attended the Bilderberg Group meetings, from a list of some 27 Portuguese [know who they are]. And one may ask what is the Bilderberg Group doing [read more on washingtonpost.com]?
Last Friday the 22nd of September there was a rare Portuguese Council of State [At wikipedia in English] reunion where nothing in practice has been produced or advanced once the government had by the time it started already decided to review where to make the next cuts. By the entrance of the President of the Republic residence thousands more have as patiently as protest-full attended the meeting to its end. And for this coming Saturday, the Portuguese main union has proclaimed to be a day of struggled and hundreds of thousands are expected to demonstrate in the downtown streets of Lisbon [Read more on europolitics.com] and probably to head after the demonstration to the Portuguese Assembly of the Republic again, just like a couple of weeks before, to express their revolt against the situation they all live in now. The difference this time is that it is asked to the people to all meet in Lisbon! So from the half million protesters two weeks before [Check it on World Socialist Web Site in English] the figure may very as well reach higher this Saturday the 29th September.
I have recently expressed what seems to have been the structural social problem in Portugal. I have recently posted on my time-line on facebook what I believe to be the only enhancement possible for the Portuguese economy and for the Portuguese people. And that is to reach for equity. For more equity some would say. It is quite embarrassing to be Portuguese mainly because there is such a gap between people that the “value” given to people lives and existences in Portugal is separating the people apart and making it an easier prayer for all the globalization predators laying around. Divide and conquer strategy in practice. The world pace has come quite to fast even to the Portuguese used to deal before with the IMF and other financial help. The people who have worked hard and are hard working people to see it all going away, to see their hard work result vanishing in the hands of very few in this world. Hard work often mentioned publicly as European help. But this hard working people is quite strong and when it comes to its pride – despite a big part of it have been constructed by manipulative propaganda – the people seem now prepared to wake up, to see the truth and to rise up to the challenge of taking the country back in to their hands. Above all because the Portuguese people carries a huge weight of experience and history, as leaders and for finding new ways to new places and new realities. The Portuguese have once conquered other nations and probably started what is now called globalization. Probably now the Portuguese will have to conquer Portugal. Probably the only place where the Portuguese are missing. Now that the predictions is of a fast pace diminishing society which will be shortened in more than a million in only 2030 reaching the number of 9 million. And in Portugal there are about 10,5 million people nowadays.
Saturday the struggle goes on. A Luta Continua !
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