My Country, Today

        One might as well ask if it really had to take a deep economic crisis to make the portuguese finally understand what the idea of society is meant to signify. One might as well wonder if only a neoliberal shock could show us crystal clear what politics is about. One might also think that only a deep social and economic crisis could awaken us from the civic slumber we had indulged ourselves with. In the meanwhile, one might as well have remembered, perhaps inspired by the examples of past generations, that it takes blood, tears, toil and sweat to actually build anything worthy of admiration. And, by the way, we could also had borne in mind a clear picture of our utter fragility, a constantly renewed consciousness that no man is an island and that there is no such thing as a self-made-man: not in Europe, not even in America and much less in Portugal. We could have learnt the lessons our very landscape taught us: the harsh climate of the north, its rocky stubbornness yielding only to the strength of many arms combined; the dry extensions of the south, their flat horizons turned into blood-stained gold by the sweat of many and the profit of few; and the sea, the never-ending sea, the eternally mysterious sea. We could have remained wise, but we haven't. We could have been faithful to ourselves, but we haven't. And now we’re lost: as we have always been.