Estado Sentido

The complete absence of governmental alternatives in Portugal makes the country an eternal ransom in its circumstances. Hostage to boycotts and ransoms. Prisoner to rhetorical arguments and little more. Portugal is at the mercy of a lottery of disastrous consequences. It makes no difference who is in power or who will follow. Responsibility for the current situation belongs without exception to everyone. To all elected officials, to those who elected them, to those who are in the opposition, to those who removed themselves from responsibility, from their district, from their personal and collective behavior. And in this approach to the situation, the greatest blame for this national catastrophe resides otherwise than in political representatives and political party. It has been the national cultural paradigm which has shaped the selection process of its leaders. It has been the absence of an ethical criteria which has lowered the level below that required to exercise public service with a sense of statesmanship. It has been the inadequate cultural level which has determined the lack of ideas, the inability to think conceptually, on a long-term basis with a grand national vision. The changeover in leadership must include the involvement of civil society in an intensive and unwavering way. Democratic transition in Portugal freed all expression and also fantasy. In the light of this freedom everyone´s opinion became valid, all types of arguments were called upon to defend positions, but not necessarily those of the general public. Portugal can discover scape goats in both recent and previous history to explain away its lack of responsibility. Others may do the same but that should not serve as excuse or rule. We are in the strong presence of guilt geneaology. The government blames the Constitutional Court, the Socialist Party blames the Social Democrats, the Social Democrats blame the Socialist Party, the Communist Part blames everyone, the Left Bloc blames the government, the opposition blames the Troika, Portugal blames Germany, Germany blames the southern nations. And we find no way out of this philosophic dead-end. There is something profoundly wrong in the continued negation of responsibility. Men are falling and dragging with them the little that remains of dignity. Something is falling that is not merely governments.