Respect

This week there were three very serious crimes in two schools around Lisbon.
One was a rape attempt from three boys between eleven and twelve years old (the victims were a girl and a boy with the same age).
The other was a gang fight which ended with a twenty years old being stabbed and his consequent death.
These crimes happened on an area with social economical problems very near Lisbon.
Violence has been escalating these last few years in my country and although my Brazilian friends say this is nothing comparing to their country, one can't help but think what will happen in a few years time, when we have eleven and twelve years old already involved in such crimes.
In my point of view, the problem is the lack of civil education, both at home from their parents and at school from their teachers.
You may say that people's economical problems and environment are the most determinant factor for their behaviour.
However in my opinion, it might have some weight, yet it is not the principal.
Coming from a poor family where one of my parents didn't even know how to write, and the other has only learnt it at the age of forty,  I have a little resistance to accept that being born inside a humble family is the principal agent to turn you into heartless creatures.
If you treat your children with respect and teach them they should do the same for their fellow citizens they will grow caring about those who surround them.
I'm going to finish this message with my mother's words.
"Threat others like you would like to be treated"
An old value, but true.     

Os perigos da net

Hoje, um amigo meu avisou-me para ter cuidado com o que escrevo na net pois nunca se sabe o dia de amanhã e a liberdade que temos hoje pode deixar de existir.
Acho que o meu amigo tem razão ao dizer que os tempos mudam e que expressar opiniões que irão perdurar pode sim trazer-me problemas em tempos vindouros.
No entanto ter consciência disto não me faz mudar o que penso, nem me faz deixar de querer mudar mentalidades, tenho demaseado respeito pelo ser humano e pela liberdade para fechar os olhos quando vejo algo que a na minha opinião é errado.
Deixar de o fazer seria como negar quem sou.
Ora eu nunca fui capaz de viver de acordo com o que outros esperam de mim.
Para o bem e para o mal vivo a vida tal como a quero viver.
Comportar-me como se não tivesse cerebro com medo do que pode ou não acontecer no futuro, seria como deixar de viver.
Isso é algo que não está nos meus planos.

Syria once more

Yesterday UN has brought to light a series of human rights violations happening on a daily basis in Syria, including massacres, rapes, torture and forced migration.
This will come as no surprise to any person who has been following the conflict for the last two years.
And truly, I'm sure all of us know there are no saint's when it comes to war so both the government and rebels have been practicing this atrocities.
Some may say that the government does it in a greater scale. That night be true, but one can only imagine what the rebels would do if they had the same resources.
Especially because I don't think the people who has started this conflict to achieve a much deserved freedom, are now able to control those who joined them for their own agenda.
My question is the same as ever, when will UN have the guts to step into the conflict in order to protect innocent civilians?
It just upsets me that the two major countries in UN -Russia and US- can actually make the rest of the UN inactive just because they are the greater military powers in the world.
How many more will have to die for us to take a stand instead of remaining as mere spectators? 

For all those who, like me, love 30STM

Why is Turkey Fighting?

Sei que hoje seria dia de escrever a mensagem deste blog em português, mas a verdade é que acabei de ver este video e acho-o demaseado importante para lhe passar ao lado.

Aos meus compatriotas que não entendem Inglês, penso que podem por ligendas.

A man without a country

I'm going to tell you Suleimane Camaná's story.
Suleimane was born in Guiné-Bissau twenty five years ago.
His parents got separated when he was seven.
With no right to choose, he remained with his mother who travelled to Senegal.
For many years he lost track of his father.
At the age of nine he was already working doing errands in exchange for bread.
In the years that followed he would do a bit of everything, including carrying goods or work at a car garage, always without having any wages, only food in return (sometimes not even that, instead he felt the lashes of a whip).
His mother remarried when he was twelve and since he didn't like his stepfather, he's started to live on the streets.
His mother would die just a few years later.
One day he heard someone speaking of Europe, "the land of the white, where no one felt hungry".
He's decided then that there was where he wanted to be.
For six years he saved the little money he could demand from a few of his employers until  he finally had enough for that- much desired- boat trip.
Except that the voyage wasn't what he expected as a large part of his travel companions died along the way.
Finally the vessel drops them somewhere around Barcelona and a guide takes them to Switzerland by not very known pats...
Suleimane will remain in Switzerland for the next three years.
However one day he meets a man in France who tells him he has met his father who is now living in Portugal as a Portuguese Citizen.
From then until he gets his father's contact isn't hard.
His father's reassurance that it will be easy to get Portuguese documents with his birth certificate (which his father had kept all these years) raises Suleimsne's hopes to have a better future here in Portugal.
So with nothing but a hand full of dreams Suleimane arrives to his father's house in the north of Portugal.
However on the day after his arrival he is awaken to a much harsher reality.
On their way to take care of Suleimane's legal documents, he and his father are approached by the public security police inspectors who suspect they might be illegal because they are speaking creole...
With no Portuguese legal documents Suleimane is arrested.
The only contact allowed between father and son will be a single phone call in which the son informs the father that he's already in Lisbon.
Desperate to remain in Portugal Suleimane will beat the inspectors as they try to take him to the plane a few days later.
He is beaten back.
Realizing it will not come to anything he rips open his wrist with is teeth (in his mind anything is better than going back to his country even death).
The inspectors will handcuff him, tie his legs and carry him to the plane.
Unfortunately for the Portuguese inspectors, the Guiné authorities do not allow Suleimane back in his country for from their point of view he has no family or job perspectives there,
The twenty five year old is sent back to Portugal (on his way the inspectors try to reach an agreement with Morocco's authorities to leave him there, but they are not up for it).
Portuguese inspectors will try to deport Suleimane once more, yet the attempt will still be unsuccessful.
Living in fear of deportation Suleimane keeps himself locked inside his father's house, too afraid to come out should he find another inspector eager to send him away from the only relative he has, although a tribunal has forbidden his deportation for the time being.
I must say, I am not proud at all of the way Portuguese authorities handled this all case.
Are we humans or are we beasts?
Tell me, is it not better to provide Suleimane with the documents which would allow him to take part of the working class in Portugal and build a life for himself instead of force him to remain inside a house by fear of getting caught?
And don't tell me he will take someone else's job if that happens. These people work on heavy hard jobs and I don't see many Portuguese born citizen's applying for them...
Suleimane thought he had nothing when he had no money nor clothes he could call his own.
Yet we've proved him that he could loose what he didn't think he had, a country, his dignity and his will to live and fight for a better tomorrow.
What does it make of us?
(This happened in May 2013)

"Portugal" e "Feira cabisbaixa" de Alexandre O'Neil

Ó Portugal, se fosses só três sílabas,
Linda vista para o mar,
Minho verde, Algarve de cal,
jerico rapando o espinhaço da terra,
surdo e miudinho,
muinho a braços com o vento
testarudo, mas embolado e, afinal, amigo,
se fosses só o sal, o sol, o sul,
o ladino pardal,
o manso boi coloquial, a rechinante sardinha,
a desancada varina,
o plumitivo ladrilhado de lindos adjetivos,
a muda queixa amendoada
duns olhos pestanítidos
se fosses só a cegarrega do estio, dos estilos,
o ferrugento cão asmático das praias,
o grilo engaiolado, a grila no lábio,
o calendario na parede, o emblema na lapela,
ó Portugal, se fosses só três sílabas
de plastico, que era mais barato!

"Feira cabisbaixa"

doceiras de Amarante, barristas de Barcelos,
rendeiras de Viana, toureiros da Golegã,
não há "papo de anjo" que seja o meu derriço,
galo que cante a cores na minha prateleira,
alvura arrendada para o meu devaneio,
bandarilha que possa enfeitar-me o cachaço,
Portugal; questão que tenho comigo mesmo,
golpe até ao osso, fome sem entretém,
perdigueiro marrado e sem narizes, sem perdizes,
rocim engraxado, feira cabisbaixa,
meu remorso,
meu remorso de todos nós...