Depois da efemérides de ontem, entre a morte de João Paulo II (2005) e a aprovação da Constituição que, revista, nos rege (1976) e as de hoje, com o escudo a aderir ao SME (1992), resta recordar o regresso à terra e ao mar que ontem peregrinei.

Reparei que o moinho ainda lá está de sentinela, diante do oceano e da nortada, e que as flores começaram a romper a carapaça verde da invernia.

Não vale a pena comentar as recandidaturas de Ribeiro e Castro e Marques Mendes às lideranças partidocráticas daquilo que chamam direita, prefiro notar que acabou o ruído, com o silêncio de Manuel Alegre, Mário Soares e Cavaco Silva. Reparem nos rebentos do meu pessegueiro, no Valbom dos Gaviões.

http://politicsinmotion.blogspot.com/2007/01/it-didnt-happen-here-why-post-1974.html

Daniel Alvarenga

Interview – Jose Adelino Maltez, Professor of Political Science at the Higher Education Institute for Social Sciences and Politics in LInterview – Jose Adelino Maltez, Professor of Political Science at the Higher Education Institute for Social Sciences and Politics in Lisbon; Member of the Political Commission of Lucas Pires’ CDS between 1983-1985; founding member of the Party of the New Democracy (having now left)

03-04-2006Lisbon

I and Paulo Ferreira da Cunha must have been two Portuguese to have gone to a Liberal International. It was two years ago inDakar.

One thing is to take Lipset, Fukuyama, Schmiter, make an outside analysis about the Portuguese situation and run the risk of reaching precipitated conclusions. Why do we not have a Liberal Party? Because the group of the Liberal International and the European Liberal parties, born in the post-war period acted in a terrain that had nothing to do with our 20^th century model, their “ready-made” proposals did not adapt to the Portuguese circumstances. It is important to avoid a possible Anglo-American reading that Portugal is incompatible with Liberalism. Take Benfica for example, and I’m not kidding, Benfica is something that does not exist anywhere else in Europe – a product of liberal activism in the turn from the 19^th to the 20^th century. Something unprecedented and quite interesting of that age was activism and elections for several associations in civil society. These traditions, in one way or another, persist up until today. There is since 1834 a rooted liberal tradition which does not capture the state but does capture Portuguese civil society. There is a rooted liberalism in civil society because Salazarist authoritarianism/dictatorship did not penetrate into civil society, Salazarism never meddled into Benfica’s elections (there were always communists in the board of Benfica during Salazarism), Salazarism did not meddle into trade union activism (until the 39-45 war), it was a form of authoritarianism in the state that did not interfere with civil society. This civil society is composed of elements attentive to egalitarianism and of strong activism living detached from the state. One thing is the analysis of the state and another is the analysis of Civil Society, in terms of Civil Society we can say that Portugal is a triumph of the demo-liberal models of the 19^th century, meaning that its society of the “ancient regime” deeply changed as was seen in “Pupilas do senhor Reitor”, romances of Julio Dinis, etc. A curious anecdote is the story behind the first name of the English Liberal Party. They were first called “Liberales” because of the two liberal revolutions in Europe (Spain in 1812 and Portugal 1820). So this first name is not English but actually Castellan. In the context of the 19^th century Liberal movements there are successful liberal movements in Portugal and Spain, something that did not happen for example in Germany, Italy (until 1861).

Portugalis, with its 1974 transition from an authoritarian to a democratic situation, an atypical case where when the parties are formed, none of the parties existing before the dictatorship were recovered. Spainstill has PSOE, even in Russiathat was the case with the parties existing before the Bolshevik revolution. In Portugalthat did not happen because our parties were all of “statist fabrication” and (all curiously from the German model). The parties were implemented in a pre-revolutionary epoch. The only parties that exist are the ones that will have a place in government as their inception was from the government towards civil society. Their denominations are somewhat hypocritical, the right is social democrat, the left is socialist democrat member of the social democrat international. These two parties (PS and PSD) which have been controlling power in Portugalare Parties formed in a specific era of great ideological aggression where the party programs are on the left of the leaders, the leaders on the left of the party-members and the party-members. This kind of hypocrisy turned us into the most social-democrat country in Europe. Parties were created from the state to society. The main problematic is society being weak and the state strong. This goes all the way back to Salazar – he had a party (the national union) which was the only party in Europepart of a one-party system created by a resolution of the Council of Ministers. The Christian Democrat Party of which Salazar was a militant was created in 1917 by a resolution of the Conference of the Portuguese Bishops. Even after 1974 we kept a certain control of civil society by the state, the parties are the agents of the state, a country highly centralized in its public administration, a country without regionalization, without changed to the local forms of organization, with something called districts that comes from 1834 (attempted to suppress with 1866 constitution). There is an inheritance of what Herculano in the 19^th century qualified as the inheritance possessed from demo-liberalism from absolutism.

Portugalis a small state, with specific traditions, a “Scotlandwith success”, that is the dimension we have. We are the Cataloniawhich managed to separate itself from Madridthanks to the Luso-British alliance. Readingsthat put us right next to other models frequently do not acknowledge our type of formation and our type of inheritance. The absolutism of Marques de Pombal was very likely to the English model in contrast with another group composed by Castela and France which were strongly centralized. We have a conformation of medieval permanence. We were the only medieval thing that lasted, Portugal, Swedenand Denmark. This has consequences in explaining why there isn’t a liberal party in Portugalsince the function exercised by liberal parties in the post-war period was assumed in Portugalby the Social Democrat party and the socialist party. All the parties were Marxist, PSD was Marxist, CDS had Marxist humanism in its constitutional project. The adaptation of the Socialist party to the models of the German SPD of Bad Godesberg happens when Mario Soares leaves and Vitor Constancio comes in, and PSD only cuts with Marxism when Cavaco Silva comes to manage it. We had a point where we had the socialist party as a social democrat party and a PSD that was still Marxist. Over here no one reads the programmes and no one knows what that is, practice is one and the theory is another. For example, in terms of European integration we are the most pro-European country in but also the most pessimist one. They are in the end forms of opportunism of the Portuguese community when it comes to challenges such as the European integration. Look at decolonisation. It wasn’t like the Indian with the British or the Argelines with the French. Portugal had a different dimension, we had 10 million inhabitants and had 1 million returnees in one week, we had to make two or three extremely complicated jumps in the 20^th century and did them with considerable success: overcome authoritarianism, stay away from WW2, fight a colonial war when all the other European powers had let go, making the transition to democracy without civil war and proceed with European integration. This reveals a certain flexibility of a people that for example in the 1960s had 2 million emigrants toEurope while it carried out a colonial war.

1. I would like to know a bit more about your notion of Liberalism and on what the term represents to you. Taking into account the last 30 years how have you seen Liberalism at play in the Portuguese political narrative?

Is there a political party in Portugal? You are before someone who is liberal one of the few who assumes his liberal position on that domain – a traditional liberal. Each country can invent its own notion of liberalism. The notion of multi-secular liberalism is a bit the notion of the revolution of 1820, the notion of Almeida Garret, of Alexandre Herculano, the notion of the liberals of the first Republic. There is a tradition of Portuguese Liberalism, very profound and with success. How do you measure liberalism? Liberalism is freedom, particularly personal freedom. The Portuguese are some of the freest in history: look at property, the Portuguese has free alluvial property since the middle ages. We are the most property-ridden people of Europein terms of land ownership. Everyone has a wood, everyone has a little house, and this reality is represented in our notion of personal liberty which has an extension both in terms of freedom of thought and freedom of ownership. Even, when we have a revolution the first thing we try and scrap is for individual benefit, the 25^th of April revolution had a huge success because of the nationalization of banking and insurance allowing for the purchase of housing with financed interest. Every Portuguese is an owner, it is the regime with most private houses within cities, and there is no such thing as a viable letting market. All the Portuguese temptations are in terms of property, in terms of becoming an independent and free man.

This is not comparable to, for example, Eastern European countries which had forms of servitude until the end of the 19^th century, we have a land ownership-based place of free men that when things are not going so well they move. (oBrazil andEurope, etc.). They moved looking for the things that mark any liberal regime, earn more money, work better, being awarded in work, get a house, get out and find a better place. The enemy of liberalism inPortugal is the state, the state is a foreign occupier, our relationship with the state is awful and in those terms liberals never conquered the state as it still remains foreign. The relationship with the state is of the thief-state and as the saying goes “thief that robs thief has 100 years of forgiveness”. Notions such as avoiding taxes over here are not seen as a social sin, the notion of respect for public property does not exist. This is a bad inheritance from absolutism, there is a democracy of civil society, a deep feeling of equality between people but there are the bad indexes that because the state was not educated there is a lot of “uncivicism” in regards to public goods (not lack of civic posture). Curiously enough, democracy produced some profound yet unexpected (by MFA program) changes, such as the municipalities and the autonomous regions (Madeira and Azores), these changes were successful and just show how organizationally and culturally there is a degree of cultural appetence to anti-statism. Another awful thing is public teaching which was not able to educate people, spending too many energies and money for little to be produced.

2. In your book you point to the absence in Portugal of a party that, not only claims that wants to liberalize us but that, actually says that it is Liberal. Considering the reality of the Portuguese political spectrum what do you see as the main obstacles hindering the entrance of a Liberal party in Portugal? Why do you think that is the case?

The Portuguese productive structure is more or less, 3500 000 actives. Just as many actives in the interior as emigrants active in the exterior, the earnings coming from abroad are still superior than the structural funding from the European Union. We then have 2600 000 pensioners. What has been Portuguese politics? Very simple! One million pensioners on Monday vote PS and on Tuesday vote PSD. Politics is about those 1 million pensioners that swing from PS to PSD. None of these swing voters want to make a reform of the welfare state, they are all hypocritical, never able to lead a reform until the end because a government that has absolute majority such as PS does right now, in two years time knows that PSD will be in power. Power still rests on the beneficiary who is going to decide how the money is going to be spent, and since he does not decide on civic terms he decides according to promises. They are not trade union parties. They are pensioners’ parties, a “pensionism” that results from a natural reaction to the 25^th of April.

3. What do you think of projects such as the Lucas Pires’ one for CDS, the group of Ofir, movements such as the MLS and the Liberal Cause and the Party for the New Democracy?

Francisco Lucas Pires was a curious case. He appeared in 1983-1985. He was the first politician inPortugalclaiming both Liberal and from the right, which was a sin! The very Church pursues liberals, which is an important point I hadn’t referred before. The Catholic Church is anti-liberal, because liberalism inPortugalwas a creation of the Masonry; as so, being liberal was being Mason…up until 1974. I remember on the first campaign of Lucas Pires, on a party which was even supposed to be in name “Christian democrat”, you had bishops saying “don’t vote on that bunch because they are liberal”. What did Lucas Pires do? I happened to be a young collaborator and a member of his political commission. To put it bluntly we simply “translated” to Portuguese the successes, of that time, of Thatcher and Reagan. It was the reflex of what some saw as the liberal and conservative revolution inEurope. The movement inPortugalhad its importance thanks to its actor, Lucas Pires, who was someone with great energetic capabilities, and was a protagonist who represented very well the environment at the time, letting an established left know that there were some alternatives from a different model. He arrived well in the press, attracting a lot of media attention which resulted on an effective and profound reflection in society at the time. As for the other movements: the liberal cause movement is a group of urban intellectuals who read and write some interesting things, after having discovered authors such as Hayek – they do have their penetration in a minority at an intellectual level. In an environment dominated by Boaventura de Sousa Santos, Ignacio Ramognet, etc. at least you start having some form of counterpoint to an intellectual domain of a revolutionary left.

The Party of the new democracy, I was one of the founders together with 3 or 4 Liberals but I can say that by now all the Liberals have left. Who stayed were Manuel Monteiro and his group who actually say they are not liberal. Some of the MLS’s members also used to be militants of the Party of the New Democracy and left. They (New democracy) use the liberal stamp but they are not, they are clearly conservative. The Liberal in this process is always dominated by Christian Conservatism; the trend of the Liberal is often to be of a left of the right to the point of voting often on the left. Why? Because the colleagues of the group, conservatives and Catholics pay special attention to moral causes and who is not catholic finds itself in trouble within this context.

Problem is that often (MLS for example) you don’t have an intellectual basis, which in turn is a particular strength of the Liberal Cause as they occupy a terrain that until five years ago was unoccupied. What was missing inPortugalwas the existence, as is the case inFrance, of a radical Party. A Radical party, individualist, liberal and with Masonry background. The main victims of Salazar’s authoritarianism were not the communists. These, in fact, grew in dimension and became better organized killing anarcho-syndicalism. The main victims were mostly the liberals that lost their tradition and intellectual control. The rupture was terrible and there still hasn’t been a regrouping neither of the republican tradition of liberalism nor of the monarchical tradition of liberalism. There was a discontinuity, authoritarianism by jailing and prohibiting thought, controlling the university there was a rupture with this old demo-liberal tradition. So these new groups are seeds, curious seeds on that domain. Another important thing at this level is the inter-university contact; many of the members of the liberal cause are people who did master programmes elsewhere who got hold of interesting readings. But many are ex-extreme left painted as liberals, other such as Dr. Espada used to be Maoist, Leninist, etc. and then, after taking MA courses, found their “Road toDamascus”. They are rather “foreignized”, not knowing the Portuguese story or the Portuguese tradition which is one of the causes of this failure; in addition everyone’s a liberal no one listens to anyone. They also discuss a lot which is typical. Also important is the role of the patrons and corporations which keep subsidizing the socialists and ex-extreme left and communists. It doesn’t happen as in theUSwhere liberal think tanks and studies are often sponsored. It is cheaper and easier for them to make intellectual corruption next to the extreme left since it is better to have as a protector a socialist or a social-democrat than having a liberal. Take for example big capitalists who have newspapers inPortugal, a big part of the opinion-making on those newspapers is socialist and from the left, there is no need to subsidize or give opportunities to liberal thinking.

4. What about opportunities for a Liberal Party?

Because the big parties are also catch-all parties there are not going to be any ideological parties, there will be federations of families of parties. The two main parties in Portugalhave many downs but do have one virtue which is being very good federators, as so I don’t see the chance of there being an ideological party. The chances that there are is the federation of families and in a way that does happen, more than individual movements it is important there being the existence of liberal thought on every party, including the socialist party. There is a plurality among the families. The parties are very cunning and their centralizing mechanisms are very effective. Any attempts at penetrating the system are easily and structurally suppressed. There is a big dose of opportunism. Our regime is a democracy of success; naturally the protagonists of this process hold some privileges and reputation. The big parties have been successful because they have been able to understand the great movements of opinion are flexible and carry out several metamorphoses. (The election of leaders occurs like this, pragmatically and tactically). Between the political analyst and the simple man of the village there is a big coincidence of analysis, there is a big pragmatism in terms of what is good for the stability of democracy. This already has 30 years, we are now 10 years short of the governing time of Salazarism, it has the double of the first republic, exactly half of the constitutional democracy. So if we do the Maths between 1820 and today Portugalhas more than a century of authentic freedom, with hundreds of elections.
Considering this, the authoritarian memory is already a bit grey, so the analysis made of Salazarism interest extreme right and extreme left and some analysts who see us as a transition towards democracy. We are not a transition towards democracy, the regimes here never had a transition, the regimes here come down “rotten”. It wasn’t a king put in place by Franco to put democracy in place or Adolfo Soares who was a militant of the single party. We have a specific model that is our model.

5. In a small prospective exercise how do you imagine an overcoming/transformation of this present condition of “unidimensionality and micropowers”? How do you describe what you called “real utopia” in your last book and what would its method be?

I am a professor not a politician, every reasonable political scientist that goes into politics are usually a disaster. The analyst is different from the actor, they have distinct qualities. I jokingly usually say that in 10 years time Portugalwill have something completely different. It will be the issue of European integration; the issue of non-emigration, the Portuguese economy is not that much in crisis as it is said. We are producing jobs but (97000 jobs) although we produce jobs they are jobs that the Portuguese do not want. We already are in a phase of rich country crisis (not too rich, of a 25^th in PNUD ranking rich), it is the first time this happens and with a curious psychological element attached to it which is feeling of terrible pessimism. This can be a good thing. It means we realized we are going into a new phase. The democratization of education after the 1970s and the appetence for democracy will produce new elites that will challenge the old one. We are not, however, going to be sole actors. The next Portuguese crisis will be the next European crisis. We will be receptors. In a similar way that the extreme left has already change with these crisis I believe the next crisis will affect the other side of the barricade, the big right, the non-PS towards the right. There will be a change in circumstances. The kind of crisis will change from a national closed nation-state to a broader multi-dimensional regional basis. We have had the capability to suffer and go through predicaments before but will future generations be willing to pay pensions and sustain a welfare state model that is failed a growth in youth employment? So far the welfare state still hangs on like is the case in the privileged “out of time”France. Over here there is no CPE – we only got out good old temporary green receipts.

isbon; Member of the Political Commission of Lucas Pires’ CDS between 1983-1985; founding member of the Party of the New Democracy (having now left)

03-04-2006Lisbon

I and Paulo Ferreira da Cunha must have been two of the first Portuguese to have gone to a Liberal International. It was two years ago inDakar.

One thing is to take Lipset, Fukuyama, Schmiter, make an outside analysis about the Portuguese situation and run the risk of reaching precipitated conclusions. Why do we not have a Liberal Party? Because the group of the Liberal International and the European Liberal parties, born in the post-war period acted in a terrain that had nothing to do with our 20^th century model, their “ready-made” proposals did not adapt to the Portuguese circumstances. It is important to avoid a possible Anglo-American reading that Portugal is incompatible with Liberalism. Take Benfica for example, and I’m not kidding, Benfica is something that does not exist anywhere else in Europe – a product of liberal activism in the turn from the 19^th to the 20^th century. Something unprecedented and quite interesting of that age was activism and elections for several associations in civil society. These traditions, in one way or another, persist up until today. There is since 1834 a rooted liberal tradition which does not capture the state but does capture Portuguese civil society. There is a rooted liberalism in civil society because Salazarist authoritarianism/dictatorship did not penetrate into civil society, Salazarism never meddled into Benfica’s elections (there were always communists in the board of Benfica during Salazarism), Salazarism did not meddle into trade union activism (until the 39-45 war), it was a form of authoritarianism in the state that did not interfere with civil society. This civil society is composed of elements attentive to egalitarianism and of strong activism living detached from the state. One thing is the analysis of the state and another is the analysis of Civil Society, in terms of Civil Society we can say that Portugal is a triumph of the demo-liberal models of the 19^th century, meaning that its society of the “ancient regime” deeply changed as was seen in “Pupilas do senhor Reitor”, romances of Julio Dinis, etc. A curious anecdote is the story behind the first name of the English Liberal Party. They were first called “Liberales” because of the two liberal revolutions in Europe (Spain in 1812 and Portugal 1820). So this first name is not English but actually Castellan. In the context of the 19^th century Liberal movements there are successful liberal movements in Portugal and Spain, something that did not happen for example in Germany, Italy (until 1861).

Portugalis, with its 1974 transition from an authoritarian to a democratic situation, an atypical case where when the parties are formed, none of the parties existing before the dictatorship were recovered. Spainstill has PSOE, even in Russiathat was the case with the parties existing before the Bolshevik revolution. In Portugalthat did not happen because our parties were all of “statist fabrication” and (all curiously from the German model). The parties were implemented in a pre-revolutionary epoch. The only parties that exist are the ones that will have a place in government as their inception was from the government towards civil society. Their denominations are somewhat hypocritical, the right is social democrat, the left is socialist democrat member of the social democrat international. These two parties (PS and PSD) which have been controlling power in Portugalare Parties formed in a specific era of great ideological aggression where the party programs are on the left of the leaders, the leaders on the left of the party-members and the party-members. This kind of hypocrisy turned us into the most social-democrat country in Europe. Parties were created from the state to society. The main problematic is society being weak and the state strong. This goes all the way back to Salazar – he had a party (the national union) which was the only party in Europepart of a one-party system created by a resolution of the Council of Ministers. The Christian Democrat Party of which Salazar was a militant was created in 1917 by a resolution of the Conference of the Portuguese Bishops. Even after 1974 we kept a certain control of civil society by the state, the parties are the agents of the state, a country highly centralized in its public administration, a country without regionalization, without changed to the local forms of organization, with something called districts that comes from 1834 (attempted to suppress with 1866 constitution). There is an inheritance of what Herculano in the 19^th century qualified as the inheritance possessed from demo-liberalism from absolutism.

Portugalis a small state, with specific traditions, a “Scotlandwith success”, that is the dimension we have. We are the Cataloniawhich managed to separate itself from Madridthanks to the Luso-British alliance. Readingsthat put us right next to other models frequently do not acknowledge our type of formation and our type of inheritance. The absolutism of Marques de Pombal was very likely to the English model in contrast with another group composed by Castela and France which were strongly centralized. We have a conformation of medieval permanence. We were the only medieval thing that lasted, Portugal, Swedenand Denmark. This has consequences in explaining why there isn’t a liberal party in Portugalsince the function exercised by liberal parties in the post-war period was assumed in Portugalby the Social Democrat party and the socialist party. All the parties were Marxist, PSD was Marxist, CDS had Marxist humanism in its constitutional project. The adaptation of the Socialist party to the models of the German SPD of Bad Godesberg happens when Mario Soares leaves and Vitor Constancio comes in, and PSD only cuts with Marxism when Cavaco Silva comes to manage it. We had a point where we had the socialist party as a social democrat party and a PSD that was still Marxist. Over here no one reads the programmes and no one knows what that is, practice is one and the theory is another. For example, in terms of European integration we are the most pro-European country in but also the most pessimist one. They are in the end forms of opportunism of the Portuguese community when it comes to challenges such as the European integration. Look at decolonisation. It wasn’t like the Indian with the British or the Argelines with the French. Portugal had a different dimension, we had 10 million inhabitants and had 1 million returnees in one week, we had to make two or three extremely complicated jumps in the 20^th century and did them with considerable success: overcome authoritarianism, stay away from WW2, fight a colonial war when all the other European powers had let go, making the transition to democracy without civil war and proceed with European integration. This reveals a certain flexibility of a people that for example in the 1960s had 2 million emigrants toEurope while it carried out a colonial war.

1. I would like to know a bit more about your notion of Liberalism and on what the term represents to you. Taking into account the last 30 years how have you seen Liberalism at play in the Portuguese political narrative?

Is there a political party in Portugal? You are before someone who is liberal one of the few who assumes his liberal position on that domain – a traditional liberal. Each country can invent its own notion of liberalism. The notion of multi-secular liberalism is a bit the notion of the revolution of 1820, the notion of Almeida Garret, of Alexandre Herculano, the notion of the liberals of the first Republic. There is a tradition of Portuguese Liberalism, very profound and with success. How do you measure liberalism? Liberalism is freedom, particularly personal freedom. The Portuguese are some of the freest in history: look at property, the Portuguese has free alluvial property since the middle ages. We are the most property-ridden people of Europein terms of land ownership. Everyone has a wood, everyone has a little house, and this reality is represented in our notion of personal liberty which has an extension both in terms of freedom of thought and freedom of ownership. Even, when we have a revolution the first thing we try and scrap is for individual benefit, the 25^th of April revolution had a huge success because of the nationalization of banking and insurance allowing for the purchase of housing with financed interest. Every Portuguese is an owner, it is the regime with most private houses within cities, and there is no such thing as a viable letting market. All the Portuguese temptations are in terms of property, in terms of becoming an independent and free man.

This is not comparable to, for example, Eastern European countries which had forms of servitude until the end of the 19^th century, we have a land ownership-based place of free men that when things are not going so well they move. (oBrazil andEurope, etc.). They moved looking for the things that mark any liberal regime, earn more money, work better, being awarded in work, get a house, get out and find a better place. The enemy of liberalism inPortugal is the state, the state is a foreign occupier, our relationship with the state is awful and in those terms liberals never conquered the state as it still remains foreign. The relationship with the state is of the thief-state and as the saying goes “thief that robs thief has 100 years of forgiveness”. Notions such as avoiding taxes over here are not seen as a social sin, the notion of respect for public property does not exist. This is a bad inheritance from absolutism, there is a democracy of civil society, a deep feeling of equality between people but there are the bad indexes that because the state was not educated there is a lot of “uncivicism” in regards to public goods (not lack of civic posture). Curiously enough, democracy produced some profound yet unexpected (by MFA program) changes, such as the municipalities and the autonomous regions (Madeira and Azores), these changes were successful and just show how organizationally and culturally there is a degree of cultural appetence to anti-statism. Another awful thing is public teaching which was not able to educate people, spending too many energies and money for little to be produced.

2. In your book you point to the absence in Portugal of a party that, not only claims that wants to liberalize us but that, actually says that it is Liberal. Considering the reality of the Portuguese political spectrum what do you see as the main obstacles hindering the entrance of a Liberal party in Portugal? Why do you think that is the case?

The Portuguese productive structure is more or less, 3500 000 actives. Just as many actives in the interior as emigrants active in the exterior, the earnings coming from abroad are still superior than the structural funding from the European Union. We then have 2600 000 pensioners. What has been Portuguese politics? Very simple! One million pensioners on Monday vote PS and on Tuesday vote PSD. Politics is about those 1 million pensioners that swing from PS to PSD. None of these swing voters want to make a reform of the welfare state, they are all hypocritical, never able to lead a reform until the end because a government that has absolute majority such as PS does right now, in two years time knows that PSD will be in power. Power still rests on the beneficiary who is going to decide how the money is going to be spent, and since he does not decide on civic terms he decides according to promises. They are not trade union parties. They are pensioners’ parties, a “pensionism” that results from a natural reaction to the 25^th of April.

3. What do you think of projects such as the Lucas Pires’ one for CDS, the group of Ofir, movements such as the MLS and the Liberal Cause and the Party for the New Democracy?

Francisco Lucas Pires was a curious case. He appeared in 1983-1985. He was the first politician inPortugalclaiming both Liberal and from the right, which was a sin! The very Church pursues liberals, which is an important point I hadn’t referred before. The Catholic Church is anti-liberal, because liberalism inPortugalwas a creation of the Masonry; as so, being liberal was being Mason…up until 1974. I remember on the first campaign of Lucas Pires, on a party which was even supposed to be in name “Christian democrat”, you had bishops saying “don’t vote on that bunch because they are liberal”. What did Lucas Pires do? I happened to be a young collaborator and a member of his political commission. To put it bluntly we simply “translated” to Portuguese the successes, of that time, of Thatcher and Reagan. It was the reflex of what some saw as the liberal and conservative revolution inEurope. The movement inPortugalhad its importance thanks to its actor, Lucas Pires, who was someone with great energetic capabilities, and was a protagonist who represented very well the environment at the time, letting an established left know that there were some alternatives from a different model. He arrived well in the press, attracting a lot of media attention which resulted on an effective and profound reflection in society at the time. As for the other movements: the liberal cause movement is a group of urban intellectuals who read and write some interesting things, after having discovered authors such as Hayek – they do have their penetration in a minority at an intellectual level. In an environment dominated by Boaventura de Sousa Santos, Ignacio Ramognet, etc. at least you start having some form of counterpoint to an intellectual domain of a revolutionary left.

The Party of the new democracy, I was one of the founders together with 3 or 4 Liberals but I can say that by now all the Liberals have left. Who stayed were Manuel Monteiro and his group who actually say they are not liberal. Some of the MLS’s members also used to be militants of the Party of the New Democracy and left. They (New democracy) use the liberal stamp but they are not, they are clearly conservative. The Liberal in this process is always dominated by Christian Conservatism; the trend of the Liberal is often to be of a left of the right to the point of voting often on the left. Why? Because the colleagues of the group, conservatives and Catholics pay special attention to moral causes and who is not catholic finds itself in trouble within this context.

Problem is that often (MLS for example) you don’t have an intellectual basis, which in turn is a particular strength of the Liberal Cause as they occupy a terrain that until five years ago was unoccupied. What was missing inPortugalwas the existence, as is the case inFrance, of a radical Party. A Radical party, individualist, liberal and with Masonry background. The main victims of Salazar’s authoritarianism were not the communists. These, in fact, grew in dimension and became better organized killing anarcho-syndicalism. The main victims were mostly the liberals that lost their tradition and intellectual control. The rupture was terrible and there still hasn’t been a regrouping neither of the republican tradition of liberalism nor of the monarchical tradition of liberalism. There was a discontinuity, authoritarianism by jailing and prohibiting thought, controlling the university there was a rupture with this old demo-liberal tradition. So these new groups are seeds, curious seeds on that domain. Another important thing at this level is the inter-university contact; many of the members of the liberal cause are people who did master programmes elsewhere who got hold of interesting readings. But many are ex-extreme left painted as liberals, other such as Dr. Espada used to be Maoist, Leninist, etc. and then, after taking MA courses, found their “Road toDamascus”. They are rather “foreignized”, not knowing the Portuguese story or the Portuguese tradition which is one of the causes of this failure; in addition everyone’s a liberal no one listens to anyone. They also discuss a lot which is typical. Also important is the role of the patrons and corporations which keep subsidizing the socialists and ex-extreme left and communists. It doesn’t happen as in theUSwhere liberal think tanks and studies are often sponsored. It is cheaper and easier for them to make intellectual corruption next to the extreme left since it is better to have as a protector a socialist or a social-democrat than having a liberal. Take for example big capitalists who have newspapers inPortugal, a big part of the opinion-making on those newspapers is socialist and from the left, there is no need to subsidize or give opportunities to liberal thinking.

4. What about opportunities for a Liberal Party?

Because the big parties are also catch-all parties there are not going to be any ideological parties, there will be federations of families of parties. The two main parties in Portugalhave many downs but do have one virtue which is being very good federators, as so I don’t see the chance of there being an ideological party. The chances that there are is the federation of families and in a way that does happen, more than individual movements it is important there being the existence of liberal thought on every party, including the socialist party. There is a plurality among the families. The parties are very cunning and their centralizing mechanisms are very effective. Any attempts at penetrating the system are easily and structurally suppressed. There is a big dose of opportunism. Our regime is a democracy of success; naturally the protagonists of this process hold some privileges and reputation. The big parties have been successful because they have been able to understand the great movements of opinion are flexible and carry out several metamorphoses. (The election of leaders occurs like this, pragmatically and tactically). Between the political analyst and the simple man of the village there is a big coincidence of analysis, there is a big pragmatism in terms of what is good for the stability of democracy. This already has 30 years, we are now 10 years short of the governing time of Salazarism, it has the double of the first republic, exactly half of the constitutional democracy. So if we do the Maths between 1820 and today Portugalhas more than a century of authentic freedom, with hundreds of elections.
Considering this, the authoritarian memory is already a bit grey, so the analysis made of Salazarism interest extreme right and extreme left and some analysts who see us as a transition towards democracy. We are not a transition towards democracy, the regimes here never had a transition, the regimes here come down “rotten”. It wasn’t a king put in place by Franco to put democracy in place or Adolfo Soares who was a militant of the single party. We have a specific model that is our model.

5. In a small prospective exercise how do you imagine an overcoming/transformation of this present condition of “unidimensionality and micropowers”? How do you describe what you called “real utopia” in your last book and what would its method be?

I am a professor not a politician, every reasonable political scientist that goes into politics are usually a disaster. The analyst is different from the actor, they have distinct qualities. I jokingly usually say that in 10 years time Portugalwill have something completely different. It will be the issue of European integration; the issue of non-emigration, the Portuguese economy is not that much in crisis as it is said. We are producing jobs but (97000 jobs) although we produce jobs they are jobs that the Portuguese do not want. We already are in a phase of rich country crisis (not too rich, of a 25^th in PNUD ranking rich), it is the first time this happens and with a curious psychological element attached to it which is feeling of terrible pessimism. This can be a good thing. It means we realized we are going into a new phase. The democratization of education after the 1970s and the appetence for democracy will produce new elites that will challenge the old one. We are not, however, going to be sole actors. The next Portuguese crisis will be the next European crisis. We will be receptors. In a similar way that the extreme left has already change with these crisis I believe the next crisis will affect the other side of the barricade, the big right, the non-PS towards the right. There will be a change in circumstances. The kind of crisis will change from a national closed nation-state to a broader multi-dimensional regional basis. We have had the capability to suffer and go through predicaments before but will future generations be willing to pay pensions and sustain a welfare state model that is failed a growth in youth employment? So far the welfare state still hangs on like is the case in the privileged “out of time”France. Over here there is no CPE – we only got out good old temporary green receipts.

Ainda se desprendem os primeiros farrapos da madrugada, com a passarada em primavera por entre os primeiros rebentos e flores das árvores da vizinhança, quando, abrindo a agenda, reparo em duas efemérides do dia de hoje. Que em 1596 morria Descartes e que em 1889 era construída a Torre Eiffel, que je pense, donc je suis e que La France c’est Descartes e Paris, a torre de aço. Espreito os jornais e reparo nas grandes parangonas sobre a reforma do Estado, mas preciso de ir ao portal do Governo para sair da barragem de fogo da opinião e aceder ao conhecimento da coisa emitida.

Noto que a primeira das boas intenções, a extinção de treze distritos, não passou do tinteiro, repetindo-se, no ano de 2006, o que acontecera em Ditadura Nacional pré-salazarenta, com a boa intenção de criação das províncias, assente no estudo de Amorim Girão, conforme se pode ler no belo documento da época, intitulado “Reforma Administrativa”, de que o PRACE da democracia é sucessor.

O Estado-Emprego sempre temeu a desertificação de inúmeras cidades do interior que são sede de distrito. E o governo do Marquês de Pombal, de Afonso Costa e dos netos procura manter as suas extensões decretinas locais. A ideia que, logo com o primeiro parlamento eleito do liberalismo do pós-guerra civil, foi proposta por António Luís de Seabra, o Visconde que também vai ser autor do Código Civil de 1867, e, depois posta em prática pelo ministro Rodrigo da Fonseca, o célebre raposa, ainda antes do setembrismo, é um fantasma que marca os homens práticos da governança: sem distrito não há pais oficial que controle o país das realidades, para usar termos que muitos pensam de Charles Maurras, mas que, bem antes, foram usados pelo nosso Alexandre Herculano, quando falava da centralização como o vício que o demoliberalismo manteve do absolutismo.

O Estado a que chegámos continua a ser grande demais para os pequenos problemas da vida e pequeno demais para os grandes desafios do nosso tempo, como apetece parafrasear, na clássica observação de Daniel Bell. O PRACE parece tecnicamente escorreito e a vontade de José Sócrates, António Costa e Teixeira dos Santos um patriótico esforço de quem não teme usar os poderes que tem para o bem comum e a ideologia socialista-democrática ou social-democrata, conservadora demais para o momento de encruzilhada em que vivemos, segundo a minha perspectiva liberal. Cá por mim, preferia Mouzinho da Silveira, contra o qual se ergueram os distritos, para que pudesse implantar-se o devorismo e a metodologia da barganha de José da Silva Carvalho.

Ainda ontem, num colóquio sobre a crise nacional e o desemprego dos jovens, realizado no ISCSP, onde tive, como parceiros, João César das Neves e António Filipe, ouvi o primeiro, com o habitual brilhantismo, apresentar algumas ideias que o PRACE não poderia absorver: que o Estado foi capturado pelos interesses que deveria regular, dado termos voltado aos velhos vícios corporativos; que a economia portuguesa está a produzir emprego, mas que os os portugueses não querem esses empregos; que continuamos a viver acima das nossas posses; mas que há uma boa notícia: as pessoas estão com medo e passámos para as crises típicas dos países ricos.

Tal como aprendi, do meu antigo aluno, António Filipe, uma destacada voz tribunícia do PCP, a verdade do desemprego e a realidade da falta de justiça social e das flagrantes ausências de responsabilidade social de certos empresários devoristas. Por isso também denunciei, na senda de Mounier, que os problemas económicos só podem ser resolvidos com medidas económicas, mas não apenas com medidas económicas, pelo que só o recurso a factores de mobilização nacional, capazes de compreenderem que somos uns “sonhadores activos”, onde, para além dos planos tecnológicos e dos métodos tecnocráticos, importaria um plano nacional de criatividade e de educação para a responsabilidade individual e comunitária, que garantisse o nosso direito à felicidade como pessoas livres, de acordo com uma certa ideia de Portugal e do seu papel no mundo.

Não me parece que o PRACE queira ir ao tal fundo da questão que tem a ver com a reconciliação do Povo com o Estado, através de um plano global de reactivação da cidadania contra o indiferentismo e a corrupção. Falta-lhe muito de ideias quanto a Portugal e a própria democracia, dado que o modelo, empacotado em fórmulas de engenharia conceitual assexuada, tanto poderia servir para a Patagónia como para um qualquer país em modernização autoritária, visando transformar uma qualquer Ruténia numa nova Singapura. Ao estilo do paper falta-lhe muito do aqui e agora das circunstâncias e outro tanto do bicho-homem movido a sonhos. Pode, por isso, sossobrar, mesmo que o “action man” Sócrates consiga, nisso, conciliar-se em lealdade com o “action man” Cavaco.

A manhã se vai levantando, espreito as efemérides da agenda, fico a saber que Reagan foi neste dia baleado em Washington (1981), reparo que em pleno sidonismo foi fundado um novo partido, o Partido Nacional Republicano, que ia de Egas Moniz a Machado Santos, mas que ficou dependente de um homem e logo de uma bala sem ser perdida ou de uma constipação mal tratada. Noto também que um ano depois já em pós-sidonismo, depois da República Nova se ter extinto, regressava-se À República Velha, com o governo de Domingos Pereira, neste mesmo dia, o tal gabinete que, para resolver a crise do pós-guerra fez emitir o mais gordo “Diário do Governo” da história do país, com milhentos decretos nomeando milhentos funcionários que mostraram fidelidade ao regime, antes de Sócrates, o tal que continua República Velha, anunciar hoje o seu PRACE que vai reavaliar 120 serviços e 75 000 funcionários.

Vale-nos que, em plena República Velha, neste mesmo dia de 1922, com subsídio do então ministério da ciência um tal Gago que era Coutinho e um tal Sacadura que era Cabral ousaram voltar a dar-nos sonho, iniciando a primeira travessia aérea do Atlântico Sul, que é sítio para onde deveríamos voltar a navegar, com muita ciência, não apenas de fotocópia importada, mas também se invenção. Jugo que o Gago de então não teve que aceder ao “site” da FCT nem que ouvir os discursos do Heitor, o parecer prévio do Reitor Primaz ou os preconceitos ideológicos dos que co-escreveram livros com o Heitor. Tinha a tal mais valia do que sabia criar e sabia que o sonho comandava a vida. E não dependia dos despachos arbitrários e decretinos dos políticos que acedem ao trono do científico para poderem decretar quem não é científico entre os pares “out of area”, mas dependentes da superburocracia dos avaliadores, avaliólogos, palradores e sentenciadores que confundem opinião com conhecimento e ideologia da vindicta com metodologia, só porque têm cara de Professor Pardal e ar de lente da velha Coimbra que já não há e que foi meu berço de vida e escola, mesmo que penas venham de Campo de Ourique.

Por mim que só sei que nada sei, apenas confirmo que ontem durante horas, para poder dizer que era orientador de uma candidata a bolseira perdi horas a ter que meter no tal “site” da afundação dados que obrigatoriamente o mesmo Estado tem, pelos “curricula” apresentados em provas públicas de doutoramento, associado, agregado, catedrático e relatórios quinquenais obrigatoriamente entregues em CDRom e tudo ao mesmo senhor Estado dito simplex, mas que ainda não sabe o que é um “link” ou um “copy/paste”. Curiosamente, a minha ficha já lá estava, apenas com o número incompleto do meu BI, quando me pediram para participar num outro projecto que tinha adequadas cunhas do presidente da FCT e de outros hierarcas do regime. Para uns, umas simples linhas, para os enteados, uma fila lentíssima de pequenos dados, todos já disponíveis noutras gavetas do mesmo estadão. Viva o simplex desta otomana administração de espertos, onde manda o Senhor Ninguém de uma burrocracia que diz ser contra a burocracia.

Claro que tentei dizer ao tal “site” o que aqui estou dizendo, com os nomes todos, questionando se poderia enviar o CDRom com os tais dados que tenho de escrever, dezenas de vezes por ano, por cada passo que dou, mas o tal “site” é tão estúpido que rejeitava sempre este simples grito dum pobre súbdito do “simplex”. Mas se não cumprisse, no prazo indicado, os ditames destes formulários, a minha orientanda sofria as consequências e tive de sofrer, das tripas, coração, contendo-me para não usar do curto-circuito da cunha. Aliás, da última vez que tive de estar presente perante peritos estrangeiros, para defender um projecto, reparei que eu era o único entre várias candidaturas apresentadas.

Ao meu lado, estava outro projecto dirigido por um deputado aposentado que nem sequer pôs os pés nessa prova e obteve logo tudo o que pedia, como o podem demonstrar as belíssimas fotografias de turismo científico que ainda hoje estão expostas no gabinete dos variados funcionários administrativos que os acompanharam a longínquas paragens de pesquisa, com sol e palmeiras. Que venha o simplex, rapidamente e em força. Para que historiadores medievais e banqueiros aposentados não tenham que dar opiniões científicas rejeitadoras de projectos de geoliteracia apresentados por catedráticos de geoliteracia só porque não seguiam os ditamos do catedrático doutor em corredores do poder que foi catedrático quase vinte anos antes de se doutorar!

Neste dia do ano de 1996, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa era eleito líder do PSD. Depois, veio Paulo Portas, mais Sampaio, mais Moderna, mais Barroso, mais Santana, mais e menos. Hoje é conselheiro de Estado. Com muitos sapos engolidos. E comentários televisivos.

Neste dia, no ano de 1998, era inaugurada a ponte Vasco da Gama, cheirando ainda a feijoada e a um produto que lavaria loiça, quando ainda se vivia em vacas semigordas de monetarismo keynesiano e gestão de subsídios que nos prometiam agricultura a pataco e reino dos céus com doze estrelas.

Neste dia, do ano de 1809, Portugal sentia o sabor dos balanços da balança da Europa, quando, em nova invasão dos franceses, acontecia na travessia do rio Douro, na ribeira do Porto, o desastre da Ponte das Barcas. Somos um povo antigo na dor e, hoje, meio vazio no desencanto, entre o “simplex” e a viagem de Freitas ao Canadá, que é país que só apareceu depois de por lá andarmos a pescar o fiel amigo. Boa sorte, senhor ministro! Hoje ainda estou no remanso orgulhoso de mais um voo das águias.

Duas comemoração há hoje a assinalar: primeiro, a de 1967, quando a Igreja Católica precebeu que chegou a globalização e o papa Paulo VI emitiu a encíclica “Populorum Progressio”; em segundo lugar, a de 1977, quando o Portugal pós-revolucionário e soarista solicitou a adesão às então CECA, CEE e CEEA, dado que a de 1835, a morte de D. Augusto, o primeiro marido de D. Maria II, apenas tem a ver com a nossa inserção na balança da Europa, dado que o dito consorte precedeu o segundo consorte, D. Fernando e ambos foram dados à jovem rainha de acordo com a influência da nossa potência directora, nos termos do tratado da quádrupla aliança de Abril de 1834. O primeiro era francês, da França dos Orleães; o segundo era alemão, mas dependente da rainha Vitória e da potência britânica e da sua subsecção continental, o rei Leopoldo de Bruxelas, que era o único belga que então existia, como ele próprio dizia.

Anteontem, ontem e hoje já a situação era complexa e não simples nem simplex. Porque a complexidade sempre foi uma forma particular de agrupamento de elementos, diferente da agregação. Esta é uma reunião de elementos não combinados, enquanto a complexidade é uma heterogeniedade organizada, ligando os elementos num conjunto com um raio determinado, ligando os vários elementos entre si. Sem consultar o MIT ou um dos muitos assessores que Mariano Gago costuma despachar para vender nas universidades o espírito de Bolonha, sei, segundo Henri Lepage que esta “teoria dos sistemas complexos” regidos por “mecanismos de auto‑organização que respondem a flutuações aleatórias” está próxima de alguns teóricos da química molecular que defendem a existência de “processos de crescente complexificação, conducentes a ordens espontâneas, permanentemente reposta em causa, mas que, por sua vez, levam à constituição de ordens sempre mais complexas.

E isto porque a ideia estática de uma ordem universal imutável é cada vez mais contestada por uma filosofia dinâmica da desordem e da entropia, também ela fundamentada na ideia neo‑darwiniana de uma selecção natural de sistemas de propriedades estruturantes (Morin)”.

Com efeito, só a agregação, enquanto uma reunião de elementos não combinados é que é simples. Logo, uma máquina administrativa, enquanto a complexidade, é uma heterogeniedade organizada. É o preciso contrário daquilo que é simples. É o que caracteriza os sistemas abertos, em confronto com os sistemas fechados. Aqueles que são regidos por mecanismos de auto-organização, que respondem a flutuações aleatórias e que têm processos de crescente complexificação, conduzindo a ordens cada vez mais espontâneas.

Deste modo, cada nova ordem traz consigo novos desafios, donde surgem novas ordens ainda mais complexas. A complexidade diz respeito aos todos, às totalidades que não são simples justaposição de elementos simples, diz respeito aos todos centrados sobre si mesmos. A especificidade está na energia radial ou interna das coisas humanas, dessa anti-entropia que atravessa o mundo físico e o faz subir para o improvável. É esse poder que têm os seres vivos para a regeneração e para a multiplicação. Essa forma de energia que lança para cima e para dentro, para estados cada vez mais complexos e mais centrados. Essa forma de energia que liga os corpúsculos de centro a centro, de consciência a consciência sempre no sentido do improvável.

E nisso, os seres vivos divergem da lei da degradação da energia marcante no mundo físico, onde domina a entropia, aquela quantidade de energia que, sendo gasta numa mudança, se torna irrecuperável pelo sistema e fica para sempre na zona do desperdício. A entropia tende para a involução e para o nivelamento de conjuntos corpusculares marcados pela probabilidade, por esse jogo nivelador e homogeneizador que conduz à morte da matéria. Ela não passa de uma energia tangencial, mensurável.

Não sei se a ilustre criadora do simplex e colaboradora do “blogue” de Vital Moreira e Ana Gomes terá explicado ao Primeiro Ministro que burocracia veio doo francês bureaucratie, termo inventado por Gournay, na primeira metade do século XVIII. E que tal corresponde ao tipo ideal de uma organização formal da sociedade, caracterizada pela legitimação hierárquica da autoridade, com poderes e responsabilidades atribuídas a funcionários que ocupam posições numa determinada hierarquia marcada pelo direito à carreira. Onde cada posição tem objectivos previamente fixados e há uma codificação de todas as regras de conduta que tratam da organização como um todo, onde há ordens comunicadas por escrito.

Porque, segundo Weber, uma das características do Estado Moderno, um conjunto de pessoas marcadas pela competência e não pela fidelidade. O Estado Moderno seria, acima de tudo, um Estado Racional marcado pelo surgimento de uma administração burocrática. E isto porque em todos os domínios (Estado, Igreja, exército, partido, empresa económica, grupo de interesses,associação, fundação,etc.), o desenvolvimento das formas modernas de agrupamento identifica‑se muito simplesmente com o desenvolvimento e com a progressão constante da administração burocrática: o nascimento desta é, por assim dizer, o esporo do Estado ocidental moderno.

Por outras palavras, a burocracia racional é, pois, uma ditadura do funcionário. Apoia‑se na crença na legalidade de ordens estatuídas e dos direitos de mando dos chamados por essas ordenações a exercer a autoridade. Tem uma impersonalidade formalista, consistindo numa dominação graças ao saber que destrói os antigos sistemas de legitimação. Assim, o saber e a ideologia passam a ser os principais pontos de apoio do Estado.

Uma burocracia que também se tornou possível pelo aparecimento de uma economia monetarista que permitiu ao Estado passar a pagar com regularidade aos seus funcionários, abandonando‑se o anterior pagamento em espécie, por exemplo, através do aluguer da função de cobrador de impostos.

Segundo Weber, tem a ver com a acção racional referente a fins (Zweckrational), onde os indivíduos são capazes tanto de definir objectivos como de avaliar os meios mais adequados para a realização desses objectivos, uma acção social marcada pela moral de responsabilidade, onde o valor predominante seria a competência. Aqui já nos situaríamos no campo do Estado racional-normativo ou do Estado-razão, onde domina a acção burocrática, aquela que faz nascer o poder burocrático, o poder especializado na elaboração do formalismo legal e na conservação da lei escrita e dos seus regulamentos, onde dominam a publicização, a legalização e a burocracia.

Quem duvidasse do estado de graça do presente ciclo de coabitação do regime poderia, ontem, se tivesse o dom da ubiquidade, ter desfeito as respectivas dúvidas, ao fim da tarde, indo ao lançamento dos livros de duas personalidades do PS: o embaixador Seixas da Costa, sempre potencial ministro dos estrangeiros, e o secretário de Estado José Conde Rodrigues, sempre em diálogo com os chamados operadores judiciários. Por dever de antigo professor tive que preferir este último, não podendo comparecer no Centro Cultural de Belém, junto do antigo aluno e actual professor do ISCSP, o nosso embaixador em Brasília. Já li naturalmente “A Política sem Dogma”, à procura do liberalismo de esquerda, onde concluí que, se me fiasse na argumentação, já nem eu poderia ser de direita.

Senti que, nos “halls” da Católica, sob a biblioteca de António Sardinha, estavam juntas todas as altas esferas pensantes do situacionismo. E o bailado provocou-me um daqueles sorrisos típicos dos observadores radicais, diante dos armadilhados terrenos da barganha, onde me foi dado ver um conselheiro de Cavaco em ameno triângulo com um ex-conselheiro de Soares e um presente conselheiro do Senhor Duque de Bragança, mas onde senti a falta de ilustres hierarcas do Grande Oriente Lusitano, apesar de não faltarem hieracarcas de outras ordens menos regulares, mas ditas regulares. A minha radical presença gerou, naturalmente, civilizadíssimos cumprimentos de quem se interrogou sobre a minha discreta participação no acto, demonstrando como nem sequer em diagonal deve ter passado os olhos pelo texto apresentado.

Quero, em primeiro lugar, agradecer ao autor as referências que me concedeu, evocando textos meus do século passado, alguns dos quais ainda nem sequer saíram do limbo da sebenta, quando, no velho palácio da Junqueira, trocávamos ideias antes e depois das aulas de um mestrado, donde fui obrigado a afastar-me, quando ilustríssimos inspiradores tal inspiraram, entre sussurros conselheirais e bancárias jantaradas, naqueles salamaleques típicos dos ineficazes assassinatos morais, quando a adjectivação diabolizante da teoria da conspiração não se adequa ao visado, que não é “opus”, “copus”, avental ou sacrista, como poderia constar da ficha das velhas ou novas pides, cujo quadriculado, pré-cibernético, não consegue conter a raiva dos homens livres.

Por isso sorrio quando recebo “inputs” de estratégia indirecta sobre a alta azáfama que reina entre os meus vizinhos conselheirais do Palácio Cor de Rosa, na sua profissional e quotidiana leitura da jornalada e, talvez, da blogagem, catando os inúmeros recados analíticos que podem ter como objectivo o “bunker” principal da actual coligação. Mesmo o que, hoje, o semanário “O Diabo” transcreve das minhas palavras sobre o CDS e o PSD apenas quer dizer o que soltamente penso, mesmo que erre.

Se consultarem no arquivo oficial a minha ficha da DGS, verificarão que sempre estive no mesmo sítio axiológico-político. As circunstâncias da conveniência e da oportunidade dos carreirismos é que se modificaram radicalmente, menos para quem faz contabilidade de ascensões e quedas. Sempre tive como máxima ambição política ser exactamente aquilo que sou e, neste tempo de homens lúcidos, tendo a lucidez de ser ingénuo, quando digo efectivamente aquilo que penso, engano sempre os que pensam que os outros dizem aquilo que não pensam, ou que vivem uma vida escondida face àquilo que proclamam. Por mim, continuo a tentar viver como penso e, por isso, não posso efectivamente ter de pensar como vivo. Até assino sempre o que quero comunicar. Mesmo em blogue.