Mr. Habib,
I read your article in Publico yesterday “SOS24 — jornalismo policial ou policiamento jornalistico?” and I’m contacting you through this forum bc I do not use any social networks. I hope you don’t mind and please feel free to contact through here.
I must say I did not see this program as this channel has been banned in my household, exactly bc of it’s bias and as I read your article, the more I felt it was the most wise decision. I must say that due to my nature, these things upset me very strongly. As I live outside of Lisbon, in a very small city of the centre of Portugal, it’s harder to be aware of the struggles that people of colour and different ethnicity have in our country. In our small community, the few people that are not blatantly white seem very well integrated, except, obviously, for the “gypsy” community. They are segregated and poorly looked upon, as if they are the cause of all our troubles, every where in this country! So, I must say I have been somewhat naïve about these issues, although for sometime now, I have become more and more aware that things are much worse than I thought. It started when I discovered that there were many children born in Portugal that were not Portuguese, that was the first shock, and eventually I became aware of the discrimination, but that was later in life…we had people of colour teaching in our school, working in our civil services and in our courthouse, not to mention in our beloved football clubs, Eusébio is one of our heroes, for goodness sake! And then in the nineties with our new political maturity, the new media outbreak, everyone going to college, I expected things would change rapidly and we’d become a modern and cosmopolitan society. Was I wrong…Only this decade did we have two (although one very briefly) journalists of colour and only in sports channels, if I’m not mistaken! So yes, you are absolutely correct to say we are a racist country despite our collective believe that we are not. Although the law has been improved (so they say), much more has to be done by our society, specially by the “white” population and we can only change that through education and information. We have been very misinformed by the historians and the politicians, the history we learn in school is totally bogus and is a fantasy to please a few. Although we look white, we are no such thing, we are a mixture of people from north africa and the middle east and until we all learn this we will never be able to accept the different other. How can we if we don’t accept ourselves? And yes, since the discoveries and even before, we have many sins and much to regret, but then, what people doesn’t? But I actually think that even though we have this glorified past, deep down or unconsciously, we have lived on our knees and we are very negative about ourselves as a whole, that is why I must disagree when you say we tried to whitewash our victory in the European football championship, maybe some did, but for many of us (or at least for me) it came to show that when we unite instead of divide we can do good things too and as a people who embrace all we can be as good as anyone else, instead of putting ourselves down all the time. The biggest problem is that we are still doing what our “owner” tells us to do, we are very small minded and look to the powerful as always right and the poor as the problem, like the “gypsies”. When you still give a medium platform to the corrupt Espirito Santo family or all the corrupt politicians, not much more is need saying. But again, maybe I’m being naïve, but I actually think things are starting to change, and more then the athletic wins, the change in government with the “geringonça” may be the turning point and hopefully we are starting to grow, unfortunately Portugal has lived in the dark for many centuries and it may take a couple more generations to overcome this ill faith. Which doesn’t mean we shouldn’t start sooner than later, I just don’t know if there is enough will to make the necessary changes without a lot of sorrow and violence, which I must say I really fear as there is enough of that going around already. When I look back at my childhood (I’m almost fifty y/o) I had such high hopes that I was living in a golden era, where colour of skin, gender, religion were no longer issues, how mistaken was I and how angry that makes me feel now, it’s really mind-blowing. I feel helpless and really don’t know what I can do. I do hope you don’t feel like this and instead have a way to change the course of our society. But as much as I try to be positive I don’t really have that much faith in humanity. Sorry and My best.