Busy week ahead, I’m sure you’ll agree. And the short answer to my question regarding our joint future – in these, some of the most turbulent times of our recent history – is: anything and nothing.
Until we speak again, the week ahead will have brought us an all-consuming, commercially-driven darkness-worshipping festival (AKA Halloween), a long-awaited and bitterly contested American election (that has already torn families and communities apart, before the results have even been announced), and a Portuguese earthquake drill (same day) that will no doubt take the already sensitive and nervy to another level of stress and anxiety.
The 5th of November is set to be remembered one way or another; perhaps the day when tremor preparedness sirens and Bombeiros practice runs were mistaken for (insert hated US presidential candidate of choice here) activating the nuclear codes in a brazen sabre-rattling victory display. This could at least have people hastily declaring their love for each other, assuming they are experiencing the last moments of their earthly lives.
I jest but do remember that Portugal IS having a seismic simulation day on the same day that Harris and Trump go head-to-head, in the final hours of a hideous campaign that can, of course, only lead to further rancour and resentment, when the results are revealed. As we test here, at 11.05 on Tuesday, it’s likely the aftershocks and schisms will be most evident on the other side of the Atlantic (see Safe Communities Portugal for more information, and excellent guidance on this matter – the annual November “A TERRA TREME” – the country’s public awareness exercise on seismic risk).
I will return to why I am allowing myself to be so preoccupied by the US election, as soon as I have shared other highlights of the busy week ahead, which will include the UK’s firework night ‘celebrations’, which will be especially apposite, given that the political atmosphere over there seems primed and ready for incendiary and explosive outcomes. This with the standing conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine that contribute to an ongoing and imminent sense of world war that some seem bent on.
Sadly, the streets of our own capital here have seen angry and riotous volatility recently, continuing with the tinderbox theme of the times. What some might call Portugal’s ‘George Floyd moment’ has, to my mind, been quickly and ruthlessly exploited by anyone with skin in the game of the ideological culture wars, i.e. just about everyone. It seems we are no longer sufficiently shocked by death, injury and destruction, to be stopped and collectively chastened, but instead promptly make capital of tragedy to suit our opinions and substantiate our prejudices.
As the general temperature rises, others speak of ‘black swan’ events that might bring wholesale disruption to society in the realms of health, energy or economics. The agendas of UFO disclosure, flat earth theory, and elite world control are vying for attention on the not-too-distant edges of social media, threatening to rapidly convert today’s conspiracy theory into tomorrow’s “I told you so’.
This week’s political pantomime occurs against quite the backdrop then and could, we hope, be profoundly pivotal in our collective fortunes. It should be the political pinnacle of such epoch-defining times for our ‘empire’, such as it is now, of the Anglo-US and European nation states, including Portugal; all loosely based, like it or not, on that dominant and persistent motif of our Western collective – the ‘American Dream’.
This dream, originally in essence a good and noble one, promising freedom and unbridled enterprise, is clearly not what it once was, yet it still dominates our cultural consciousness despite its obvious dysfunction and doomsday levels of debt. Times have changed, as have people, but America’s electoral system has not, not at least in any truly progressive way, ensuring only further chaos, and not the clarity of purpose people are crying out for.
Murky and self-obsessed, America’s political system seems to have lost sight of the road ahead, looking instead inside the vehicle and in the rear-view mirror. In our hearts, we know the clichéd campaigns and chants for “CHANGE!” are lip service that will only bring more of the same stagnation and ineptitude. The recently-gathered BRICS nations must wonder why our Western focus is predominantly inward and nostalgic, and not actively outward and modern, like theirs appears to be.
Don’t get me wrong. I am proud of being British, of being European. I love Portugal, and am a great admirer of American culture, none of which are perfect, but have much to commend them beyond the shadows of shame into which many seek to pull them. And I have no party-political axe to grind here. What sticks in my craw are the shortcomings of a political contest and system, so ridiculously and pompously ineffective, and a system so corrupt and unfit for purpose.
What happens in America, eventually happens to us all, it seems, ultimately impacting our daily lives, our alliance’s global standing and, most soberingly, our existential safety. Therefore, it will be a struggle NOT to rubberneck this grim and omnipresent spectacle of political myopia and constitutional failure over the next few days, which we know will promise so much and ultimately give so little. There is an uncomfortable, uncompromising inevitability in this devil we know, that presumably has to be allowed to breathe its last, as we hope for and create a better alternative.
And, in the meantime, until we design and deliver a better way, how about we allow ourselves to be entertained, not depressed, by the nonsense, realising that what we do locally, socially, in our own communities, is what really matters, as the empire faces its predictable fate? T’was ever thus, for us as individuals, who are subject to the distant din generated by the ceaselessly attention-grabbing, overly loud and over-represented. The sound we hear is merely the noisiest and emptiest vessels who have, for decades, rutted one another, thrust themselves upon us, like it somehow actually really mattered. It matters, only if we let it.
In these inflammatory times, anything could happen, but I suspect nothing really will, when it comes to the nitty-gritty of the daily lives of those lucky enough, like us, to be able to read and enjoy a newspaper; whoever enters that faraway White House.
On the 6th of November, I fancy the birds will still be singing and the children still heard playing. Give me that birdsong and childsplay any day, as we see – despite the drama – just how ridiculous and useless all the hype, hot air and hatred has, in the end, really been.
By Carl Munson
Carl Munson is host of the Good Morning Portugal! show every weekday on YouTube and creator of www.learnaboutportugal.com, where you can learn something new about Portugal every day!
