If you haven’t experienced this, especially in our current time of great ideological possession and inevitable irritability, I’d like to know your secret for such a peaceful and happy life. And furthermore, is there any more space to rent under that rock of yours?
For the rest of us, this reactive riddle is probably a fairly regular occurrence, living in a world where our opinions are routinely drawn out from us and reacted to. Social media has also now given us the facility to self-declare without much prompting, for all to see, agree and disagree – in a race to the bottom of our collective values, showcasing our inability to communicate compassionately, and constructively understand each other.
By the way, if you’re the sort of person who, in the way I describe, summarily dismisses or judges others who have ideas different or incompatible to your own, then this week’s outing may not be for you.
My particular concern today, thanks to the Portuguese American Journal and their rapid response to what I will call the curious matter of estranged nationalism (and with no prejudice or slur), is Chega candidate André Ventura’s ‘victory’, when it comes to votes cast by Portuguese citizens living abroad.
I am sincerely curious about this, and file it alongside the panning British expats get who express the slightest whiff of pro-Brexit support or even consideration.
To their critics, who are often bitterly outspoken and possessing that smug sense of unquestionable righteousness, both – the Portuguese Chega supporters abroad, and British Brexiteers who have dared leave the UK – are turkeys voting for Christmas, who deserve any and all pain democracy can karmically drop on their thick heads.
To me, they must have some sort of worthwhile political point or understandable motive for what’s becoming an increasingly shameful stance in the eyes of those with an assumed and unchallengeable moral high ground; and I ‘remain’ open to exploring it.
It’s at this point I know I too enter into the firing line, and not for the first time, for being so naively curious, whilst at any moment picking up the label of far-right apologist, enabler or hate-speaker. This makes me more curious, I have to say, despite having had people threaten me with ‘unsubscribing’, boycotting, or withdrawing friendship (which was clearly questionable in the first place), as if any of these tools might help educate me or get me back on their straight and narrow.
I don’t believe myself to be far anything, except far-inquisitive perhaps, and will not be shamed into having the ‘right’ (as in correct) views or positions. To me, it’s my behaviour and actions that count and, as far as I am aware, have not purposefully hurt, oppressed or marginalised any fellow humans recently, in as much as anyone can claim to do that in a globalised, competitive capitalist world of awkward exploitation.
But back to the ‘diaspora vote’ and the overseas Portuguese population who gave Ventura (albeit whilst votes were still coming in, in the days and weeks after the run-off, part two of the presidential election) nearly 52% of the diaspora vote, compared with 48% for Seguro.
In their own right, these numbers look a lot like a close competition (and quite Brexit-like), but they are more revealing when compared to the home vote of roughly 33% and 64%, respectively.
“Even though António José Seguro won the presidency decisively, the Portuguese diaspora’s preference for far-right populist André Ventura highlights once again the political distinctiveness of the expatriate electorate, sharply contrasting with the domestic result, where Seguro captured roughly two-thirds of the national vote and defeated Ventura comfortably in the second round,” says the Portuguese American Journal. “In Brazil,” they add, “one of the largest overseas electorates, Ventura reportedly secured nearly 59% of ballots cast.”
I remain curious, where many (in my experience, not a ballot box) would be dismissive, and I think for good reason. And it’s not that I am pro-Chega or anti, for that matter. My interest, on one hand, vindicates my belief that it’s the system that’s failing more so than our fellow voters (especially the ones you disagree with).
On the other, as I look out for the supposed and possible extremism of those who align with the ones we are conditioned to fear, I equally dread the ones who are demanding we fear them – the extremely dogmatic, who would welcome my public humiliation and cancellation for my ‘wrong’ views and inability to knee-jerk condemn the parties they don’t like.
And open and hopeful I remain because for most people, I suspect, frustration, and not hatred, is the motive they have; a desire for change and an exhaustion with the ‘same old same old’ that makes them seem extreme and dangerous. For what other means do they have than a punt on the other, sometimes a radical, who looks like the opposite of what they have come to loathe and suffer under?
It was this very mechanism that gave us Tony “things can only get better” Blair in my 90s native UK, who turned out to be quite different to his promises and party’s normally peace-proclaiming position, to say the least! In this deadly instance, not far right, I’d suggest, but far in the wrong, unforgivable and slickly centrist, as I remember. Labels can be, and are, deceiving.
And it is on this basis that I say I do not fear Ventura (or anyone) I am encouraged to hate, but fear more ones telling me to hate them, as much as I fear anyone enabled in any hateful behaviour, by any leader. They, with that little bit of froth at the corners of their mouths and worrying glint in their eyes.
We know political leaders, all of them, tend to turn out ineffective, deadly, or both in the end, but you still have to contend with their agents and followers, who might be your neighbour, visa-stamping bureaucrat or tax collector, which I find more chilling than the distant poster boys of assumed democracy.
I remain with those who want change, as I am with those who want peace. I think we are the majority. And this is why I am more suspicious of the one pointing than the one who he is pointing at. I know that the big political game revolves around pointing and projection, but few realise, it seems, that once they have you pointing, it might not be a finger, but a gun you are aiming, as we saw with ICE in the US, and equally anyone – left or right – who thinks they are so correct in their ideological possession that they will have their way by any means necessary. It always starts with words, develops into condescension, and thereafter inhumanity.
It is that toxic process that I fear more than the bogeymen and their belittled fans. It transcends party lines. It happens so easily, it seems. And worst of all, we are all, I believe – if not for great vigilance, introspection and self-control – capable of such lethal behaviour.
Read Carl Munson’s previous article: Wakey-wakey!
