Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

A Beira Town in Protest: Memory, Populism and Democracy

2004; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 9; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/1360874042000253300

1743-9612

José Manuel Mendes,

History, Culture, and Society

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes 1. This work is based on field observation, from Feb. to Dec. 2000, of the weekly meetings of this Movement with the population, on participation in the Movement's rallies and demonstrations, and on interviews with its leaders and supporters. For documental analysis I use documents produced by the movement, a systematic analysis of the JN from 1974 to 2000 and news from other daily and weekly newspapers, in addition to the minutes of the meetings of the Canas de Senhorim parish council, from 1977 to 1998. 2. The exceptions being the creation of the municipality of Amadora one year after the revolution of 1974 and the municipalities of Odivelas, Trofa and Vizela in 1998. The Law on the Creation of Municipalities (Law no 142/85, of 18 November 1985) was approved by the Parliament in order to restrain the creation of new municipalities. This law established that only localities with a territory of 10 square kilometres and more than 10,000 registered voters could apply to the status of municipality. These criteria excluded, in a small country like Portugal, almost every locality from the rural and the interior from the possibility of becoming a municipality. 3. It is important to note that until recently Canas de Senhorim was a highly industrialized parish. In 1924 the Calcium Carbide Factory began to operate, later becoming the Portuguese Electric Oven Company. This company would close in 1987. It came to have nearly a thousand workers. The mines of Urgeiriça are also located in this parish, operated today by the National Uranium Company, and are currently being deactivated. They came to employ a large number of workers, but now have only 50. It is forecast that in the near future there will be only two or three jobs left. 4. Men's unemployment rate is very low in the town, and although women's unemployment rate is higher it is below the district and national averages. 5. On the second mandate (1979–82) he was elected for AD (Democratic Alliance), a coalition government by PPD and CDS. 6. Later this party would change its name to PSD. The coalition was in power since 1980. 7. From here on I shall use the abbreviation JN for Jornal de Notícias. 8. All names are pseudonyms, with the exception of the Movement's leader, who because of his visibility, and by his own choice, agreed I should use his real name. Although some interviewees agreed to the use of their real name, I opted to use pseudonyms. 9. He has been reelected as Mayor of Nelas, for the PS, in the 1993, 1997 and 2001 local elections. 10. When CDS submitted the bill for the creation of the municipality of Canas in 1982, PS, PCP, and MDP (Portuguese Democratic Movement) – all opposition parties – showed themselves in favour. From 1995 to 2002, with PS in power, PSD, CDS/PP, PCP and BE (Left Bloc) showed themselves in favour of raising Canas to the status of municipality. And from 2002 on, with a coalition government by PSD and CDS/PP, only PS is against the raising of Canas to municipality. 11. A typical meeting will have around 30 people, the number varying according to the season and whether or not there are burning issues or imminent broader actions. 12. From the beginning of 1999 to 2002, owing to the parish council's resignation, the running of the Canas de Senhorim parish has been in the hands of an administrative committee (chairman and secretaries who were in office; the chairman is from PS, one secretary is from PSD and the other is from CDS/PP). Since then, elections to constitute a new council have been systematically boycotted by the population, and the Movement became the only accepted political force in town. The national political parties representatives in the town agreed not to interfere with the Movement's political actions. In 2002, now with a new national government, there were local elections in Canas and the only candidates were from the Movement. Since then the parish council and assembly have been run by the Movement. 13. According to McAdam and Tarrow (1991 Jayyusi L 1991 Values and Moral Judgement: Communicative Praxis as a Moral Order Button G Ethnomethodology and the Human Sciences New York Cambridge University Press 227 51 [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]), all social movements are faced with the need to choose between three strategic options: institutionalized or non-institutionalized action; legal or non-legal actions; violent or non-violent actions. This favourable national alignment of political forces has, unexpectedly, become true in the general elections of 2002, after the resignation of former Prime-Minister António Guterres of the PS. 14. It was reported that, in Vizela, a town that also fought to become a municipality and managed to get this status in 1998, people who were against its elevation to the status of municipality were thrown out, although they had been born there. 15. Familism is a factor of union between people and of political mobilization. It is different from the so-called amoral familism proposed by Edward Banfield. For an application of the latter concept to the political processes and dynamics in Portugal, see Cabral (1999 Cabral, M.V. (1999): ‘Autoritarismo de estado, “distância ao poder” e “familismo amoral” – uma pesquisa em progresso’, Brasil–Portugal Congress Year 2000, Sociology and Anthropology Section. Recife: Sept.–Oct. [Google Scholar]). 16. This democratic exercise can be defined as populist, not in the negative and pejorative sense given by many political and social scientists, but in the sense given by William Gamson (1992 Gamson W 1992 Talking Politics Cambridge Cambridge University Press [Google Scholar]: 89–90) in his study about injustice frames used by interviewees of the working classes. For Gamson, populism includes a set of class images that oppose common citizens, simple people, to the powerful and rich, to the capitalist classes. Enrique Dussel also proposes the use of the concept of ‘the people’ that subsumes the concept of social class and allows us to transcend the dogmatism of class analysis (Gomez 2001 Gomez, F. 2001. Ethics Is the Original Philosophy; or, The Barbarian Words Coming from the Third World: An Interview with Enrique Dussel. Boundary 2, 28(1): 19–73. [Google Scholar]: 36). 17. In a conversation I had with one of the more radical elements, he compared the situation of Canas with that of the Basque country, saying explicitly that what was needed was a practice similar to that of ETA. But, according to him, this would have to be done away from the structures of the Movement and of the older people, who maintain a logic of institutional political struggle, still connected with the ideas of negotiation. 18. Bill 478/VII, submitted on 28 February 1998. In this legislature (1995–99), PCP also submitted a bill for raising Canas to municipal status. In the following legislature (1999–2002), PSD again submitted a bill to the same end. CDS/PP and the BE have also submitted projects for raising Canas to the status of municipality. In the 2002–06 legislature PSD has submitted a bill, and the BE and PCP have taken similar initiatives. 19. The submission of bills by PCP distanced many sympathizers who were politically more to the right from the Movement's leadership, according to one interviewee. 20. Petition signed by more than four thousand citizens of Canas de Senhorim. The letter addressed to the Speaker that accompanied the petition mentioned the approval of new municipalities (Vizela, Trofa and Odivelas), as well as the fact that Canas had been forgotten. The letter questioned whether there were first-class and second-class Portuguese citizens. 21. In the Diário de Notícias, the cartoonist Bandeira published the following dialogue between a tourist and a character on 11 March: ‘Character: Parliament? Let me see…, go down this street and turn left, then turn right. When you see “Canas de Senhorim in Struggle”, it's next door’. In Público, on 10 March, Luís Afonso's cartoon had the following dialogue: ‘Bar customer: Inhabitants of Canas de Senhorim say the situation in the municipality of Nelas is like that of the Timorese in Indonesia. Barman: Damn. Another headache for the UN’. 22. A long article by journalist Pereira in the Expresso (1 May 1999) was entitled ‘Canas de Senhorim without a shadow of sin’. Here several members of the Movement were interviewed, including the leader, and it was stated that they faced the condemnation of public opinion. At the institutional and legal level, the Attorney General filed a suit against the people of Canas de Senhorim for insulting the President. This lawsuit was eventually withdrawn at the request of the President himself (JN, 22 May 1999). 23. The opinion article by Valada in the JN (2 May 1999) concluded differently: ‘The noisy demonstration by the people of Canas de Senhorim, beyond the scandal it may represent in terms of protocol, represents in itself only an act of civil liberty. Would it have been possible without the 25th of April? Would it have been possible without the calm of President Jorge Sampaio? Those who censure do not understand’. An interesting reading of the situation in Canas was put forward almost a year later, by Miguel Portas, leader of the BE, a party which also submitted a bill for raising Canas to municipality status. Reporting the rally he had held in Canas with Luís Fazenda, another BE leader, he said in his weekly column that ‘The air we were breathing was that of a 25th of April announced, but not yet concretized … For example, I do not believe it is possible to force people to be governed against their will and in conflict with their neighbour. When the majority of the population wants a separation, the Republic should help. Or the conflict of the people will come to be with the Republic itself’ (Diário de Notícias, 11 May 2000). 24. One of the interviewees told me that the date was chosen strategically, because, due to the symbolism of the date and the great press coverage, they knew it would be almost impossible for there to be any police repression. 25. This is a small right wing party with no parliamentary representation. 26. The identities claimed depend on the context and the purpose of the narratives and stories they tell. As Harvey Sacks (Jayyusi 1991 Jayyusi L 1991 Values and Moral Judgement: Communicative Praxis as a Moral Order Button G Ethnomethodology and the Human Sciences New York Cambridge University Press 227 51 [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]: 237) pointed out, in his writings on categorization membership mechanisms, one must distinguish, as regards identities, between the correct descriptions (man, husband, father, worker, trade-unionist, resident of Canas, resident of the Beira, Portuguese, and so on) and those that are appropriate for the concrete context of action (worker, resident of Canas, and so on). 27. Recently, on 12 June 2003, the Portuguese Parliament has approved an amendment to Law no. 142/85, of 18 November 1985. The approved amendment allows now the granting of the status of municipality to parishes that have strong historical traditions or exceptional features. Following this amendment, the Portuguese Parliament has approved a bill, on 1 July 2003, that allows Canas de Senhorim to regain its status of municipality. The status of municipality was also granted to the parish of Fátima, because of its international role as a Catholic sanctuary. Both the amendment proposal and the bill are waiting for the final decision of the President of the Republic. The amendment and the bill were made possible because, after the general elections of 2002, there is now in Portugal a coalition government of the PSD and the CDS/PP. 28. In the case of some regions of Colombia, a rather different context, Sanin and Jaramillo (2003 Sanín FG Jaramillo AM 2003 Pactos paradoxais Santos Bde S Reconhecer para libertar. Os caminhos do cosmopolitismo multicultural Rio de Janeiro Civilização Brasileira 249 87 [Google Scholar]) argue that the emancipatory potential is in the idea of the person and in the individualism which endows the subjects with differences and potentials. These concepts of the human person and of individualism may go against the micro-territorialized collective dynamics which, in the regions studied by the authors, give rise to levelling and uniformising territorial identities which inhibit the political and civic participation of the members of the different groups and movements. The action of the state is also marked by great ambiguity.