Have you noticed that Portugal is not the best kept secret in Europe?

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During Salazar’s dictatorship, Portugal was “sold” abroad, in a mythical tourist campaign, as the best kept secret in Europe. It is ironic to reconsider this image of our country, in the present, troubled days.
I recently saw on CNN a publicity spot for New York’s Wall Street Journal, depicting a businessman running up a stairway, demonstrating strength, determination and an enormous will to catch the train. This action was taking place in a beautiful, futuristic train station. The station appearing in the publicity of that important journal of world-renowned reputation was precisely our own Estação de Comboios do Oriente, by the arquitect Santiago Calatrava, conceived for the Expo 98, in Lisbon, and currently a strategic point of our CP train network.

It is significant to analyse the above situations in order to sustain possible conclusions.

What image does Portugal have of itself? The metaphor suggested by the Wall Street Journal publicity hints that the country possesses the privileged spaces and structures to be that determined businessman, and yet this is not the vision we have. What do we lack for this to be true? We lack confidence. To edify our self-esteem is the challenge that we must take upon ourselves, and it is, at this moment, of critical importance. We must not continue to be a postponed country, delayed by sceptics, and feeding on inconsequent promises and mediocre messiahs. Rather than preoccupying ourselves with who is responsible for the things that happen in our country, we must assume, each of us, a part of the responsibility and the blame for the good and the bad. We are not a god-chosen people, nor are we illuminated or blessed; we are no longer “conquistadores”, and our pride has become a sore excuse to maintain ourselves closed off from the rest of the world. D. João II is dead, Infante D. Henrique is dead, Vasco da Gama is dead, the Fifth Empire never existed, and it is we that populate the country now: we are the Portuguese people, with our virtues and our faults; men and women of flesh and blood; real people with real problems: computer experts, designers, businessmen, doctors, engineers, writers, research scientist, diplomats, football players, artists, filmmakers…

We live in a time of impact, of too many and contradictory impacts. The rapidly changing order of technology, information, modern biology, international politics and economics is overwhelming; we are emerged in a high speed world of drugs, images, sounds…
These are complex times, yet the world continues to progreed and change whether we have or have not an active part in the process. None of this is new, nor is it unexpected, yet the moment may have come to analyse the situations that surround us, to define objectives, to trace courses of action.
A problem that applies to individuals, but also to countries, and in this particular case to Portugal is, in addition to the lack of confidence, the lack of clear and definite objectives. Should we overcome this lack, we will succeed, as we succeeded in producing the Expo 98, and as we succeeded in modernizing our nation in scarcely two decades, an unprecedented deed in the history of our country.
Unprecedented in our history is also the quantity of works, books and essays that have been written and published lately, and of undeniable quality as is testified by the recently conferred Nobel Prize to a Portuguese writer. Never before has there been such a vast production of movies, theatre plays and artwork, or such a growth in our science, design, architecture and music. Even in the midst of a recession, there is alot of reading, writing, cinema-going, research and creation going on.
The fact is that Portugal is no longer as it was; so why continue to be afraid of assuming who are, and of showing with pride the things we do?
We are living a new moment: we are no longer included amongst the poor countries that attract multinational corporation funds, that in their thirst for profit seek out third-world places where labour is cheap and exploitation is easy. This is a good thing, and it should make us conscious that a positive stage of our development is concluded. Moreover, put aside the natural tendency to exaggerate our problems, the truth is that we are aware of our actual situation, and of where our weaknesses and strengths lie. Gradually but surely, we must continue the work and the structural changes that will take us forward one step at a time. Portugal has survived the last 860 years, and one lesson at least we must draw from our past, and that is to be patient and persistent.

Given the present conjuncture, things could be better; but the question that now arises is what is missing in Portugal? Spirit of enterprise; we need people that have clear objectives, and that are determined. Portugal no longer is the best kept secret in Europe, which is fine, for that was equivalent to being a country closed upon itself, and thus, staying behind others. It is not an effortless course we have before us, but then again it never was. It is required that we continue to work and to invest; to invest in ideas, in continuous education, to travel and make contact with that which is beyond our frontiers, and reinforce allegiances, and most importantly we must have a strong civil conscience in all we do. We must keep in mind that we have come some of the way, but that there is still so much to achieve. Things must be carried out in a positive and serious manner so to conquer respect and credibility, and not falter at the first obstacles that are encountered. As a country we have a structural, educational and cultural delay of decades, and it shouldn´t be expected that changes will happen from one day to another.

Traditionally Portuguese people are a melancholic and pessimistic people, but then they are also known to be dreamers, stubborn, courteous and easily adaptable, and it is these proverbial characteristics that must be put to use for the edification of a better Portugal. For 860 years Portuguese people have complained and wondered about the fate, but now it is important that they look ahead. It is about time that they started appreciating ourselves and worked for the future.
Dinis Guarda