A small observation from my trip to Portugal:
Portugal is a small country of 10 million people. They are in the throes of an economic recession, though cash streams from their membership in the European Union helps them keep afloat. In Europe, the Euro is stronger than the dollar. A fifty dollar bill nets you 43 Euro. Politically, they endured a long dictatorship (by Salazar) until 1974. The communist party (PCP) holds 7 percent of the parliament seats. The rest of the political parties are mostly leftist and socially democratic, much like the rest of Western Europe.
Political Expression I: Graffiti
Walking through Lisbon and Coimbra, two cities in Portugal that house large universities, I took note of the graffiti. Coimbra had much more politically oriented graffiti than Lisbon, which is no surprise considering University of Coimbra is one of Europe’s oldest and most venerated educational institutions. The academic intelligensia is generally politically active.
While some graffiti tried to be philosophically witty (e.g. “Without the truth, you are the looser [sic]” in Lisbon), some had more overt political overtones. In Lisbon, there was a picture of a missile (which looked like a rocket) with the words “Clinton Go Home” to the left of the picture. This may signify Clinton’s decision to visit Lisbon, though it may be older than that, and it may signify Clinton’s decision to drop some bombs in Yugoslavia during the Monica Lewinsky scandal. Other forms of graffiti included a picture of a fist smashing a Nazi swastika (Coimbra) and graffiti advertisements to join the communist party (Lisbon and Coimbra).
Some graffiti addressed the 9/11 attacks and, predictably, the graffiti was not flattering. Portugal’s government has expressed support for Bush and his policies for a while now, but graffiti is not written by government officials or parliamentarians. Two images were disturbing; one said “Just Do It” with a picture of a plane heading towards a building (Coimbra) and another had a picture of two towers on fire with the caption “Burn Baby Burn” (Lisbon). There is obviously a rift between those in government and those with spraypaint.
Political Expression II: Talking to a Portugese Guy on the Plane Towards Home
I talked to a Portugese guy on the plane ride home. He is a medical doctor working in Washington, D.C., and has held various high level medical administrative posts in Portugal. He was educated in Lisbon. I told him how strange it is that the U.S. dollar is so weak against the Euro. He said in a very excited tone “See?!! See?!! Now the shoe’s on the other foot!” or words to that effect. He was obviously gleeful that the dollar is weak and that the Euro is surging (and has been for months). He also mentioned the American media. He said it is very hard to find an article in the mainstream press that says something favorable about the E.U.
While the government is pro-U.S., the people do not seem to be. In a recent poll, Portugal has one of the highest negative reactions to U.S. foreign policy (Germany and France lead the pack).
What can we take from this? Not much, considering I didn’t conduct a systematic study. However, we should be mindful that although some countries’ governments support the U.S., a significant percentage of their people may not. Everybody (except those who profited from illegal sales to Iraq, such as Russia and most of Western Europe) is happy that a dictator fell. Some visit Ceacescu’s grave in Romania. Some long for the strong hand of Communism in Russia. This does not mean that most are pleased with America’s use of brute force in foreign policy. Time will tell whether Bush will be remembered as a hero, a bully, or both.
Many countries try to rewrite history, from France to Germany to the U.S.; more to the point, it all depends on who’s blaming who for what when it comes to how President Bush is remembered. Certainly, brute force as far as our enemies are concerned is far better than, say, Clinton running around the world apologizing for things the U.S. hasn’t done, or Carter cozying up to every 3rd World dictator that will let him.
Neat trip report, Josh. Can you tell us anything else that you saw or ate or experienced?
In my essay, I figured I’d report the stuff Waterglass readers would be interested in, so I left out the following:
1. I saw a guy whose face was covered in so many purple boils it looked like a Halloween mask. He was begging for alms near the cafes in the Praca de Figuiera, a popular open air plaza.
2. Everything in Portugal is up a very steep hill. The steep hills are paved with shiny, smooth, white, teflon-esque stones that are easy to slip on and in the sunset are blinding.
3. One night I saw a black Marmaduke looking dog, the size of a pony, no collar or leash, chewing on a pile of aforementioned smooth stones. I was terrified.
4. Porto looks like Pittsburgh. Figuiera de Foz, a beach town just south of Porto, looks like Atlantic City, complete with casinos. We wanted to stop in Figuiera de Foz but our fellow Romanian travellers thought the city looked ugly, so we drove on. It looked like my childhood vacation to me.
5. The Portugese survive on a diet of fish, fish, fish, potatoes, and fish. I’m not a big fan of fish.
6. Lisbon smells like fish.
7. They have bullfights in Evora and Coruche, but we didn’t get to see any. The poster advertisements were cool looking and I wanted to rip down one from a bus stop, but it wasn’t my country, and I didn’t know if the Portugese would get mad at me.
8. I walked halfway ’round a castle rampart. I hugged the walls the whole time because it would be a long way down.
9. I ate a lot of fish.
10. I saw a lot of churches, and the coolest one was called “capela dos ossos.” It means “chapel of the bones.” It is a chapel off to the side of a big old church and the inside is lined with 5000 skulls and 150,000 human bones. The bones were lovingly placed in quite an artistic manner. It was intensely, intensely creepy. Some of the bones are at eye level. Over the years, people carved graffiti into the skulls and stole some of the bones. The bones came from over flowing cemetaries and was built during the 17th and 18th centuries. On the right hand wall (no pun intended) hangs two intact skeletons dressed in rags; one of a man and one of a little boy. On the way out of the chapel, a sign in Portugese reads “We the bones await your bones.” It cost a Euro to get in.
Next time you go abroad, I’ll lend you a digital camera. I was thinking of a neato background for the site, and purple-boils-guy seems like he’d do the trick.
Thanks for the tidbits (“titbits” as they say in England *snigger snigger*) of Portuguese info. Sounds like a fun trip. I love fish!