It's just a jump to the left, and then a step to the right...

First things first, as should be apparent to those of you even slightly curious, I have a new blog that I will be writing in conjunction with this one. The link for this blog has been for the past few days located at the top right of this page but for those of you disinclined to turn your head lest you lose your place the link is also here:

Burn The Jukebox

This blog will continue to contain my musings on life in Lisbon and in general whereas the new blog will primarily be music related (and, as today's post shows, provide some film reviews). This will be largely music in general but also contain news and reviews of the 'scene' in Lisbon and Portugal.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


My post today concerns a little change I have noticed in Lisbon in the short time that I have been here.

As anyone who knows me well can confirm I have something of an obsession with the right-wing of politics. Not an agreement, I think that their ideas and policies are anti-social and just plain wrong, but it's rather like watching a car crash or those 'real FBI' shows about serial killers. I like to know what the enemy is thinking and despite it being often repulsive I just can't tear my attention away.

Now I reserve my real fascination for the extremes, the Daily Mail and Fox News provide me with hours of laughter mixed with horror, but there is a pervasive evil of the mainstream right-wing that is perhaps more alarming because anyone can dismiss cranks and loonies but when the arguments and the people who deliver them are seen as reasonable then that's when we start to have problems.

Here in Portugal society was summed up pretty well for me by S not long after I moved here. She said, (and here I paraphrase) "we're not a nation of extremes". Whilst being obviously a wide generalisation, I have begun to realise the truthfulness of this statement and therefore when elements of extremism do raise their heads it is done in a rather Portuguese fashion.

Now I will admit that I am not an expert on Portuguese politics, I am reading more and more and getting some impression of the players and systems but there will be plenty of people out there ready to correct me should I go too far, I would just remind them that these are purely my own impressions as an outsider. There exists here in Portugal a political party, the Centro Democrático e Social - Partido Popular (CDS-PP) which, is probably as far right as is acceptable in Portugal (a country which after the dictatorship largely shies away from the far right). Now I can't comment in too much detail about the policies of these guys, but what I can say is that they must have recently got rather a lot of funding because their adverts have shot up around Lisbon like I have never seen before.

Before I moved to Portugal political advertising had been the reserve of those late-night party political broadcasts on TV that were seemingly designed to make one reach for the remote as quickly as possible. Here though at every junction in the city and, in some areas, on 50% of the lampposts there is a political poster. I was originally under the impression that the parties bought lots of advertising space on these signposts but I recently discovered that they actually buy and erect the signposts themselves.

Usually the adverts on these signs spew the usual self regarding, idealistic political rubbish, or occasionally will attempt to tackle some immediate political problem (like the crisis or swine flu) with perky political rhetoric but the CDS-PP posters spew a different kind of political rubbish, not the sort that can be dismissed with a roll of the eyes and a sigh. It's the kind of lies that fill the Daily Mail on a daily basis but at least there one can choose to search for it for the laughs. It's quite different to have it pasted in foot high letters at every junction in town. The most popular bits of idiocy I have seen include (roughly translated from the Portuguese):

• Why do criminals have more rights than the police?
• Why save BPN (the national bank) when you allow small businesses to fail?
• Is it just to give the minimum income to those who don't want to work?

Now to those of us not crazy those questions, out of context, appear silly. Complex problems and issues reduced to talking points to create fear and resentment - a typical political tool you might say but not one I want to see on my way to the beach!

What Portugal needs is a return to honest politics and it could take the lead from a Brazilian politician I read about recently whose campaign slogan was disarmingly honest:

"Roubo, mas faço!" (I steal but I do!)

Despite all this there is one glimmer of hope - the right-wing here in Portugal, whilst perhaps benefiting from the Crisis and a general European disenchantment with the left, is at least easy to spot. There exists here such a thing as 'right-wing hair' perfectly demonstrated by the leader of the CDS-PP, Paulo Portas:



If you see this kind of hair, you'll know!