In a series of interesting articles in PublicAntónio Guerreiro seeks to think about the social and political process that we are experiencing at the moment, opposing the concept of “regression” (return to a mythical paradise of three Salazars, rule in spirits and order in customs), a broader idea of “de-civilizing process”, that is, inversely to the “civilizing process” that Norbert Elias describes, a furious fight against all acquisitions of tolerance and freedom that the evolution and openness of public morality have made possible.
Today we have a live sample, like an advertising showcase, of the fate of this process of deconstruction of democratic political rules and the achievements in social acceptance towards minorities: the United States of Donald Trump, where racist and homophobic impulses combine with the project of dismantling the democracy of the Founding Fathers, towards an autocratic system, with votes controlled from above and concentration of powers in a sacralized leader.
If this tendency reveals its strength in the founding countries of Democracy (France, United States, United Kingdom), it is even more expressed in all countries that have been accustomed, throughout their history, to autocratic regimes.
In this sense, voting for a candidate from the union of democrats, left and right, such as António José Seguro, represents a majority position of the Portuguese in rejecting this anti-civilization process and this assisted suicide of public freedoms.
The three Salazars no longer move the Portuguese, no matter how vague the memory of those times of “habitual living” is for so many, under the protection of the police, prisons and censorship. We firmly said no to the three Salazars and demanded, beyond all our differences and all our disappointments, the fight against this “politics of the worst” that is expanding throughout the world.
The great lesson we learned is that nothing is definitively buried in the dustbin of History. Fascism (apart from academic distinctions) is back, as the North American left has already understood. And next to us we have a Spain, where the PP does not hesitate to ally with Vox, a France where Le Pen and Bardella became favorites, after the failed enterprise, led by Macron, of trying to destroy political differences in democracy, an Italy governed by a fascism that refuses to say its name, a Germany where the AfD… etc., etc.
It is clear that we have moved to a regime of struggle for democracy and civilization itself, which will make the essential political debate (democratic socialism or liberalism?) secondary to this struggle for the very conditions of existence of an open, multicultural and tolerant society and a democratic and social State. The consensual basis for the functioning of a decent society.
The distinction between left and right has not become obsolete and what we call center designates only moderates on one side or the other, who do not want to lose the common ground of democratic guarantees, to continue their struggles in peace and freedom.
In times gone by it was called “anti-fascist unit”. Isn’t it the same enemy today, with different guises, discourses and technologies?
Diplomat and writer
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