Economic dispatches: Algarve, Portugal
I am fortunate to have recently visited Portugal for a week, staying in the Vale do Lobo resort, located in the Southern region of Algrave, itself a hotbed for tourists, holidaymakers and the wealthy. I suppose then, that the punch of this article could leave the bruise of imperialist snobbery; the sort of finger-wagging, tut-tutting one would imagine Paris Hilton angrily demonstrating having encountered a beggar at Mumbai Airport. I assure you, this article should not; I am not demeaning the Portuguese people or protesting against them, and this should be clear throughout. Firstly, I do not hold that the poorer sections of society constitute the more animal elements of humanity, and secondly, even if I did, my personal situation would render me at an unfavourably ironic point of thought.
The villa that myself and company resided in was burgled, at the rear end of the visit; following a meal, we returned to find a number of valuables missing, and an ajar patio door. As with any unannounced invasion of perceivably personal space, I suppose, the hours following the burglary were rife with panic, fear and shock. How could this happen, who would do this, how do we contact the police, who forgot to lock the door... the enquiry of reaction, as you can probably imagine, was endless. Yet as the burglary was discarded from my immediate memory, I began to consider, was it all that much of a surprise, at all? I thought back to the journey from the airport to villa: the acres of wasteland, skimmed occasionally by unkempt, hutted convenience stores and cafés, which coated an island of clean, gated resorts; the struggling farmer who, hiding carefully behind his long, flaked, withered, solar slammed crop, jumped up in desperate delight at our arrival at the 14th hole and offered us a sack of over fifty balls for a mere fifteen euros; the reports of mass burglary on the beach, and the distasteful acronym, PIIGS. The police officer's words, while attempting to type a report into his decade old computer, were to the effect of, 'it happens all the time now, kids running about'. Unemployment, peaking at a disturbing 9.1% before the financial crisis now rests at a ghastly 15.4%; 1.2 million people are estimated to be out of work, in a state populated by 10 million. The government's education system witnesses a drop-out rate of 37%, third only to Mexico and Turkey in the OECD membership. The Euro? You shouldn't have asked. Since joining in 2002, unemployment has never once fallen to its pre-Euro figure of 4%, nor the budget deficit squeezed to 5%. Competition with European capitalism's big hitters, I'm afraid, has done Portugal no favour whatsoever.
What is clear is that Portugal, as a state, as a geopolitical entity, requires help. Infrastructure and institutions that can eradicate persistent poverty, the resources for the people to invest in their own future, and the political impetus to confront the social inequalities that are preventing these kinds of objectives from being achieved. Of course, this is not how the EU see's it. Nope. Portugal is to be subject to relentless austerity, we are told, that is required to stimulate growth and 'modernise' Portuguese society. Slash everything, they say; schools, welfare, public investment. Just chop it all. Unemployment? Poverty? All necessary in an economic transition that has already failed. Let alone lacking a future, lacking a present; this is the piercing reality for thousands of Portuguese people. Gated communities and golfing resorts cruelly epitomise not only what many perceive as a future they lack or will never obtain, yet also the present; a society that simply does not cater for them, that offers no opportunity, no access to the luxury they may only observe from afar.
What is burglary? Crime? Barbarism? But in this sense? A reaction? An inevitability? Speaking of barbarism, Leon Trotsky, writing in regards to National Socialism, described the Nazi movement as an 'undigested barbarism' being 'puked up' by a capitalist society in turmoil. The social conditions I witnessed in Portugal are not isolated; they are typical of not only peripheral, yet also certain areas of mainland Europe. This kind of burglary is not barbarism. It is not ignorance in action. It is understanding in reaction. A reaction to a lack of future, present, and even past. One wonders what further bonfires of reaction may be stoked, fuelled and oxidised by this omnipresent mistreatment of the continent's lower classes.
The villa that myself and company resided in was burgled, at the rear end of the visit; following a meal, we returned to find a number of valuables missing, and an ajar patio door. As with any unannounced invasion of perceivably personal space, I suppose, the hours following the burglary were rife with panic, fear and shock. How could this happen, who would do this, how do we contact the police, who forgot to lock the door... the enquiry of reaction, as you can probably imagine, was endless. Yet as the burglary was discarded from my immediate memory, I began to consider, was it all that much of a surprise, at all? I thought back to the journey from the airport to villa: the acres of wasteland, skimmed occasionally by unkempt, hutted convenience stores and cafés, which coated an island of clean, gated resorts; the struggling farmer who, hiding carefully behind his long, flaked, withered, solar slammed crop, jumped up in desperate delight at our arrival at the 14th hole and offered us a sack of over fifty balls for a mere fifteen euros; the reports of mass burglary on the beach, and the distasteful acronym, PIIGS. The police officer's words, while attempting to type a report into his decade old computer, were to the effect of, 'it happens all the time now, kids running about'. Unemployment, peaking at a disturbing 9.1% before the financial crisis now rests at a ghastly 15.4%; 1.2 million people are estimated to be out of work, in a state populated by 10 million. The government's education system witnesses a drop-out rate of 37%, third only to Mexico and Turkey in the OECD membership. The Euro? You shouldn't have asked. Since joining in 2002, unemployment has never once fallen to its pre-Euro figure of 4%, nor the budget deficit squeezed to 5%. Competition with European capitalism's big hitters, I'm afraid, has done Portugal no favour whatsoever.
What is clear is that Portugal, as a state, as a geopolitical entity, requires help. Infrastructure and institutions that can eradicate persistent poverty, the resources for the people to invest in their own future, and the political impetus to confront the social inequalities that are preventing these kinds of objectives from being achieved. Of course, this is not how the EU see's it. Nope. Portugal is to be subject to relentless austerity, we are told, that is required to stimulate growth and 'modernise' Portuguese society. Slash everything, they say; schools, welfare, public investment. Just chop it all. Unemployment? Poverty? All necessary in an economic transition that has already failed. Let alone lacking a future, lacking a present; this is the piercing reality for thousands of Portuguese people. Gated communities and golfing resorts cruelly epitomise not only what many perceive as a future they lack or will never obtain, yet also the present; a society that simply does not cater for them, that offers no opportunity, no access to the luxury they may only observe from afar.
What is burglary? Crime? Barbarism? But in this sense? A reaction? An inevitability? Speaking of barbarism, Leon Trotsky, writing in regards to National Socialism, described the Nazi movement as an 'undigested barbarism' being 'puked up' by a capitalist society in turmoil. The social conditions I witnessed in Portugal are not isolated; they are typical of not only peripheral, yet also certain areas of mainland Europe. This kind of burglary is not barbarism. It is not ignorance in action. It is understanding in reaction. A reaction to a lack of future, present, and even past. One wonders what further bonfires of reaction may be stoked, fuelled and oxidised by this omnipresent mistreatment of the continent's lower classes.
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