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An Opinion from LisbonAuthor(s): William SimonSource: The North American Review, Vol. 252, No. 2 (Mar., 1967), pp. 31-34Published by: University of Northern IowaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25116573 .

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be a tall, skinny white fighter there in place of Boo

boo, and on my face, I would like to think, would be the expression of a man, and not that of a boy ... an

older, wiser, sadder expression. But a calmer one. When you're young, it's good to

see your heroes fall, because then you can start creating others. And maybe they'll be better. They're always needed. Now, I take mine from the pages of history; nothing can break them down.

But a second picture of the Occam Springs camp might not have included me at all. For I had made up my mind that I no longer wanted to stay in the strange world of Booboo and Al and Phil.

Moxie, who was a kind of priest of this world, watched me closely when I told him I wasn't staying around anymore.

"Well," he said. "You might make a pretty good fighter someday. Only, you ain't as good now as you think you are. But if you ever decide to give it a try, look me up. They's always room at the top."

Al was knocked out in the third round. I had no reaction whatsoever. I heard some fellows talking about the fight a day or so later and they asked me my

opinion. All I told them was that Al had been a

great one in his day.

is

An Opinion From

LISBON

William Simon

Lisbon has been the capital of Portugal since the Middle Ages and its people have survived almost ev

erything: earthquakes, the ravages of Napoleon's troops, and, in this century, influenza, and forty years

of another disease?fascism. They have become ac customed to fascism and regard it more as a hunch back than as fatal, although it often is fatal to those who attempt to shake it off. The lisboetas, as they call

themselves, endure life with a curious blend of fatalism and black melancholy peculiar to the Portuguese peo ple. Lisbon, a cosmopolitan city, is about the size of San Francisco and deceptively gives an impression that it is much larger.

Lisbon for the tourist is fun, relaxing and cheap, with its fado houses, wide, palm-lined avenues, and

pleasant parks; however, for the lisboeta it is something else: it's supporting a wife and three children on less than $100.00 a month, not being able to smoke be cause a pack of good cigarettes costs fifteen cents and for the same price you can buy four and a half pounds of potatoes. Behind the fancy shops, the sidewalk cafes, the hustle and bustle lies the disforc?, the dis

guise, the mask of the systematic, evil dictatorship which peeled back, exposes behind the baroque monu ments to past glories the harsh realities of Portuguese

society today, the filth and squalor of the Bairro da Lata and Chelas that lie worlds beyond the well-dressed dandies on the Rossio.

Traditionally, for the affluent tourist, Portugal has been the last stop before returning home. Now, a great effort is being made to capture the foreign exchange that tourists used to spend in France and Italy. With the opening of the Salazar Bridge, over the Tejo river, the Alent? jo and the Algarve have become more easily accessible from Lisbon, and the great hope is that Southern Portugal can "save" the country from per petual dependence on foreign money sources such as the large European banking houses. In fact, there has been such a great influx of French and German tourists

WILLIAM SIMON, senior at Queens College, spent several months in Lisbon in 1966 and speaks fluent Spanish and Port

ugese.

March, 1967 jj

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that the Portuguese, ever conscious of their inferior

position in Europe, now say that they are suffering an other "Gothic invasion," or quip that "Napoleon's sons are upon us again." The truth in their bitter remarks on the foreign tourists is borne out by the fact that by the middle of August on some Lisbon streets there are

more cars bearing Parisian plates than Portuguese. Even the Spanish are coming to Portugal because they claim the Costa Brava is overrun with those "nasty"

Germans.

Each of these well-to-do (by Portuguese standards) tourists visits the beaches on the Tejo, takes in the

fados, and goes up to the S?o Jorge Castle to see the rare birds, and each must quickly notice that he is liv

ing in a fairy world when the large numbers of lottery ticket sellers, legal beggars, street urchins, gypsies, and

peddlars selling anything from shaving brushes to

change-purses begin to gnaw at him. He cannot be unaffected.

Poverty h a fact of life for Portugal today just as it has been for centuries. Part of poverty is the Portu

guese people's health. From a strictly non-medical ob server's point of view, the Portuguese of the lower

middle class do not even look healthy, there is a pallor that seems to pervade the faces of the working class that can only be accounted for in their diet. Generally speaking, there is overemphasis on starches and a lack of proteins from vegetables and meats. Conservative estimate on the tuberculosis rate in Lisbon alone is that twenty-five per cent of the population has active tuberculosis and that in some areas such as Ajuda, and the shantytown near the P?rtela airport, the rate is probably double. The Curry Cabrai Hospital in the

B?lgica district receives most of these cases and its fa cilities have been overtaxed for many years.

Ranking higher than tuberculosis on the list of dis eases that are part and parcel of Portugal are syphillis and gonnorhea. Great numbers of the blind beggars in

Lisbon are victims of congenital syphillis. Since prosti tution was legally abolished five years ago, the rate of venereal disease infection has skyrocketed. An English doctor, who formerly was ship's surgeon on a Pacific and Orient Lines freighter, admitted that the sailors came back from shore leave in Lisbon with venereal in fections second only in seriousness to Yokohama.

With such great health problems, and in spite of the fact that the trains run well, Portugal can barely con sider itself a viable European state.

At this point one might justifiably ask, just what are they doing about it? To say that the government is

doing absolutely nothing would be untrue, but to say that great strides were being made would be a gross

exaggeration. There is no equivalent of the "Great

Society Program" nor is there a chapter of The Student

Help Project operating out of the University of Lisbon. The allegiance and social conscience of the middle and

upper classes are not with the less fortunate. Every one is entitled to four years of primary education and for the average poor family, that is the limit that can

be expected. Opportunities exist to enter the liceu or

technical schools. Entrance to a University is almost

unheard of from the lower middle classes of Lisbon. Absence of social mobility serves to reinforce tradition al groups. Education, which has strengthened Ameri can institutions as well as expanded the base of the

middle classes, has for Portugal only narrowed them. To understand the position of the University and

that of both the students and faculty at the present time, it must be understood that in recent years the number of female students at Lisbon's Faculty of Let

ters, has far exceeded the number of men enrolled. A

partial explanation for this is the four-year military service imposed upon the male population for the Af rican wars. The backward system of University ad

ministration as well as the subservient position of the student before the professor increases the difficulties

already facing most students. Since professors receive

pitifully small salaries, they give private lessons and it is fairly obvious that only the most affluent students can

afford full tutoring. Women get their degrees but the

society offers them few alternatives other than marriage. Women almost never are legally able to vote.

Unrest at the University is viciously controlled by a

well-paid and highly sophisticated spy network operated as a section of the Gestapo-trained PIDE (Polic?a Inter nacional e Defesa do Estado). At no time will a stu dent make a political comment or be drawn into a

potentially compromising conversation on the Univer

sity grounds. If a discussion regarding Angola, poverty, or what is happening within the University is started, the language of communication may quickly switch from Portuguese to French or English to complain about the PIDE or the inequity of the military draft.

It is here, however, that sympathy and potential ca

maraderie frequently end. The social strata of the Portu

guese University student and the American student are not comparable. The disdain for one whose origins are of the working classes from those of the profession al and "gentle" classes is very strong: they cannot con ceive that the son or daughter of a factory worker or

policeman could possibly become a lawyer. Even the forms of unrest at the University are carried on in Por

tuguese style: demonstrations are held on the grounds, safe from police arrest, and are always held in the Fall

when the weather is pleasant. A long time resident of Lisbon sarcastically quips that it is inconceivable that the students would take to the streets to bring down the

government because that would mean scuffing their

shoes, creasing their suits, or missing their afternoon coffee.

If one can say that the American University is a

shelter from the realities of life, the Portuguese Uni

versity is almost a total refuge. There is, however, a

time of day when the harsh poverty of the sprawling Bairro da Lata comes through, but fails to make any lasting impression. It is when the universitarios sit down to have their meals that the urchins come to bang on the windows, shouting, ?(da-me pao, pao, 'pra

comer," (give me bread, bread to eat) that the inse

curity of his existence and the temporary unreality of his being is questioned. Even though they may be fed from the University kitchen, this is no answer.

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There are two things that the student can do: he

can give away the bread or simply shut the blinds, thus

blackening out the realities of dirt, rickets, and incipi ent tuberculosis. And if he chooses to give away the

bread, he may also wish to amuse himself by watch

ing a gang of five or six fight over it. And when they come begging urn escudinho, he can easily put on a

blank stare, continue his conversation and walk away.

Thus, the class that will carry the burdens, provide

cheap maids, and sweepers never has, and never will

find an ear for its plight among the scions of the

Corporate State. Yet, at the same time, the precious white enclaves of City College or Columbia U. -

Morningside Heights in the middle of Harlem bear a

striking parallel. If opposition from the students is frustrated and

finds one of its few outlets in lavatory graffiti, then

what of the faculty? Plainly, the faculty also lives in

a state of terror. The intellectual life of the country is

stifled because the police state cannot tolerate the

freedom of the spirit, and frequent compromises are

made simply to avoid torture or mind-destroying sur

veillance. Denunciation and malicious slander are wea

pons of the opportunists and those who seek to main

tain their precarious position. The situation is close to a permanent and institutionalized anti-intellectual mon

strosity on an order Joe McCarthy never dreamed of.

Where then is the opposition? The traditional opposi tion exemplified by Anglophile or Francophile business

and professional groups is out of touch with the cur

rent situation. The Christian Democrats and Socialists, traditional in orientation, are often checkmated by the

government. Even some elements of the opposition are

somewhat suspect because their original aims have been

clouded over the years, modified, and finally blunted

because of government acceptance of their ineffective

existence. Newer, younger groups are not gaining

strength. Perhaps it is because they lack a leader, but

most likely it is because they are splintered and not

totally aware of each other's existence. In any event,

hard-core Marxists amount to only a handful. Issues

divide the opposition, and one of the most critical fac

ing them and the Portuguese people is the Pol?tica no

Ultramar, the overseas territorial policies.

Portugal began its expansion into the African conti

nent with the taking of Ceuta in 1415. Little by little,

they came down the African coast on the way to India.

At the same time they began to monopolize the slave,

gold, and spice trades away from the Arab traders,

eventually coming to dominate Northern European markets. The importance of Portugal's historic role as

the intermediary between the civilizations of Western

Europe and those of India, the Orient, Africa, and

America cannot be refuted; the museums, libraries, and

map names are testament to their efforts. The realities,

however, of twentieth century nationalism have failed

to make practical impressions upon the fascist leader

ship. In the nineteenth century Portugal lost Brazil and

returned to slow decay and the ever increasing eco

nomic and military protectorate imposed by a com

mercially ambitious England. In the 1870's the wine

economy of the North was hit by a devastating crop disease. Further on in that era cheap meat from Argen tina and Uruguay brought to England by refrigerator

ships wrecked the cattle industry. To make up for the

increasing drain of capital and trade deficit, expansion and effective occupation of Portuguese Africa was dic

tated.

Portugal held tenuous sovereignty over much of the

Southern African Continent until 1890 when German and British Imperialists took over definitive control over what is now Rhodesia, South-West Africa, Mal

awi, and Zambia, leaving the Portuguese with Angola,

Mocambique, Cabinda and Portuguese Guinea. Again, in 1913, the Germans and British intended to "grab" the remaining territories, but the outbreak of World

War I prevented them, and in spite of British efforts to have the Portuguese declare war on them, Portugal

maintained its colonies by declaring against the Central Powers in 1916. Later, in 1938, British appeasement policy makers, thoroughly misguided, considered these colonies as a possible offer to Hitler, without, of course,

consulting the Portuguese. Thus it is not surprising that the Portuguese feel that

within historical context somebody is trying to "steal"

part of Portugal. Portuguese apologists consider that the "Africans they took into their hearts and homes have turned against them," and that "negro commu

nists" aided by "Russian and American" plotters are

after Portuguese Africa. The unreality of the Portu

guese presence in Angola, for example, is shown by the admission of an extremely small military force stationed there prior to 1961. This pathetically small

army (perhaps two to three thousand, not including militia and constabulary) only points up the frailties in the official Portuguese mentality. In the face of every thing that was happening in Africa at that time and

prior to it, they did nothing to compromise with mod erate autonomist elements, thus leaving only one door

open: violence and terrorism. The Portuguese appar

ently learned little from the lesson of Kenya, nothing from Algeria, and less from the former Belgian Congo,

which borders on Angola and serves as a base for Holden Roberto's guerrillas. It was felt that the "na

tives" were loyal. In Mocambique, the South Africans have promised

to step in if the Portuguese cannot control the situ

ation, and in Guinea, Amilcar Cabral's PAIGC is now

paramount and according to the latest non-Portuguese sources, has a free hand. Officially, the casualty rates are low. Most foreign military attaches, however, mul

tiply the official rate by six to get a more accurate

figure. More or less, the Portuguese probably have lost about as many men in Africa as we have lost in Asia. The Portuguese people are consistently fed lies about the African Wars. The accident rates due to "drunken"

driving in Angola, are the possible equivalent of several batallions that have been lost. It is only after two or three years that a family might learn what has

happened to its sons.

Urban populations have always groaned under the

March, 1967 33

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mass of petty taxations that sometimes add up to

large bills. Recently prohibitive tariff was imposed on

luxury goods. In addition, taxes on various commercial

transfers, and sundry business transactions have also

doubled this year. Fully forty per cent of the national

budget is devoted to the war effort. At the same time, because of the inferior economic position of Metro

politan Portugal in regard to the world market, at least one third of the total national GNP comes from An

gola. In spite of dependence on Africa, light industry has expanded tremendously, but pay cannot compare to Northern Europe.

Currently, one of the sources of foreign exchange for

Portugal is from the large number (perhaps 300,000) of Portuguese workers living abroad, many near Paris.

These men, working at menial jobs, are able to pro vide enough money to support thousands of families in

the Minho, the great wine district that was the seat

of the Medieval independence movement. With the new U.S. laws Portuguese immigration will skyrocket, perhaps sparking a renaissance of their communities here. This drain from the countryside has produced a serious crisis in agriculture, and wine as well as food

staple production in some areas is no longer profitable due to the high cost of labor. In some areas, the emi

gration of men has been so great that the birth rate

has dropped off sharply. These problems do not augur well for the traditionally fragile Portuguese economy. Most likely, the one possibility that may save the

country will be the expected tourist boom in the next

few years.

The Portuguese people are among the most decent,

hard-working and honest in Europe. With only a little

bit of compassion, some help, and leaders of vision,

they could possibly repeat the feats of their ancestors.

They do not deserve their present lot.

The Portuguese government, and the Uni?o Nacional, its official organ of political and social control, repre sent nothing more than the formalized desires, interests, and privileged positions of the Republican oligarchy in combination with traditional landowning and com

mercial interests. The well-fabricated lie of "a true

social democracy with a record of continued absence

of strife" is easily shattered before the knowledge of po litical murders, the periodic military "pronouncements," and the cancer of fascism which has eaten at the souls

of the Portuguese people for these forty years.

In spite of the great social inequities, and persistent

oppressions it is futile to expect a popular rising or even

a successful military one to gain support. After forty

years of "paternalistic" fascism and "corporativism" in

all walks of life, only a few embers of revolt exist. In

Lisbon's cafes, and fado houses, where the plaintive

song of a defeated people is heard, they wait, as they wait in Spain, for "the old one" to die. And nobody knows what will happen then.

TIME PIECES

Rod Townley

/. The Visitor I saw Macbeth coming up the stairs and I knew

we were in for murder. I fumbled with the screen door

trying to lock it, but in my heart I knew it wouldn't

stop him from getting in. I don't recall how he actually did get past the door; perhaps I had blinked at that

moment. But all at once he was inside, and my wife was greeting him and taking his coat. Brave Blythe. She knew he would be murdering the children before he left; she sensed it, we both sensed it, and in fact

I think the children must have sensed it too, though they tried not to show that they had.

And when he played with them, they were afraid.

//. The Doctor

Everyone was in consternation over the results of

the autopsy. It seems that, even years before the acci

dent, the doctor had been suffering from an incomplete ness of the internal structure, like an eccentric clock with a tic. A hypocondriac clock, he was constantly dismantling himself by peering into his own gizzards for omens. Externally, except for his limp, he appeared quite normal. But his mind was a white bird out of

sight of land, with the fatal time-pill in him. He had swallowed it at the shore, thinking it edible, but it

grated within him, caused pain, and was causing him now to fly lop-sidedly, worried lest he explode mid

ocean, or halfway across Sixth Avenue, before he had a look at the other side.

"Will I make it?" he clacked, peering into his me

chanical gizzards for omens, dismantling himself en

route.

///. Change He smiled and slipped on his blue sports-jacket,

then after some thought decided he might bring an

overcoat, too. Hadn't the radio just now predicted flurries? He could not remember, and didn't want to use up any more quarters to turn it on again. The

truth was, he was a bit short of change this morning. His hand reached down automatically and jostled the

tooled-leather pouch that hung from his belt on a thong. Yes, he would have to cash another coupon today and

get it filled. Especially dimes: there were hardly enough to keep the clock on the mantel running, let alone turn on the sink or open the closets.

ROD TOWNLEY is a graduate student and assistant at Rut

gers. He has worked in bookstores, grocery stores, and jazz combos, has traveled to Europe four times, most recently

on

a honeymoon.

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