Let me tell you this: I think you are all silly. Seriously, I really think.
Everyone is very offended by Isabel Jonet, because the president of Banco Alimentar (BA) went to SIC Notícias to tell us some truths about the way we relate to consumption.
Basically, Jonet says that for years we – we Portuguese – have been living beyond our means and that, now, faced with reality, we have to reduce consumption and adapt our lifestyle to real income. Nothing truer.
The president of BA uses, by the way, two perfect images: the steak, which you can't eat every day; and the glass when brushing teeth, replaced by the running tap.
Jonet's comments, who also say that poverty in Portugal is cyclical, are causing a wave of negative reactions and the same woman who for years was unanimously recognized for her solidarity work, is now the most recent hatred of national pet. Now, the dimension of the nonsense makes one fundamental thing clear: we still don't understand.
Portugal has two adjustments in progress: the State (and above all criticisms are valid) and the people.
We still don't realize that Portugal is a country of meager resources, full of vain people, for whom life is only if it can be seen on an LED TV and photographed by a 12 megapixel camera.
Let's be clear: not everyone can have their own home, most of us should spend our lives riding public transport; a trip to the restaurant is, yes, a luxury; and have breakfast in the cafe, only on Sundays.
I know that many people have already noticed this, I also know that there are families for whom this standard of living has always been a reality, but the average Portuguese person, the one who thinks that the squeeze is temporary, has not yet considered that from now on it will be like this.
The challenge is to reduce consumption (and about that my friend and researcher Nuno Cunha will give you a little soap), go back to the essentials and find in life pleasures that replace the obsession with spending money – which doesn't even belong to us, in most cases.
We should close at least half of the shopping centers, ban commerce from opening on Sundays, build parks and green areas in every city, shut down the television after midnight and turn off the Internet at the same time, getting everyone in. in bed having orgasms and making children one after the other (children that we can raise without eight-hundred-euro baby carriages and other pansies without which we, to great collective amazement, survive; and children who, when safety collapse, which apparently is imminent, will sustain us).
Isabel Jones is right. In all. This is a painful truth (and make no mistake: I wish it were different). Her problem is the same as with colonoscopies: we know we need to do one, but the idea of a tube going through the garage gives us goosebumps whenever we think about it.
Author Nuno Andrade Ferreira (journalist)
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