«Today, June 10, is an important national holiday in Portugal. We call it "Day of Portugal", and we celebrate national identity. I was never sure of what exactly that meant, as different times have called for different concepts and definitions, but of one thing I am sure: this is a beautiful country, blessed by nature and home of peace-loving people (and the best fish in the world!) who did throughout History a few absolutely fantastic feats - such as developing long distance navigation and ship building techniques that led to so many new world discoveries throughout the 15th and 16th centuries - as well as a few absolutely stupid feats - such as expelling Jews or preferring to be individualistic to social, shorter-term to longer-term oriented. In other words, our country is pretty much like many other countries, small but blessed in so many different ways, and the mere fact that we have experienced stable borders for close to one thousand years speaks loads of the resilience of the people. Born here from an immigrant family, I am hopeful for the future because we have bright, educated and hard working young people - but all of us will need to call upon ourselves the responsibility to make the country more efficient and fairer for all - much more entrepreneurial and social at the same time - and not allow a few incompetent, irresponsible and even corrupt people to stand in the way. In case of doubt, just kick them in the butt, guys. Happy Day of Portugal to all.»
Jose Antonio Salcedo
Porto, Portugal
1 comment:
Thanks for the honour, Gonçalo, and keep up the good work!
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