os grandes portugueses

The big thing of 2007 in Portugal, particularly on the TV channel RTP is the selection of the biggest Portuguese personality of all time of all things. They had a list of more than 100 people on their web site during December and now, in the past 2 days, they've revealed who are the 100 that were most voted on, and the 10 that received the most votes and that will be the 10 from which people will vote to be the top.

Here is the link to the 90 most voted - unfortunately, they don't have them in order:

http://www.rtp.pt/wportal/sites/tv/grandesportugueses/bio_resultados90.php

Here is a link to the top 10:

http://www.rtp.pt/wportal/sites/tv/grandesportugueses/finalistas.php

Now, this is all voted on on people's own opinions, and that's fine, but me, having lived there for a little while, listened to my family, and just my own personal knowledge of Portuguese culture, I have a few comments of my own....

1. How is it possible that a politician that ran a fascist government of which I have ever only heard negatives comments about (from people that lived through it) and from which we had a very famous 1974 revolution could be in the top 10? He kept you hungry and poor people! He had a secret police that would kill you if you spoke badly about his government! I really just don't understand...

2. How are Vitor Baia, Helio Pestana, and Pinto da Costa great Portuguese? One is a goalie, another a 2-bit actor and the third a guy that runs a soccer team. What exactly have they done that would make them great? Seriously people...forget what team you root for or how cute the actor may be - what exactly makes them GREAT? The same things that make me great, but we're talking about the 100 greatest Portuguese personalities. I can understand how Luis Figo, Cristiano Ronaldo and José Mourinho are there, but these three?

3. Whoever put Ricardo Araújo Pereira on the list is a genius. He shouldn't even be on there, but since they put on the potential list, someone should have a petition to put him in the finalists because he should win.

Regardless of who wins, people will complain. People, including myself, are complaining now and for that RTP already has a winning program on their hands because people are talking about it.

Being in Canada, I have only seen the first 50 at this point on RTPi, but the 100 are already known, so once I've seen the actual countdown for the last 50, I may be able to comment further...

a history lesson: sa carneiro

The man known as Sá Carneiro (real name: Francisco Manuel Lumbrales de Sá Carneiro) was born July 19, 1934 and died December 4, 1980. He was Prime Minister of Portugal for 11 months in 1980.

Short history from Wikipedia:

A lawyer by training, he became a member of the puppet National Assembly, where he became one of the leaders of the "Liberal Wing", which attempted to work for the gradual transformation of António de Oliveira Salazar's dictatorship into a normal Western European democracy.

In May 1974, a month after the Carnation Revolution, Sá Carneiro founded the Popular Democratic Party (PPD), together with Francisco Pinto Balsemão and José Magalhães Mota, and became its secretary-general. The PPD was soon renamed the Social Democratic Party (PSD); despite Sá Carneiro's original claims to be leading a left-of-centre party, he and the party soon drifted to the right. He was minister without portfolio in a number of provisional governments, and was elected as a deputy to the Constitutional Assembly the next year.

In 1976, he was elected to the Assembly of the Republic. In November 1977, he resigned his office as president of the party, only to be reelected to that office the next year.
In the general election of late 1979, he led the Democratic Alliance, a coalition of his Social Democratic Party, the right-wing Democratic and Social Centre Party, and two smaller parties, to victory. The Alliance polled 45.2 percent of the popular vote and gained 128 of the 250 seats in the Assembly of the Republic; 75 of these were from the PSD. President António Ramalho Eanes subsequently called on him to form a government on 3 January 1980, and formed Portugal's first majority government since the Carnation Revolution of 1974. In a second general election held in October that year, the Democratic Alliance increased its majority. The Alliance received 47.2 percent of the popular vote and 134 seats, 82 of them from the PSD. Sá Carneiro's triumph appeared to augur well for the presidential election two months later, in which Sá Carneiro was supporting António Soares Carneiro (no relation).

His victory was short-lived, however. On 4 December 1980, en route to a presidential election rally in Oporto, his plane crashed into a building in Camarate soon after take-off from Lisbon Airport. Eyewitnesses said they saw pieces falling from the plane a moment after takeoff. Rumours have continued to fuel conspiracy theories that the crash was in fact an assassination, but no firm evidence has come to light.

Dependent to a considerable extent on Sá Carneiro's personal popularity, the Democratic Alliance was unable to maintain its momentum in the wake of his death. Faced with a national crisis, the public rallied around the incumbent President, António Ramalho Eanes, who easily defeated the Alliance candidate in the presidential election a few days later.

The airport of Oporto to which Sá Carneiro was heading, has been named after him: Francisco Sá Carneiro Airport, despite objections that it would be in bad taste to name an airport after someone who died in a plane crash.

So, that's his history, now for exploring the conspiracy theory....which may not have been a theory at all?

Theory: Was Sa Carneiro killed to cover up White House arms deal? According to this theory, the plane Sa Carneiro was on was shot down to cover up deals between Iran and the US. Interesting stuff...Other source and more info here.

They have even made a film about this in Portuguese: Camarate: Acidente ou atentado?

Here is another blogger's posting about the incident (in Portuguese): here and here. 

holidays, a vote, and a confession

Christmas is always nice anywhere in the World. In Portugal, Santa is put to work driving the streetcar. Get going Santa!



In other important events, December 1st is an important date around the world, but not as important as in Portugal, where in 1640 we regained back Portugal from the Spanish. To mark this holiday, 2 of the biggest soccer teams faced off - Sporting vs. Benfica with Benfica coming out the winner.



Then today, Porto won...



..and that's about all the soccer news I can take.

In other important events around the country...

They've finally decided to hold another vote to decide whether abortion should be legal. Here are some women in parliament pushing their cause...



Source

Portugal's president has said the country's predominantly Roman Catholic population will vote on whether to legalise abortion on 11 February. Anibal Cavaco Silva said he agreed to the vote because the issue still dominated public debate in Portugal.

The country will be asked if they wish to approve the right to terminate a pregnancy within the first 10 weeks. Abortions are only legal in Portugal in cases of rape, foetal abnormality or if a woman's life is in danger.

In 1998, a slim majority voted in favour of relaxing the law but the result was ruled invalid because of a low turnout.

Let's hope that this is a turning point in Portugal and they legalize abortion.

In other, more amusing news:

A man drove into a subway tunnel in Porto, Portugal - We're always looking for shortcuts aren't we?

Pete Doherty (some famous British musician) has decided to rehab in Portugal - Are you sure that's the right thing to do? Some SuperBock will make you go right back into the dark side.

Portuguese say that everyone is late but me - That's right, we're always the first to point out other people's faults and not our own. Seriously though, I'm always on time!

And finally, the not so amusing, but rather interesting news:

Portuguese say 'no' to high speed trains and new airport - Excerpt:

A large majority of Portuguese oppose the construction of a new airport outside the capital and a high-speed rail line between Lisbon and Madrid, according to a poll published on Monday.

Nearly two-thirds – 65.5% – of respondents said that Portugal could do without the high-speed trains, and 56.3% thought that the airport was not needed, according to the survey, published in the Correio da Manha daily.

The Portuguese government has approved three new rail lines between Lisbon and Madrid, Lisbon and the northern city of Porto, as well as Porto and the northern Spanish city of Vigo.

Work on the rail lines, which will cost near 10bn euros ($13bn), is due to start in 2008. The Madrid-Lisbon line is scheduled for completion in 2013, and will be supported by European Union investment. The new Lisbon international airport – due to open in 2009 – has been designed to accommodate 25mn passengers per year, and will cost 3.1bn euros. The poll was carried out by the Aximage Institute and questioned 550 people by telephone

Why are they saying no again? Is it the potential of thousands of new jobs and people actually having to work? I know there are probably a lot of better things the governmennt needs to focus on, but people, these investments will equal more jobs, people wanting to invest in the country with better infrastructure and well, happy times all around!

Shady chapter of Portuguese history re-opened - Excerpt:

A shady and mysterious chapter of Portugal's history is being re-opened. A man has come forward saying he built a bomb that exploded on the plane of the former prime minister. Back in 1980, socialist leader Francisco Sa Carneiro, and six others were killed when their aircraft crashed in the suburbs of Lisbon.

Jose Esteves a former security agent who was working for the opposition centre-right party says he played a pivotal role in the alleged plot. He added that the prime minister was not the intended target. In this week's news magazine Focus in Portugal, Esteves also claims the bomb was never meant to go off. He says it was only ever supposed to scare General Soares Carneiro, but that a last minute switch of planes meant the premier and his entourage ended up on board.

A parliamentary inquiry last year concluded that a bomb was behind the crash. But the victims' family argue the deaths have never been properly investigated. They are now going to the European Court of Human Rights demanding Portugal be symbolically condemned for the way it handled the case.

This is interesting stuff! This is something I've got to read more about - actually everyone should. If I find anything more, I will post. Here the interesting tidbit though - this person, Sa Carneiro, died in a car crash...and they named Porto's airport after him. Yah, a classic Portuguese move! (Not so say that dumb stuff doesn't happen in other countries, but I always like it when stuff like this happens in Portugal....)