Opinion (José Lúcio / Judge): Between Tagus and Guadiana.
Sometimes, watching the TV news, I am thinking that the great misfortune of the Alentejo is its location. It is not in Lisbon, or the Port, and not even in the path between these two points. Well so are invariably forgotten.
José Lúcio
(Judge President of Beja County)
I explain better. The national political life has been reduced to a long bipolar existence which translates into a permanent negotiation between Lisbon and Porto. I do not know if readers have noticed but politicians and commentators of Porto when they say they mean South Lisbon and politicians and commentators Lisbon when they say North want to refer to the Port. Minds are already formatted well and everything runs out on that axis.
And everything is decided on the basis of this dialectic. A kind of friendly ping-pong. Here, It is the desert – as once reminded a distinguished socialist minister.
This means that the country is below the Tagus very little account in power calculations. we are few, very few.
What then do? I do not know. I will stubbornly trying to take advantage of the free spaces to insist on my causes, that I think are our causes. I think that each can on its scope using the forms of assistance available, and the voices of many converging in the same direction increase the chances of being heard.
The Alentejo just might have some weight in Lisbon if it were able to present united and consistent defend its essential interests. convergence, this union of all forces and local social agents could perhaps supply the numerical terrible shortage that lessens.
Unfortunately not always the case that identity of feelings that would be a prerequisite for a strong mobilization in favor of the common causes. It is common indifference to the announcement of more closing some post offices, or a few more bank branches, or another police station, or more of a breakdown - as long as with other not our concern to us.
I would like to see another feeling and another reaction, because isto affects us all-. The Alentejo region is faced today with a situation that compromises any prospect of future development. Above all, continuing the process of depopulation, by progressive loss of population by internal and external migration. Without people nothing is done. And for now the demographic tragedy we have seen shows no reversal of symptoms.
This process can be halted and reversed if they persist here create or determine the realities of the fixing populations. jobs, the services, living conditions. All have to be aware that for every service that closes or every job that is lost is someone else preparing to depart.
For my part, for four years in office in Beja County, I have sought at all times defend the judicial organization existing in the district. It takes stubbornness to maintain the legal frameworks, secure the services installed, strive for optimization of facilities. What is lost in any reorganization hardly return.
This logic is part of our stubborn insistence on building the central power of a new building for the judiciary Park in Beja. There are now four years of persistence, to respond to a need diagnosed long before. The motivation is clear: the viability and improvement of physical facilities allows strengthen existing justice institutions, and consolidate the centrality of Beja in the provision of justice services (civil, criminal, labor, Family and smaller, administrative and fiscal).
Nothing that you have can be envisaged for granted.
Of course there are other priorities, for almost everyone, and therefore the issue of construction of a new "Palace of Justice" passes next to the majority of our fellow citizens, even those most commonly involved in the things of local development. What is less need Beja courts, They have told me. It may be true, but I fear that in that order of ideas when Beja get to have good access already here is nothing left.
The matter that was acting so that to claim accesses, are rail, road, or air, soon found obvious justification a living reality that imposes and requires. The development of a region, the quality of living, They assume much more than good access. If nothing exists around here, runs the risk of being asking good roads and excellent train just so we can go away quickly.
(Text written under the previous rule to spell AO1990, by the author's option)
