Portugal and Ukraine: nation, democracy and citizenship
The Invasion of Ukraine gives us a rare opportunity to rethink who Portugal is, what our understanding of citizenship is, and what value we place on the privilege of living in freedom and democracy.
The behavior of the President of Ukraine, its Armed Forces and its people aroused respect, which reveals their willingness to live in their sovereign and independent, democratic country, respectful of human rights and freedom. It is with concern that we see his availability to one of the most powerful forces against the world, putting his own life in danger.
We, Portugal, are a privileged people as we have not experienced the horrors of war within our European borders since the 19th century. The destruction our destruction of people and chaos the chaos of public management, mass of permanent individual sensory memories, hunger and lack of health care, life understanding in the face of reality forces us to live in these conditions situations.
But that these situations occur in the World, at any time and in any place, is an undeniable fact! What do we have to learn from these recent events to better prepare us for the future?
First of all, if we want to be a sovereign, free and democratic nation, we must be prepared to fight and die for it, as a people and as citizens. This advanced civilizational state in which we have been living is not a right guaranteed by third parties, be it God, much less the Law. On the contrary, it represents a conquest, in a war that continues to be fought between the forces of Good and Evil, throughout the ages.
We have to rethink and position the role of Portuguese civic education, as well as military reporting, in this context.
Fighters, our land, like our institutions and people, is a right and an obligation as less comprehensive and as rich, more comprehensive across the nation, as all our institutions and as rich as all our rules and nobles. Covering all who are and are proud to be Portuguese.
* Distinguished Professor at IST and Founder and Researcher Emeritus of INESC