The public debate in Portugal is at one of its worst stages, because simply no one wants to hear the “other side”. The recent episode with the Minister of Education, Fernando Alexandre, is a perfect example of this. A public intervention based on classical social democratic principles immediately turned into a preventive lynching for the simple reason that, as soon as the minister opened his mouth, the sentence was already signed by someone who, almost before hearing the first sentence, had already decided that he was (had to be) the villain of the story.
The prejudice was as loud as it was, well, predictable. For a left that considers itself the exclusive owner of compassion and ethics, Fernando Alexandre commits the unforgivable crime of being “right-wing” which, in the minds of this court of opinion, is an automatic synonym of social insensitivity. Therefore, what I would say could only be an “attack on the most disadvantaged”.
Political ventriloquism soon emerged from the usual social media characters, but also from the majority of journalists and commentators: the real words and intentions of the ruler were suffocated to replace them with a convenient narrative that feeds the much-desired moral superiority. Intellectual fraud is also common. Those who shout the loudest in the name of inclusion are, almost always, the first to exclude any argument that does not fit into their narrow ideological framework.
Until, surprisingly, Daniel Oliveira appears, with whom I meet, 99.99% of the time, at the opposite ends of political and economic views. In the tumult of indignation, your voice rescues the dignity of the debate. Unlike many of his comrades in arms and a phalanx of journalists who seem to have exchanged rigor for couch activism, Oliveira demonstrated that, at least once in his life, he knew how to listen. He had the detachment — which should be the norm, but nowadays is the exception — to separate political disagreement from factual analysis.
Daniel Oliveira’s lesson must have been humiliating for many, if they knew how to be humble when the facts demand it. This starts with Eurico Brilhante Dias, the parliamentary leader of the PS who asked for the minister’s resignation if he did not recant, but also going through the TV pivots of the channel itself where the former leader of the bloc comments that, more than 24 hours after the case was more than clarified, they continued to insist that Fernando Alexandre had actually said what he did not say.
Democracy demands clarity, not caricatures. Fernando Alexandre can and should be scrutinized, but they should do so based on what he actually says and does, not because of what blindfolded minds decide to project onto him.
After all, the one who really has prejudices is not the minister who even proposes solutions — realistically saying that, perhaps, he won’t even be able to implement them –, but rather the one who refuses to listen to them because the issuer does not follow his playbook.
Oliveira exposed the nakedness of those who no longer want to inform, but only want to confirm their own dogmas. He gave an “ethics bath” to journalists who forgot that their role is not to make value judgments before ensuring the accuracy of the quote. It should be a bitter lesson for a profession that, by losing the ability to listen seriously, loses its reason for being. I wish these professionals, my professional colleagues, were able to understand this. For once, listen to him with a shred of intelligence.