Are the “grandoladas” that thwarted Passos Coelho and its rulers between 2011 and 2015 so outdated that they are now disrupting the public initiatives of the members of the current executive, starting with António Costa himself?
That’s what you need to know. The truth is that yesterday the founding manifesto of a new movement of street protests. And among the promoters are activists who, during the Passos-Portas government, created and promoted the movement “Que se lixe a troika” (QSLT), which, through the so-called “grandoladas”, is responsible for countless embarrassing situations for the rulers of that time and still, in September 2012, by one of the largest demonstrations the country has ever seen (one million people on the streets).
“Just Life” is the name of the platform and its founding manifesto was released yesterday accompanied by a subscriber list where you can find names like musician Dino D’Santiago, journalist Alexandra Lucas Coelho, writer Joana Bértholo and historian Manuel Loff, as well as dozens of militants of political, social and cultural activism in neighborhoods such as Cova da Moura, Rego, Arrentela , Marvila or even in Barreiro and Almada. rapper Flávio “LBC” Almada, from Cova da Moura, and Joana Mouta, from the association Passa Sabi (Rego district). The first initiative is a demonstration in Lisbon, scheduled for February 25.
“There is a war against the poorest populations that must stop.”
According to a source at the organization, “Vida Justa” will consist in part of a “reinterpretation” of “Que se lexé a troika”” but now in the light of a new problem, that of inflation and its consequences in the deterioration of the living conditions of the most disadvantaged populations.
The essential militant base is, at least for now, directly linked to social activism in the poorest neighbourhoods, namely in Lisbon and on the South Bank. It is intended – and contrary to what happened with the QSLT – to install “a permanent intervention network”, that is, a network that goes beyond the original reasons for the formation of the movement.
“To reverse this situation, people must have the power to demand a fair path that more evenly shares the costs of this crisis [porque] It can’t always be the people who pay for everything, while the richest get even richer.”
If in “Que Se Lixe a Troika” the struggle focused on measures to lower incomes (and raise taxes) that were then unleashed, the central problem is now inflation. According to the founding manifesto, “there is a war against the poorest populations that must stop” and “to reverse this situation, people must have the power to demand a fairer path that shares the cost of this crisis equally” because “it can’t always be the people who pay for everything, while the richest manage to get even richer”.
In other words, a “crisis program that defends those who work” is needed: “The prices of energy and essential food commodities must be regulated; interest rates on home loans must be frozen; speculative house rents must be prevented; evictions must be banned; generally raising wages above inflation; measures to support businesses, small businesses and local jobs and to value economically and socially the most invisible jobs, such as those in cleaning”.
And what is promised, based on “concerned people from the neighborhoods and militants of different causes and social movements”, is “to build a network and multiply actions that empower people and succeed in imposing policies that and those who work”.
Source: DN
