Put him up against the wall. If that’s what he wants, let it be done. Pull him over. Put his hands behind his back, shivering with cold and fear. With his skin crawling and his soul afraid. Not knowing whether, in a few hours, he’ll be sleeping on a cold floor or in a warm bed, reheated at the price of someone who pays rent to share a house with a thousand and one. With a thousand and one. Put him up against the wall and make him the martyr he wants to be for his extremity. Make him slogans and catchphrases. Fill the media channels with the names of big and small leaders.

Recall the fiscal empires brought down by the evil genius of a few gentlemen the size of the sole of your shoe. Put him up against the wall and bring in the municipal maintenance officer. Spray him with glyphosate. It’s good for the environment. He filled his pockets with coins from the warehouse, which still had expired goods to sell since they had been sold under the national health protection law. Disinfect the ideological soul of the ideological soul of the archipelago, and never forget that for every spontaneous weed that is cut, either or with poison, three more will be reborn.

Put me up against the wall. Tell me I’m a dangerous leftist with questionable moral values and an unbreakable will to change the world for the better. Tell me about the lefties and the devils to remind us that this is still the archipelago of young third-rate conservatives at the end of the day. It reminds me of a woman’s role in the kitchen, without mentioning the effect but supporting its purpose.

Put us up against the wall. Tell us to what extent you want to destroy the archipelago. Then, proceeds accordingly, forcing the leaders to follow a strategy that is not theirs. Seize schools, nurseries, and public spaces. Get the people who work out of here so that only those hang out in the corridors of life’s assemblies asking for favors and burning time and patience.

Put them up against the wall. There’s no point in the Azorean women and men coming back. They will be deported by the guy in power on the other side of the Atlantic. We don’t want criminals in T-shirts here on the islands. The only ones we support are criminals wearing ties. Who finance the masters of swastikas and democratic contingency plans. People run off by the other gentleman don’t deserve to be here. Even if the only bad thing they’ve done is to have gone in search of Hope.

Put sick people against the wall. After all, mental health can’t be seen on an X-ray or diagnosed with a blood test. Put health professionals against the wall because there are none more serious than the persecutors. And then shout that there’s a shortage of specialists. Do the usual number: say and do the opposite.

Put democracy against the wall. It’s too late for that old lady. We should know that there is no room for women of any age in a society that only has female existence until the sexual expiration date of an audience thirsty for movie stars.

Politics is burying itself daily in the intersections of social media and the unrealities of this life’s regional assemblies. I lean against the wall. I look at it. Static. Irreverent, as she should be. I know the concept of anarchy. He’s never heard of it. He only knows what it’s like to be a burgess. My skin crawls at the thought of what’s yet to come. The wall won’t talk to me. It is immobilized by fear and inertia. The ability to serve the people who served it. The wall is like the polls. It announces bad winds and bad marriages.

None of us will be able to assume perfection. All the alliances made in recent years have gone wrong. With the oligarchs taking over, we are beginning to realize that this is not a problem exclusive to our political class. The great billionaires of this life have been manipulating us and controlling the narratives. And we have on their bandwagon. But, we must recognize when the oxen are called by their names (Portuguese popular saying: chamar os bois pelos nomes). And there are more and more. They manifest themselves with false figures and declarations of political incompetence from the highest podiums of the assemblies of these archipelagos that make us us.

All they care about is being what they’ve always been. Reactionaries, bootlickers without sense or morals. It doesn’t matter who’s against the wall. As long as it gets them votes.

Alexandra Manes is from Flores Island but lives in Terceira Island, Azores. She is a regular contributing writer for several Azorean newspapers, a political and cultural activist, and has served in the Azorean Parliament.

NOVIDADES will feature occasional opinion pieces from various leading thinkers and writers from the Azores to give the diaspora and those interested in the current Azores a sense of the significant opinions on some of the archipelago’s issues.

Translated to English as a community outreach program from the Portuguese Beyond Borders Institute (PBBI) and the Modern and Classical Languages and Literatures Department (MCLL).