This is not an op-ed dedicated to anyone but to everyone in general. It’s not even meant to be read by Mr. Ventura’s party members. Those who defend Donald Trump. This text is not for them to share and use as a target for throwing arrows at any headquarters.

This is a rant about mental health, really. A set of lines, written between teeth and tears, after listening to recent speeches in the last plenary session of the Regional Assembly.

Humanity has made an evolutionary leap regarding the tools available to express empathy. It has become socially accepted to include all kinds of people in everyday groups, with all their characteristics, degrees, qualities, and skills. Everything seemed to be moving towards a world of acceptance and wholeness, even when it comes to a subject often overlooked, such as mental health.

The increase in the number of suicides, chronic depression, debilitating anxiety, panic attacks, and so on has led to the need for an effective response and a normalization of the condition. It wouldn’t fit in the head of anyone with a shred of decency to imagine a world turning back to the old sanatoriums and shock and seizure therapies. Until, with the rise of the extreme right all over the world, evil returned to the parliaments of our planet. From Washington to Brussels, Moscow to Lisbon, and Funchal to Horta. Figures haunted by the ghost of past greatness that never existed and present proposals, explanations of votes, and speeches against decency and dignity.

That’s how it was when André Ventura’s regional caucus recently stood up and started talking about alleged fraudulent dismissals, generalizing and mistreating many people who want to work but simply don’t have the conditions to do so. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but depression can’t be seen in a face, lipstick, or a dress. It’s something internal and painful. Extremely painful to the point where you don’t know if you’re afraid of falling asleep or waking up. A struggle to be functional and to find strategies to do so. Turning to Google’s search engine is often enough to look for ways to be less painful for the family before writing a farewell note.

A blanket of innuendo and misinformation has been woven, with allegations and suspicions, to build a new narrative of attack on those who are ill. In the midst of all this, the guillotine fell on those suffering from mental health problems. And there have been those who have stood up to say that the so-called “crazies” are admitted to the “health center.” It was a cheap euphemism, but I don’t know if the person in question will recognize the word’s meaning.

The conclusions we were able to draw include an obvious truth, which I have already denounced more than once: those people don’t care about us. People who need help. The poorest, weakest, and most needy. The sick and those who care for them. The agents of culture and change.

They just want to rule.

Building a false reality where there are trenches and wars to be fought. It is hatred that feeds the great robotic machine tied to the hand of their idol, Ventura. Without ill-informed voters frothing with rage, the party would be limited to a small group of neo-Nazis and little else.

For the Regional Government of the Azores, which continues to claim to favor initiatives on mental health when it suits its appearance, perhaps it would be good to understand with whom it lies in its political bed and better choose its bedfellows. They say that they are for honesty and ally themselves with falsehood on the other, recreating the characters from Oscar Wilde’s famous play A Transfiguration of Ernesto into Honest. For the Regional Directorate, which is responsible for inclusion and must look after all the people who live here, this is a clear threat coming from within, and it doesn’t seem to be losing any strength. And for the other Secretariat, which supports the media and information, perhaps it would be good to think of a way to combat so much disinformation and misinformation in the so-called House of Democracy.

I recommend they set their sights on serious things, such as the work by Get Art, with the recently launched Guide to Good Practices in Social Inclusion through Art, which shows how to make a real change, fighting stigmas such as ableism. Or that they send representatives to the international conferences on mental health, promoted by the Association for Psychosocial Study and Integration, in Lisbon at the end of this month to see if they learn anything and stop recycling tired phrases from the 19th century.

As for what was said, I can’t help but recall an article published in the Diário Insular ten years ago. At the time, the author complained about “crazy people in the city” of Angra do Heroísmo, saying that the presence of people with psychological disorders on the streets would be detrimental to the growth of tourism and the image of the island. I won’t comment on this a decade later. Still, anyone with moral fiber will know what to think about it and will recognize the path taken by the institutions toward the possible autonomy of these people.

Instead, I ask: what image do we want to convey of the Azores, with the barbarity and insanity manifested in our Assembly’s speech? Leave those who need help alone and get treatment, and worry instead about those in suits and ties who want to wipe out our humanity!

I suggest a reflection. How do people with mental health problems feel after everything that was said in the Chamber in Horta? How do health professionals who specialize in mental health feel? What path do we want to take to combat the depression epidemic?

First, it was the gypsies, then people on RSI, and now people with mental illness. When your turn comes, what will you do?

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).