It was 1961 when Manuel Barbosa, from São Miguel in the Azores, published “Angra do Heroísmo: ‘a morgado room’: ‘That’s what someone called Angra do Heroísmo. Whether you take in the whole city at a glance or walk through its streets and squares one by one, it always gives the same impression of calm, dignity, and balance. The quadrilateral-shaped bay opens widely onto the sea, the main street descends to the pier and leads to the public garden, where lush foliage alternates with vast open spaces. Everything invites you to come in and rest, reminiscent of old Portuguese hospitality. (…) At night, Angra is the busiest and most cheerful city in the Azores. From my hotel room by the sea, I hear a murmur of voices that reminds me of the atmosphere of a Spanish café. They come from the customs courtyard, where on summer nights the people of Angra converge to talk and socialize. But the same whisper and movement goes through all the inviting streets. (…) One of the things that impresses me most about Angra, giving it an unmistakable character that is evident even to the most unsuspecting observer, is its historical mission as a bastion of national freedoms. The Memória, a symbolic obelisk dedicated to D. Pedro IV, dominates the entire city and can be seen from many different angles. But the toponymy, with its Jardim do Duque da Terceira, its Rua da Liberdade, its Praça do Prior do Crato (with its monument) and, above all, the living cult of Garrett, clearly reflect the civic loyalty of the people of Angra to a historical tradition that honors them and has given the city its well-deserved status as the capital of the Azores. (…) But as a land that values itself does not live only on the past, it is still with dignity and common sense that Angra prepares its future. In any uncharacteristic city, devoid of normal growth, the contributions of progress are usually to be close by addition and at random, creating solutions of continuity that are difficult to remedy. The same does not happen to a city with a life of its own, with personality. It incorporates, or perhaps more accurately, assimilates all factors of progress. For it, there is nothing to destroy nor, on the other hand, to imitate the past, because it has been fully lived. (…) This is precisely what we have seen in Angra. (…) Thus, Angra do Heroísmo is the model and glory of the Azores (…)”.

Angra maintains this light in its human and cultural, historical, and architectural framework. Still, it has lost all its luminosity as the “western port of the ocean,” the “little Lisbon,” and the “heart of all the islands” (as another São Miguel native said in the 15th century). And when did it lose this pivotal role? In two moments: first, for a natural reason, which was the 1980 earthquake, and second, for a political reason, the policy of centralization in Ponta Delgada was implemented from the 1990s to the present day. That is, the 25th of April of freedom had the unfortunate effect of making the Azorean islands slaves to centralist policies, and even more so against Terceira.

In the wake of these fifty years of preparation for the democratic enslavement of the islands and their populations—as the PCP predicted in the 1975 Constituent Assembly, but which everyone endorsed – it must be concluded that this gap between adjacent islands subject to a single form of progress with no hope other than handouts formatted into islands of cohesion, that is, the outermost periphery within the archipelago itself, reflects two structural errors in the autonomous model that will implode if we do not dare to face these errors head-on: 1st error: the undemocratic and anti-democratic system of government; 2nd error: not allowing Terceira to be a second central point of the archipelago.

No one believes that the 1975 Constituent Assembly did not carefully consider the regional system of government it created; they were well aware of it. At the time, some on the left and the right were afraid of political autonomy, not understanding that it was this very model of a partially regional unitary state that would ultimately guarantee an end to the ideals of independence for the islands. In short, there was fear because we were in the “hot summer” and it was hot almost until the constitutional revision of 1982. In other words, the weak regional government system was designed in a climate of fear, and we have to understand that. But from 1982 onwards, and especially from 1997 onwards, there was no longer any fear. Why did the Autonomous Region, having wanted to change so much, never want to change the system of government? Because, especially from 1997 onwards, the regional governments of Ponta Delgada had the idea of creating a unitary and centralist autonomy, and this could only be developed with a system of government without a model of political checks and balances to effectively control governmental power. What served us well in the early stages of implementing democracy for regional unity ultimately served as a springboard for a handful of men to govern at the expense of everyone else. It should be noted that the Azorean people, including many in São Miguel, are aware of this. Still, Azorean society is not yet prepared to send packing these artists who think they are smarter than others, and in fact are so because they achieve this at the expense of the ignorance and personal interests of politicians from the islands with low political content. But water flows almost invisibly in small veins beneath the scorched earth.

Suppose the Autonomous Region does not give vent to the history and geographical illustration of the Azores by repositioning Terceira in a distribution of development in the central and western groups. In that case, it seems clear to us that this will end badly. It can be said that the radicalism of the left in the hot year of 1975 pushed the regions of administrative autonomy towards regions of political autonomy (moving away from the ideals of separatism and independence); today, the radicalism of the right and the lack of men in the center is pushing the region of political autonomy towards the ideals of independence. Fortunately, Terceira, with its cultural and civic roots, remains the Azorean bastion of Portuguese/Azorean autonomy because the country was built with a significant part of its blood and history.

Portugal must keep a close eye on the situation in the Azores.

São Miguel enjoys central autonomy at the expense of the autonomy of the nine islands. To save São Miguel and, above all, the constitutional autonomy of all Portuguese Azorean islanders, it is imperative to begin urgently changing the regional government system. This will change everything: we will be heard with political effectiveness, and islanders will have the fullness of their citizenship based on the human dignity that the Constitution seeks to guarantee.

In Diário dos Açores-Paulo Viveiros, director.

Arnaldo Ourique is a specialist on the Portuguese Constitution and the Azorean Autonomy. A researcher in the fields of Politics and Society.

NOVIDADES will feature occasional opinion pieces from various leading thinkers and writers in the Azores, providing the diaspora and those interested in the current state of the Azores with insight into the diverse opinions on some of the archipelago’s key issues.