It falls to the Azores to possess the minimum clarity not to applaud those who set the world on fire simply because they later show up with a bucket. That should be the case in any context, but in this particular moment of our timid history, it may be important to speak plainly, invoking the courage of our Iberian neighbors.

In this case, I write about the ambush against SATA, the Ryanair issue, and the Subsidy that is now a “Mechanism.” After years of poor management and successive deflections, in the name of constitutional complexities and territorial integrity, we have returned, more or less, to square one—only now with the added loss of several of the capabilities tied to our accessibility. The Regional Government is, first and foremost, the main culprit, and the parties that sustain it possess no legitimacy to castigate themselves for attempting to interrupt the flood halfway through the inundation they created.

In truth, and contrary to the reality in Madeira, the Azorean case, under the shelter of the far right that sustains it, was deliberately prepared so that negotiations could be maneuvered between the private sector, the semi-public sphere, and the growing void that serves their interests. For the neoliberal governance of the Secretariat of Finance, working hand in hand with the Secretary of Mobility “For Some Only,” the reality they seek to create is becoming increasingly evident.

It is growing ever more savage. Yet the neoliberals continue to believe they can tame it, not least because, when they leave office, there is usually a position waiting for them on the boards of companies and foundations of close affinity.

This is the reality: SATA is a problem nourished by the most conservative forces within Azorean civil society, intertwined along partisan lines. SATA is a problem because it is meant to be one, in the same way that the Mobility Subsidy only began to itch when it became necessary to use the institutional navel-gazing of Lisbon’s centralism to shield local-level failures. Lisbon, of course, always rises to the provocation of oppressing us. But that cannot legitimize the Azorean parties, who now appear with bucket in hand to extinguish only a tiny fraction of the fire they themselves keep feeding across the Region.

Accessibility cannot be the banner of governments that systematically forget parts of their own territories. It serves us little or nothing to organize meetings and events on the island of Flores when even the most optimistic estimates point to years of work before its commercial port regains minimal operational capacity. Proclaiming to the four winds the virtues of the space sector in Santa Maria will not make us forget the ships that no longer operate there, nor the political militias that continue to erode its internal budgetary sustainability.

The reclaiming of some of the benefits that the Subsidy once provided—essentially limited to restoring what had already existed—is nothing more than a placebo for the population, and a way to gather a few votes, especially for those who fear losing their place. A reshuffle looms, and the knives will be long. No Mechanism will save us from incompetence.

I conclude by recalling the historic year of 1974, which Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen so beautifully described: “This is the dawn I awaited / The initial day, whole and clean.”

April 25, always.

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

NOVIDADES will feature occasional opinion pieces from leading thinkers and writers in the Azores, providing the diaspora and those interested in the current state of the Azores with a sense of the significant perspectives 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).