The Sanjoaninas—the largest secular festivities in the Azores—have taken to the streets. Let us hope that yesterday’s threats of rain and fog do not settle over Angra and instead contribute only to the embellishment of the celebrations. The program is the traditional one, offering something for every taste, and the theme of Azoreanity could not be more fitting in these times when certain clouds linger, fifty years on, over Autonomy and over the harmonious development of the islands—the foremost challenge facing any government.
Celebrating Azoreanity means celebrating the bond that unites all the islands and the diaspora. From Santa Maria to Corvo, it means setting differences aside and valuing what makes us one; it means easing the tensions that some elites stubbornly insist on nurturing and demonstrating that nothing can truly divide us. If we fail to remain united among ourselves, centralism is always waiting in the wings, ready to take advantage—and then we all lose. Nothing is better than a celebration to make peace and embrace all our brothers and sisters.
There may be places that can equal it, but there is none better than Terceira when it comes to welcoming others. No one here feels unwelcome, excluded, or looked upon with indifference. The Cult of the Holy Spirit—which here is deeply rooted, intense, coursing through our veins and transpiring from every pore—has taught us that. The emperors may be the humblest people in the parish, those of the least means, education, or fortune, yet the rest of the community contributes to raising the calves, purchasing the wine and the bread, and that person is crowned emperor over all the others. Nothing is more fraternal or egalitarian than a mesa de função, where there are no distinctions or prejudices, no reserved places, where all arrive and enter, eat and drink, without being asked who they are, where they come from, or where they are going. And if their accent gives them away, generosity is doubled, because on that day—and the days before and after—they are all Azoreans, even if they come from Alaska.
Here, the Cult of the Holy Spirit is our way of life, not merely from May to October. It is the highest expression of Azoreanity and Azoreanity lived in its most genuine form. Go to a tourada à corda and feel how the Holy Spirit descends upon the road, how the people celebrate, embracing all who visit us and treating them as family. So come, from Santa Maria to Corvo, from São Miguel to Flores, from Pico to Faial, from Graciosa to São Jorge. Come and be part of this brotherhood—you always have been. Feel that we are rowing in the same direction, even if at times we travel by winding paths. We understand one another in what truly matters because whenever a common enemy takes root in our vulnerabilities, we are ready to “confront the sacrilegious giant.”
This is Azoreanity in its popular expression. But is there any other kind? We doubt it, for it is within the people that it has endured through centuries of hardship and periods of relative prosperity alike. Let us know how to emphasize—and restore, if necessary—that indelible trait that binds us together, using ink richly infused with emotion. The Sanjoaninas are both the gathering place and the opportunity to live that Azoreanity.
Translated from an editorial by the Diário Insular newspaper in Angra do Heroísmo.