The Azorean Parliament witnessed a moment that should shame us during a debate concerning the island of São Jorge—which, in its present condition, needs everything, beginning with a strategic vision for its development. The island recorded a population decline of more than 50 percent between its peak in 1878, when it had 18,307 inhabitants, and the 2021 Census, when only 8,373 remained. This means that, for reasons yet to be studied in depth, the factors that make the island attractive appear to be steadily eroding.
When we say that the matter still needs to be studied, we mean that it must first be understood—and that, from such understanding, a vision for the future must then be shaped. The customary explanations are no longer persuasive and, above all, they open no doors towards better days.
“We believe that the transition from milk production to beef production must be controlled, responsible, and undertaken in close coordination with the cooperative sector. We must find the necessary balance. We must understand the production and processing capacity of our cooperatives,” said Luís Silveira, a member of parliament from São Jorge. According to news reports, he concluded that support must be created for suckler-cow production—beef cattle—given that the dairy cooperatives are unable to move much of the São Jorge cheese currently stored in their factories because of difficulties in the market.
Another parliamentarian from São Jorge, Paulo Silveira, brought an equally self-evident argument before the Assembly: “Considering that the São Jorge cheese sector currently holds a volume of stock greater than usual, this reality demands a strategic effort to promote and market the product, as well as the opening of new markets, with a view to ensuring that production is effectively brought to market.”
What unfolded in Parliament was a war between islands, born of an absence of the critical capacity required to understand the Azores. Harmonious development is an objective achieved by cultivating the particular strengths of each island—not through stifling forms of selfishness governed by the logic: “Your voters have it, and I want it for mine as well!”
The parliamentarians who rose in opposition to incentives for beef production and to the promotion of the Azorean cheese par excellence—and there is only one!—which ought to serve as the anchor of our entire dairy sector, will probably never rise against the destruction of the Regional Health Service or of what remains of our Autonomy through the construction of a pharaonic and irrational hospital, designed to serve the delusions of a self-proclaimed Ponta Delgada elite.
And that tells us everything we need to know about courage—and about intentions.
Editorial from the newspaper Diário Insular. Photo from the Azorean Parliament.