by Karen Telleen-Lawton, Noozhawk Columnist, Read the original column at Noozhawk.com
Traveling to Portugal, I expected to be reminded of Italy, where I’ve enjoyed several memorable times dating back to the 1970s. Both are southern European countries with sunshine and coastlines to match Santa Barbara’s.
In contrast to Italians, however, I found the Portuguese I encountered to be more reserved than the flamboyant Italians I’ve met. That made for some curious differences.
Our Lisbon flat was perched above a cobbled walking street lined with shops and restaurants. When we arrived, I recalled an apartment we had rented in Florence 20 years before, where rambunctious merrymaking kept us up most of the night.
This wasn’t the case in Lisbon. The first few nights I’d wake up in the middle of the night, still on California time. I paced out to the living room, peering out the floor-to-ceiling windows to the street below. The streets were active, but the late-nighters gathered in small groups, talking sotto voce punctuated by soft laughter.
The Portuguese we encountered were so polite and reticent that we had to be careful not to offend. On our first day we had scheduled for a guide to take us for a long e-bike ride through Serra da Estrela National Park south of Lisbon. He was a great naturalist, enthusiastic about sharing the geology, history, and botany of the area.
Dave gave him a generous tip in appreciation of the full day. He was grateful for the tip, but we sensed something was wrong. He finally admitted that we hadn’t paid ahead of time. We were mortified at our error and ran to the ATM to retrieve sufficient cash.
Portuguese’ diffidence to strangers does not indicate apathy. Rather, their deep history (see my previous column) demonstrates their determination to preserve their independence through strategic friends and alliances.
The country was founded with a treaty between D. Afonso Henriques, the first king of Portugal, and the king of Leon and Castille. This status was confirmed a few decades later by a powerful friend, Pope Alexander III, in 1179. Portugal’s 1385 Treaty of Windsor with England is the world’s oldest diplomatic alliance still in force.
Modern Portugal, almost a millennium old, is competent in intra-diplomacy. It is one of the countries most versed in participatory democracy.
Developed in Porto Alege, Brazil in 1989, the practice allows citizens to propose, debate, and vote on projects to be funded by the public budget. The system is practiced in more than 10,000 locales around the world, including nearly 200 North America cities.
In Portugal, 118 cities have some form of participatory democracy.
The Lisbon suburb of Cascais allots 15 percent of its budget to citizen-proposed projects. Mayor Carlos Carreiras’ views participatory budgeting as “distributed intelligence, activating the collective mind of the body politic” in a series of public meetings.
In his article on the topic, New Yorker journalist Nick Romeo noted that, “when it’s executed well, [participatory democracy] promises to do more than simply allocate funds. It can improve the quality of public works and services; by strengthening civil society and increasing transparency and trust in government, it can also address some of the central political ailments of our age.”
Participatory democracy is not yet popular in Italy. Italians would likely approve of a certain element of Cascais, Portugal’s version: citizen meetings late in the evening. They start at 9 p.m., posterboard displays and all. Kids are welcome; some present in their student garb.
The timing wouldn’t work for me. This is long after my brain has gone to bed and not long before the rest of my body joins it, at least in California time.
Karen Telleen-Lawton, Noozhawk Columnist
Karen Telleen-Lawton is an eco-writer, sharing information and insights about economics and ecology, finances and the environment. Having recently retired from financial planning and advising, she spends more time exploring the outdoors — and reading and writing about it. The opinions expressed are her own.