The suckerfish
Constantly in my life I find myself ruminating on the decisions I have made along the way for me to end up where I am, both as a person and geographically speaking. Letâs say that, for someone with the bare minimum of historical knowledge that I have, and with my own anxieties, moving to the country that was your âcolonizerâ is not a good idea when the stay ends up lasting much longer than expected, whether by choice, laziness, and/or life circumstances.
At the same time, being where I am brings me into inevitable conflict with a group of people who are very confused about their position in the world. The âgood colonizer,â according to history classes that barely touch on a period of the countryâs history that lasted at least a third of its existence, who managed to adopt for itself a certain tropicalism because it supposedly knew how to integrate well with the natives/the exploited â within the world inside their own heads.
It is strange to see that this is not a behavior that seems to repeat itself much in other corners of the Old World. It may simply be that my lack of contact with people from those places speaks much louder than anything else. But in the face of ignorance, the attitude elsewhere is to listen, not to talk over others. Which is quite customary where I currently am.
This long introduction, besides being a defect of my already-described prolixity, was also prompted by ElĂsio Macamoâs article of May 6, 2026, in the newspaper PĂşblico, titled âFragilidade narrativaâ. It is an article whose core argument I agree with without blinking, and the columnist is a much better interlocutor than I am for conveying this kind of message to the newspaperâs readers.
Not only is the tone of the article informal, but it is also professorial. That is a fine line to walk, and the columnist does it masterfully. And without the âbrutalityâ that I see as necessary when dealing with these matters with people who ignore and/or refuse to admit the sins of a past that is not even that distant.
Since the article is behind a paywall, I will provide a summary of the argument:
The article uses the figure of the hare in Mozambican childrenâs stories as a metaphor for thinking about Portugal: a small, peripheral country without great structural power, but one capable of moving skillfully through international spaces dominated by greater forces. Just as the hare wins not through strength, but through practical intelligence and the ability to adjust the game, Portugal would have developed a diplomatic competence based on negotiation, moderation, and the ability to avoid useless confrontations. This skill would help explain the recurrence of Portuguese figures in highly visible international positions, such as DurĂŁo Barroso, AntĂłnio Guterres, and AntĂłnio Costa.
At the same time, the text argues that this external competence coexists with an internal fragility: Portugal knows how to circulate and mediate in the world, but still hesitates when it comes to building a consistent narrative about itself, especially in relation to its colonial past, social plurality, and inclusion. The episode involving the composition of the Council of State without representatives of minorities appears as a sign of this difficulty in transforming the international discourse of diversity into internal practice. For the author, this hesitation opens space for harsher and more simplifying political discourses. The conclusion is that Portugal cannot merely âescape wellâ from situations, like the hare; it must also explain what its history means and assume a more reflective narrative about itself.
It is genuinely a piece I wish I had written. But as you can see from the quality of the âstrokesâ here, I am still very far from that level of quality. And I invite those who have the means to subscribe to the newspaper, even if only to support ElĂsio Macamo and a handful of other journalists who are not so afraid of putting their finger on these wounds.
My main objection to the article is perhaps an omission deliberately made by the columnist. He says that Portugal is a country that produces good leaders for international institutions because of the structure of power, both historical and current, which produces leadership figures who cannot go much beyond the margins when managing the country. And one can think of many examples in history that prove this. Back in school, I spent a good amount of time having lessons on the Marquis of Pombal and his attempt â a frustrated one â to move the country forward in several social, governmental, and economic respects. And the resistance that came from basically every social layer of the country in response to that movement.
But I do not think this is merely the result of an inherent and/or endogenous characteristic of Portugal. In my view, it is a much stronger reflection of the countryâs status as a kingdom subjugated to a great power, which, when it tried to be independent, ended up humiliated and massacred both inside and outside the sphere in which it had always been so adept at navigating.
Because one of Portugalâs secrets, in my view, is precisely being out of the spotlight. It is the country that does not remain much in anyoneâs mind beyond the Portuguese themselves and, in some cases, the products of its colonization. Largely because, if Portugal were that prominent on the international board, this âhareâ would have been in the mouth of a âlionâ centuries ago.
On the contrary. In my view, the analogy is not with the hare, but with the remora. That fish that attaches itself to sharks in a mutualistic relationship. Rarely do they become prey to the greatest predator of the seas, because they know their position in the food chain very well and do not dare leave it. They are more than satisfied feeding on the eventual scraps from the carcasses a great white shark leaves behind after a successful hunt.
It is a very harsh perspective from which to analyze an entire country and the people who live in it. But Portugalâs inability to resolve its internal issues â as the columnist virtuously describes in the article â is what ends up motivating these analyses.
Whether one likes it or not, Portugal does in fact have a very strange duality. The president before the current one was the son of a former governor of one of the colonies the country maintained until the mid-1970s (!), and his father was consequently a direct descendant of counts, viscounts, and other nobles of the country. This figure was openly a âlusotropicalist,â and played an active role in trying to bring Portugal closer to the former colonies with which the country has never managed to fully come to terms.
The result was disastrous.
Portugal wants to describe itself as multicultural and diverse, but multiculturalism and diversity in Portugal are limited to differences in traditions between the North and South of the country and the fact that an IT company has 15% female workers compared with 2% in 2020. Even when there is an effort to go a little further and admit the influence of the colonized at the very heart of the colonizer, this comes with clear discomfort on the part of the latter.
And with the country finding itself highly in need of labor, but without the demographic capacity to meet those demands, there came an unprecedented migratory flow that was nevertheless entirely necessary for the country. And it had the âgoodâ side of making even clearer the fractures that Portugal had tried to hide in its relations with those who were once its subordinates.
Once again, Portugal is a âremora.â The âsharksâ of history have always been the external powers that gave Portugal the privilege of existing and even of imagining expansion across the world. The Spanish kingdoms in their internal squabbles, the English, the Americans, and now the European Union. Without these âsharks,â the âremoraâ would already have become part of some greater powerâs banquet â probably its neighbor on the Iberian Peninsula, which, thanks to its own incompetence both inside and outside the Old World, never managed to take that extra step.
I like the analogy with animals very much because, when it comes to the hare itself, in nature it is restless, skittish, and fearful. The remora does not need any of these behaviors. It does not need to do much beyond accompanying the shark on its journeys and âcleaningâ it when necessary. Since its metabolism is low, it does not take much to stay well fed when one is a remora. And being close to the shark, woe betide any potential predator that shows up to take it.
I have no problem admitting that my harshness comes from unresolved personal issues. I was not very smart in my choice of emigration. But life is what it is. It is also, in my view, about facing these questions head-on before someone comes from outside and resolves them for you in a far-from-ideal way.