The Forgetting Machine

The real problem is not the various "margins" that must constantly justify their right to exist. The problem is a system that needs to keep us separated so that we do not collectively confront those who truly ignore us.  

The storms that devastated parts of Portugal at the beginning of this year and the fires that swept the country last summer left a deep mark not only on the land, but once again reflected a reality we all already know: there are places and people in Portugal who, by virtue of their location and other reasons, exist only as scenery, as a destination for day trips, as a curiosity to observe. Uprooted trees, destroyed homes and lives turned upside down revealed, once more, that for the Portuguese State there are first-class citizens, second-class, third-class — and then people who don't even meet the conditions for full citizenship. But this is not a story only about geography. It is about power. It is about how the same system that abandons entire regions also marginalises immigrants, neurodivergent people, women, racialised people, poor communities, and communities with the courage to live their difference without hiding — like LGBTQIA+ people. The question that demands an answer is: when are we going to stop being divided and start fighting together?

This abandonment is not new, and the recent natural disasters that struck Portugal only made that reality even more obvious than it already was. The inhabitants of the most affected regions, many of them elderly or living in poverty, were left to fend for themselves, as if they were less deserving of protection. But this is not a reality exclusive to these geographical areas. One need only look at so many parts of the country, or at the peripheral neighbourhoods of Lisbon or Porto, where immigrants and racialised families, or people on the edge of poverty, live in dilapidated housing without basic conditions. Or look at people with physical differences, who have spent years fighting for accessibility provisions that never arrive. The pattern is clear: the State fails those who have no voice in the corridors of power. The difference is that while rural populations are forgotten because of their location, others are forgotten because of their origin, skin colour, or physical or economic condition. Exclusion has many faces, but the same root.

Rural areas are treated as if they were less modern, less important. Immigrants are seen only as cheap labour, available to be exploited. People with physical differences are ignored until the moment someone, wanting to appear virtuous, decides they should perhaps be "included." And racialised women face double or triple discrimination: for being women, for being Black or Roma, and for living in poor areas. This hierarchy of citizenship is not accidental — it is built by policies that decide who deserves investment and who can be left behind. When the State cuts funding for rural healthcare but authorises the creation of private health centres in Lisbon, it is saying that some lives are worth more than others. When Civil Protection takes days to reach a flooded village but acts within hours in an affluent neighbourhood of the capital, it reinforces that message. The question is not only "why do they forget us?" but "why do we accept being forgotten separately?"

The forgetting machine does not work alone — it needs accomplices. And one of its greatest accomplices is the division between those whose loss "doesn't make much difference." It is easy to blame immigrants for the lack of resources, as the far right does, feeding on the hatred it spreads. It is easy to look at rural populations as "backward," or at neurodivergent children as "burdens." It is also easy to look sideways with disdain at LGBTQIA+ communities, with the audacity of wanting to live their lives in peace, without being driven underground — full lives, spoken aloud, because courage and pain, despite constant discrimination, are not mutually exclusive. But this division is a trick. The real problem is not the various "margins" that must constantly justify their right to exist. The problem is a system that needs to keep us separated so that we do not collectively confront those who truly ignore us. When a farmer from the Alentejo believes his enemy is an immigrant working in the fields, he is repeating the script of those who truly rob him: the large economic groups that manage water reserves as they please, the banks, the State that does not invest, and the countless local entrepreneurs quickly turned landlords who have found a good source of undeclared income. When a middle-class person from Lisbon looks down on social housing estates, they are ignoring that the precariousness affecting those neighbourhoods could reach their own door at any moment, should the area where they live become an attractive target for property investment.

There are, however, those who stubbornly refuse to be forgotten and erased, and who are fighting against this division. There are community gardens, theatre projects that denounce the working conditions of immigrants in Portugal, and collectives that link the anti-racist struggle to the fight for labour rights. There are movements that state that dignified housing is a right for all, regardless of origin or income. These are just some examples of how solidarity is not an abstract ideal, but a survival strategy. When rural populations and immigrants unite, when people with physical differences and racialised minorities fight side by side, they become harder to ignore. The State can close its eyes to an abandoned village or a poor neighbourhood, but it cannot ignore an alliance of thousands. Only the people help the people — and this is clearly seen when extreme events like storms, floods or fires occur.

Building alliances is not easy. It requires acknowledging the privileges and prejudices that exist within marginalised groups themselves. A white farmer may never have thought about the racism an immigrant worker faces. An urban activist may not understand the difficulties of living in a village without public transport. But it is precisely in this dialogue that strength resides. Learning from each other's struggles is not only a matter of justice — it is a matter of effectiveness. Immigrants know how to organise strikes to draw attention. Rural populations know how to resist depopulation through housing cooperatives. People with physical differences know how to pressure for accessibility legislation. Together, this knowledge becomes a powerful, spirited force that is difficult to ignore.

What can we do, then, to transform this reality? We can map the struggles — learning who is fighting for what, where and how. We can create shared campaigns, demanding, for example, that participatory budgets include all regions and social groups. We can educate one another through workshops, debates and exchanges of experiences between different communities. We can also apply political pressure, joining forces to influence local authorities, political parties and public policy. And we must build alternative narratives, using social media, local newspapers and art to tell stories of resistance that the mainstream media ignores. If a village in the interior and a neighbourhood in Lisbon unite to demand clean water and public transport, the State will not be able to ignore both at the same time.

A country without margins is possible, but only if we are collectively capable of rolling up our sleeves. There are examples throughout the world of how this can be done. The challenge lies in scaling these local, truly community-driven initiatives and transforming them into public policy. To do so, we must overcome the individualism that has been imposed on us and the scepticism that paralyses us. "Nothing ever changes" is the mantra of those who benefit from the current system. History proves otherwise: when people come together, that is when entrenched powers begin to tremble.

This is not a call for charity, but for justice. Solidarity is not a favour done to others — it is the recognition that our struggles are interconnected. When someone living in a village is abandoned, when an immigrant is exploited, when a racialised woman is discriminated against, when a non-cisgender or neurodivergent person is looked at sideways, it is the same system at work. The question that remains is: will we continue to let them divide us, or will we finally understand that our strength lies in the common ground of knowing that our very existence is uncomfortable? The next storms will come. The question is: will we face them alone, or together?

We can start today, with small gestures of change. Instead of looking at the "margins" only as subjects for a news report or a statistic, we can knock on the door of our neighbourhood association, ask what is missing in the village where our grandparents live, listen to the union at our workplace, support the group of immigrants that is organising, or simply show up at the next local collective meeting or even the next parish assembly. We do not need to wait for the next storms to discover that we depend on one another — and that it is together that we assert ourselves collectively.

A country is not decided in Lisbon. It is decided in abandoned villages, in peripheral neighbourhoods, in immigrant associations, in environmental collectives, defending climate causes, defending animal rights, in shelters for women and children who are victims of domestic violence, in the solidarity networks created when people take their present into their own hands and work collectively. It is decided in every gesture of solidarity, in every shared campaign, in every moment we choose to fight side by side rather than allowing ourselves to be divided.

The margin is not a place — it is a condition imposed on those whom power wishes to forget. But when the margins unite, they become the centre of change. And it is that centrifugal force, created when we go out to meet one another and look at each other and listen to each other, that makes those who live off our forgetting begin to tremble.

Translated from the Portuguese by Sandra Guerreiro.