At my high school, the whole purpose of the Portuguese (“pork chop”) kids seemed to be to make the Italians look smart or something.
Alberto Gonçalves seems like the exception:
I, for one, was about to suggest to those who compare the Cairo uprising with that of April 25 [Portugal revolution of 1974] the end of Communism in Eastern Europe, to count the number of reporters who were raped – excuse me – sexually assaulted, by crowds in Lisbon in 1974 or Budapest in 1989. But I gave up the idea. The vaguest reticence to agree on the intrinsic purity of ecstatic Muslims quickly raises insinuations of “Islamophobia” and “racism.” (…)
I confess: my name is Alberto and I’m a little “Islamophobic.” (…)
Perhaps it’s because the presumed “moderate” Muslim majority are discrete or missing in the condemnation of immoderate Muslims. Perhaps it’s because, in the few democratic opportunities available to them, so-called “moderate” Muslims insist on voting for less moderate parties (as in Algeria and Gaza, for example). Perhaps it’s because a considerable number of Muslims feel offended by the freedoms that the West took centuries to achieve, including the critical but unappreciated fundamental right to mockery. Perhaps it’s because countless Muslim immigrants to the West reject any attempt to integrate, and instead, seek to impose their respective (admirable) traditions. Perhaps it’s because, in the West, Islamic fervor has won the sympathy of the totalitarian spirit of the right (I’ve seen skinheads parading with Palestinian headscarves demonstrating in favor of Iran) and, today in particular, the left.
