My grandfather left Portugal to look into Canada as a possible new home for his growing family. Under the ruling regime of Antonio de Oliveira Salazar, who was Prime Minister from 1932 to 1968, my grandfather had finally lost faith in little mighty Portugal. Salazar developed the “Estado Novo” which literally translated is the New State. Portugal was in the midst of massive change. Salazar’s new policies and reforms simply priveleged the upper classes to no limit while the poorer sections of society were left to rot. Education wasn’t a priority so it wasn’t invested in, instead more money would fund PIDE, the secret police repressing, torturing and murdering anyone who opposed the new state.
Today when I was reading the news article about these eleven people from Africa in search of a better life, I immediately started to remember the story of my parents and their immigration to Canada. My parents sadly left Portugal when they were young children. My father from the northern region near Braga and my mother left behind her friends in the middle of Portugal near Aveiro. My father landed in Quebec where my grandfather had set things up to bring the entire family over one by one, as he raised the funds to do so each time. Through this period of time his youngest son was born back in Portugal while he was still in Quebec. They wouldn’t meet until years later. Oddly enough my parents would both land first in Quebec before finally meeting each other in southwestern Ontario.
Many of the family stories I have been told are definitely classic tales of crop sharers who wanted more education, more opportunities, simply more than a small percentage of someone else’s share. In Salazar’s world, they were nothing important, nobody. Were these Africans nobody too? What were they escaping? How much do we really know about what is happening in these African countries?
Although there were eleven bodies found on the tiny boat it had originally left with 54 people. Setting course for Spain, the boat would lose most of its passengers and eventually run adrift where it was finally found off course near the Barbados. It is still unclear exactly where the passengers were from but officials presume they were from Senegal. Authorities are investigating into a Spaniard living in the Canary Islands who may have organized the deadly trip charging passengers between $1,200-$1,500 USD.
Canary Islands authorities have intercepted nearly 7,000 migrants since January, compared with 4,751 in all of 2005. More than 1,000 are believed to have fallen to the brutal power of the sea attempting the journey from Africa to the Canary Islands since December. Last month 600 people were found in crowded boats after the week before when 1,000 were intercepted in one weekend. The numbers are staggering.
Fifty years have passed since my parents made their voyage and still people from all around the world are leaving their homes, their countries, for a mysterious promise of something better. Some of them are fleeing to Canada and we all have heard of the immigration stories coming from the United States recently as well. Unfortunately the stories are summed up into authority headlines announcing sweet victory of their captures, their intelligent investigations and the record numbers rescued, only to be shipped back again.
The things my parents stressed growing up were education, education and education. Maybe some of these people would have thought twice about taking on this journey if they truly knew what they were getting into. Or maybe no education would stop them from leaving absolute death, corruption and destruction. How are we to know?
The real stories are lying on the bottom of the sea, thousands of untold stories that could reveal more about this unbalanced world we live in. These stories could give us a glimpse into today’s new search for a better life for all.
This has been another Observation from the Island.
peace,
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