Invoking the ridiculous

1. Introduction

The image, posted by a common citizen on his/her personal Facebook page says the following:

“The minister has resigned… the rain put out the fires… Tanco’s armament showed up…

This, by tonight Maddie will appear.”


2. Being objective

First let’s explain very objectively, so our readers outside Portugal may understand, what is being referred to in the image without passing any sort of judgement on it.

The minister is the minister of internal administration (ministra da admnistração interna) Constança Urbano de Sousa, who resigned in the sequence of the tragic fires that happened this last Sunday in Portugal in which, at the latest count, 44 are dead. A significant number of homes were destroyed as well as many businesses.

The fires mentioned in the picture are these, that only on Tuesday were under control because it rained.

The Tanco’s armament was a set of military equipment that was allegedly (will explain why this term later) stolen from an Army depot in June this year.

Maddie, refers to the case very familiar to us.


3. Contextualising the minister and the fires

After the tragic events with the fires in Portugal, after the Prime-Minister having said that it was childish and that even that it would make him laugh the suggestion that the minister of internal administration should resign or be sacked because of such a tragedy, the pressure for that to happen grew strongly within the public opinion.

This was aggravated by the fact that a report had just been published about what went wrong in a similar tragedy that happened in July this year, known as the ‘Pedrógão fires’, and in which over 60 people died and that basically stated that the civilian protection structure failed grossly.

Between the ‘Pedrógão fires’ and last weekend no corrective action had been taken into that although in other fires that followed – many bigger or at least as big as the Pedrógão one – and that showed, or continued to show the glaring failures, namely in the area of communications the system had.

And the aggravation was aggravated further because the firefighting structure in the country was downsized for calendar reasons, on October 1st. The calendar ‘determines’ that the summer is over on that date, and the state expenditure on firefighting is reduced significantly on that date.

It happened this year, as it happened many years before.

Only this year, meteorologists and even the firefighting structure warned that there would be an extraordinary hot and dry October. Meaning what was dry in August, would be drier in October, so much more combustive.

All this added together made the prime-minister’s dismissive attitude – to keep things as light as possible – about the political conditions his minister in question had to remain in function to be incomprehensible – continuing to try to be light again – in the public opinion.

It was only after a very harsh speech made on Tuesday night by the President of the Republic in which all political pundits agreed that he publicly fired the Constança Urbano de Sousa, did she resign and her resignation was accepted by the Prime-Minister.

So, by saying “The minister has resigned… the rain put out the fires…” the citizen who published the photo is referring to this situation.


4. Contextualising the armament

The armament was allegedly stolen in June. We say allegedly because although reported stolen by the military, the defense minister has come before a parliamentary commission on the issue to raise questions on whether it had even been stolen.

Yesterday, after receiving an anonymous call the military criminal police (Polícia Judiciária Militar) found almost the entire the stolen armament about 30km from the depot it had been taken from.

We say almost the entire stolen equipment as about 1,500 9mm ammunitions are still missing.

So, by saying “Tanco’s armament showed up…” the citizen who published the photo is referring to this situation …


5. Interpreting the attempted humour

Again, trying our best to analyse things as objectively as possible, the citizen in question tried to be ironic by saying that the appearance of the stolen armament was in his/her opinion too much of a coincidence.

S/he is clearly implying that that this finding of the stolen armament was a ridiculous staging by the government to draw attention away from the very serious negativity currently surrounding it because of the tragedies caused by the fires.

Please note that we are not agreeing with this citizen, not supporting this kind of humour nor the reasons the person thought best to use to convey his or her idea. We are only giving our opinion on the interpretation of what we think s/he meant to say with this post on Facebook.


6. The ridiculousness

All of the above would have nothing to do with the blog if it wasn’t for the fact that the Maddie case was mentioned.

And it was mentioned with one simple reason: because the FB poster wanted to highlight the ridiculousness of something that s/he thought highly ridiculous.

That’s what people think of the Maddie case: it’s ridiculous.

These days, it seems, what shall one invoke when one wants to illustrate the ridiculousness of something? The Maddie case.

And rightly so, it is ridiculous.

And sad, very sad indeed but it is the opinion of the common citizen about the case.

The Maddie case is so transparently a cover-up, it’s obvious to anyone with 2 brain cells to rub together.

A continuous and omnipresent embarrassment to the UK that unless it’s properly closed will continue to pop up and, as can be seen, no longer only when a child goes missing.



Post Scriptum:

To the family and friends of those who lost their lives in the fires, our heartfelt sympathy.

To all those who in it lost their valued possessions such as their houses and businesses, may you recover as fast as possible with the help of all who are able to help.