Charted seas

Looking towards Lisbon, a beacon

LISBON—The traditional American analog to Lisbon—Europe’s outpost built on seven hills where the Tagus River flows into the Atlantic—is San Francisco, and the comparison would be apt if San Francisco were grittier, thousands of years old, and everyone had accents that sounded vaguely Russian. The steep hills and streetcars and the ocean to the west certainly help the comparison. But unlike the Bay Area, the site of some of the most violent clashes between Trump supporters and protestors in 2016, Europe’s oldest capital is an island of political calm amid the roiling illiberal seas presently thrashing Western Europe. 

Whether it is Brexit and the looming collapse of Labour in the UK, Le Pen’s rise in France or ascendant right-wing populism in Germany, Austria and elsewhere, the old coalition on the left—between the working classes, minorities, and cosmopolitan elites—has finally fractured across the continent, sending shockwaves crashing in all directions, like an ice shelf cracking free and sliding into the ocean. With so much at stake amid so much turbulence in European capitals, it’s comforting to reflect that Lisbon—where liberal democracy in Portugal is holding strong under a stable, if fragile, center-left government—has been here longer than all the others.

Just why center-left liberal democracy is keeping it together in Portugal isn’t entirely clear, but it seems to have to do with the fact that the governing coalition has rejected the failed policies of crumbling neoliberal Europe. Prime Minister António Costa, of the Socialist Party, governs a center-left coalition that includes even hardline communists. But if his government is radical it’s only because it doesn’t easily conform to 20th century politics. 

He has rolled back austerity measures (cuts to social services and tax hikes), buttressing the social safety net and rejecting the politics of endless belt-tightening, but also cut taxes and regulations, putting money in Portuguese pockets and encouraging private sector growth. Basically Europe told Portugal it would have to start working more and harder for a lower quality of life. After a few years of that, Portugal said, “You know what? Fuck this,” and tried something else. Meanwhile, Europe had an identity crisis and realized that austerity was never going to work.

According to legend, Lisbon was founded by the Greek hero Odysseus. After winning the Trojan War (he’s the one who came up with the idea of sneaking into Troy inside of a giant sculpture of a horse), Odysseus set sail for his home in Ithaca, but his ships were blown off course by a storm. Undeterred, he started the long journey home—fighting a Cyclops on the way for good measure—but after 10 years at sea, just as Ithaca came into view, disaster struck again. While Odysseus was asleep, his men got greedy and opened a bag they thought contained gold but actually contained the many winds. Opening the many winds so rashly unleashed another storm that drove Odysseus and his party off course once more, just as the finish line was in sight. Tossed by the storm into uncharted seas at the perimeter of the world, Odysseus had been beaten back yet again. He sheltered in a harbor at the world’s westernmost edge—Lisbon, they say—where he prepared once again for the journey home through unknown lands teeming with monsters. 

There’s a certain romantic symbolism to all this that is impossible to ignore: Lisbon, founded by one of the great heroes of Western Civilization—after he’d been thwarted by greed and stupidity—as a kind of rear base from which to recover and relaunch his odyssey home is the same Lisbon that is now one of the last bastions of stable social democracy, a light shining in the darkness at the 11th hour, guiding the way forward.

As well as being the oldest, Lisbon is also Europe’s only capital city on the Atlantic, which is to say facing west, toward us, the Americans. As we embark on a Trump presidency—which promises to be a strange and monster-filled journey of its own—remember Lisbon out there across the ocean, where Odysseus regrouped after 10 years at war and 10 more at sea before embarking on another daunting journey home, shining its light in our direction.

For more from Denver, read his ode to smoky Mercury Lounge.