Standing out at the front of the protest about to arrive at the square in front of the National Assembly (NA), Paulo Rodrigues, president of the National Association of Police Professionals (ASPP/PSP), calls his communications adviser. ‘What’s the number of protesters we’re giving out?’, he asks. ‘Certainly not under 15 thousand’, his adviser replies. As soon as he gets this information, the union leader widens his steps carried by navy blue sneakers, the same color as the suit he’s wearing, and disappears.
The wave of protesters starts 10 meters further back. At the head of it comes Rafael (alias), now retired from the National Republican Guard (GNR), and coming from ‘the province’. You don’t notice his long and prominent nose right away, because his head is covered by a soviet style cap – from its fake brown fur, the hammer and sickle stand out right at the center of his forehead. ‘This doesn’t mean I’m a communist or any of that. I don’t have any kind of ideology. It’s just to stand out. The cap isn’t even mine, it’s the boy’s, my son’s. He’s just like these new kids now, always angry. So, he mail ordered this shit from Russia. It came from over there, man!’
By his side, so short you can hardly see him in the crowd now arriving at São Bento Palace, comes Rafael’s brother-in-law, also a former military in the GNR. To hide his real name, he chooses to be called Manuel. ‘Today, this is going to be quiet and orderly, because that’s just how it’s got to be’, he predicts.
Both were in the previous safety forces’ protest, in November 17, 2013, marked by the taking of the NA’s staircase by the protesters. ‘I was one of the first to climb it!’, Rafael boasts. ‘The officers didn’t put up a fight, it’s just like I’m telling you: I was like this, holding up a flag next to an on-duty colleague and he did nothing to me. But today will be peaceful, I’m staying at the back.’
Rafael and Manuel don’t know Orlando Cruz, but they walk together, side by side, right from the start of the protest on Marquês de Pombal square. ‘I’m here as a politician. I’m the head of the PTP [Portuguese Workers Party] to the European elections. I’m ready to go to Brussels and show that I came here to show people who are the politicians standing with the protesters. Orlando Cruz had to be here.’ He informs that he’s already ran twice for President of the Republic, the same number of times to Oporto’s Municipal Council and on a different occasion, in 2013′s local elections, he ran to the municipality of Matosinhos. With a smile on his face, like someone who feels at home, Orlando Cruz puts up the little battery powered megaphone he carries in his right hand and presses a button. The result is the high-pitched sound of a siren, just like the one police cars have. There’s a huge ovation around him, most of it caused by laughter from the irony of the situation. The loudest are “The Gauls”, a group of prison guards from the jail at Carregueira. Properly identified with their tight-fitting black t-shirts, some of them have their faces covered by ski masks. Every one of them looks to be twice the size of the aspiring Member of the European Parliament. ‘This is it, fuuuuuck! There’s no way out!’, one of them shouts, with a swollen vein showing in his tense neck. When they’re almost running to the front of the Parliament, Paulo Rodrigues, the union leader, shows up walking in the opposite direction to the march. He asks permission from his on-duty colleagues to open up the barrier that’s isolating the Parliament. On behalf of the ASPP, that’s been organizing this protest for a month, he’ll present the reasons for the safety forces’ discontent to the President of the NA, Assunção Esteves.
The push and shove anthem
It’s 8:05p.m. when Rafael, Manuel, Orlando Cruz and “The Gauls” finally arrive at the square in front of the National Assembly’s building. They each assume their position. The two brothers-in-law stay at the rear, indistinguishable in the crowd except for Rafael’s soviet cap. Orlando Cruz, who stands alone, joins up with “The Gauls”, who’re clinging to the fences at the bottom of the staircase.
The demonstration’s sound van is at the back of the square, where José Mendes, ASPP’s speaker, shouts slogans into a microphone: ‘United policemen will never be beaten!’ and ‘Passos, pay attention, the police are right!’. The parade is still arriving at the scene. Although the number of protesters is still increasing, the slogans are slow to catch. Few people repeat them and those who do don’t show great enthusiasm.
At 8:20p.m.,“The Gauls”, who in the meantime had already put sweaters over their black t-shirts, put their boxer hands to the fences and put them to the side in the blink of an eye. ‘That’s it! You’re the ones with muscles, do it. Do it!’, shouts a man carrying the ASPP’s flag, encouraging them. Orlando Cruz is next to “The Gauls”, doing his best to put the fallen fences to the side. The Rapid Intervention Unit agents, wearing yellow reflective vests and armed only with a baton, are replaced by the Riot Police (CI), more robust and well prepared for what’s coming. One of them, from behind his helmet that’s reflecting the light of the two posts illuminating the staircase, says to the protesters: ‘Take it easy, don’t ruin this!’. “The Gauls” respond with a song, accompanied by pelvic motions: “Oh CI, Oh CI, come here! Come here! Turn your ass around, turn your ass around! There you have it, there you have it!”
Five minutes go by and the national anthem starts playing from the sound van. As soon as the unmistakable first notes sound, the more hostile group of protesters advances on their on-duty colleagues. ‘Come oooon, fuck! Don’t give up!’, one of them was shouting when he was already face to face with a member of the CI. ‘Pull! Pull! Pull! Pull!’, an older one was encouraging from a few meters back, like a Monday morning coach. ‘It’s easier pushing them then shoving them. That way, they fall right over and we can go through’, he explains to a colleague by his side.
After-shave, sweat and alcohol
As soon as the anthem stopped, the protest’s speaker asked for calm, repeating ad eternum the sentence: ‘I appeal to good sense on both parties!’. ‘But what parties are those?! There’s only one, the Police, and that’s it. Push!’, shouted one of the protesters trying to invade the Assembly’s staircase. When he finally changes his tone, his voice becomes even more of a shrill: ‘I’d like to ask for a big round of applause for our on-duty colleagues. They’d like to be with us, but they can’t because they have to work!’ The ovation is one of the biggest of the whole night, if not the loudest. Even those who’re pushing the CI officers find a way of doing it with their shoulders or with their backs, just so their hands are free to clap. A member of “The Gauls”, with a shaved head and wide open eyes, shouts at one of the on-duty officers: ‘I’m applauding you now, but after that I’ll push you from here till kingdom come, you hear?!’.
The clock is now showing 9p.m. and the attempt to invade the NA’s staircase has been going on for 35 minutes. On the first fifteen steps, conquered by the protesting police officers, the air is filled with a mix of after-shave, sweat and alcohol. Orlando Cruz, PTP’s candidate to the European Parliament, merely one more body between the 500 trying to pierce the police barrier, complaints he can’t breathe and asks to leave. ‘Let our colleague pass, let him pass,’ says a member of “The Gauls”. As soon as the politician from Matosinhos stops to breathe, he sees a camera and a reporter from SIC television. He approaches the reporter and asks if he can speak. ‘You [reporters] have much of the guilt in this, and the editors even more, because they only talk about three parties!’, he says to the reporter, who decides not to continue the live broadcast.
Once in a while, a beer bottle flies towards the staircase. ‘We’re not going up because we don’t want to!’, the speaker shouts. ‘We’re not going up because you’re afraid in there!’, people answer from the front line a short while later. To catch their breath and regain energy, some officers trying to invade the staircase momentarily go down to the base, taking turns not to lose any ground. Those with their faces covered take off the masks. ‘We should have gone from the side. We won’t make it from the front, we won’t make it. Fuck, I really wanted to go inside… If I went inside Parliament, I’d go straight to Passos’ seat.’
Meanwhile, at the sound van, a protester rises up against the speaker. ‘We’re not going up because we don’t want to?!’, he asks in outrage, calling him every name that comes to his mind. Immune to the insults, the man with the microphone, now with a calm voice, announces: ‘We found an ID. Here’s the name… It’s Armindo Peixoto. Please, colleague, come here and get your ID.’ ‘ID?! You better go home!’, the same protester shouts, while he’s taken away by colleagues who try to calm him down. He’s taken to the front of the protest, where the shoving continues, but now without the initial steam.
When he gets there, frustration is the main feeling among those who dream of climbing the staircase. The protesters have been conquered by fatigue and they’ve lost most of the fifteen steps they’d manage to conquer with their initial push. They only have the first flight of stairs left, eight steps in total. After going through the rage phase, many are frustrated and shout it from the top of their lungs. Some people curse the country and say they’re fed up. Another protesting police officer takes it out on an officer from the CI. ‘I’d like to see you in a patrol car!’, he challenges. ‘I’m from Trás-os-Montes, boy! I don’t go to the gym like you do; this is water, wine and bread!’.
A group of friends
At 10p.m., a truce starts. The CI is lined up on the staircase, but no one is standing up to it. Some take the chance to photograph them while they rest and drink water. A few bottles are distributed to the few remaining protesters. Most of them are now going up São Bento street, returning to the 70 plus buses that brought them to Lisbon. There’s no sign of Rafael and Manuel, nor of Orlando Cruz or even “The Gauls”. One of the few still remaining on the square is Paulo Rodrigues, who came back from the NA. Although he got up at 05:30a.m. and he hasn’t stopped for a second since then, he looks fresh. He’s eating a packet of chocolate cookies while passers-by greet him.
Did it go well? ‘It was good, I think so, yes. We talked to Assunção Esteves and she showed she was aware of our problems, saying she understood why we’re nervous. In the end, she asked us for a document with our demands so she could intervene with the parliamentary group.’ And do these tense moments represent a divide between policemen? ‘No, this is normal. It’s like a group of friends who go to a club. It’s a group of five or six colleagues. Some of them say, ‘Come on, let’s go meet those girls’, and there are others who just want to do their thing, ‘Just let me stay at the bar’. This is like that, it’s an analogy. We’re all friends, but there are decisive moments where each one’s interests aren’t the same… But it’s natural for people to be like that at a time like this. A colleague was showing me his pay slip with a total of 782 Euros. I got an urge to hit the first guy who stood in my way. People start realizing they can’t guarantee a dignified situation for their families and then…”
A protester passes by and greets him: ‘I’m really proud of our guys, man. I’m really proud of the boys, the police behaved very well.’
‘… and then there’s this,’ the union leader concluded, relieved that the day ended well.