You like it here? Good for you. It's nice to live in a friendly environment where people are free, build family and a career, where you can focus completely on what you do best, feel reasonably safe from harassment, isn't it?
What the article illustrates is exactly one of many situations where that does not happen. You don't live there, you can't say that there's no problem, "move along there's nothing to see here".
You can call me angry about the way that I hate this undemocratic Sharia "Law", because that goes more to the heart of the matter, than some anti-immigrant views that you naively accused me of. I'm the son of a guy that fought in the colonial war and belong to the group of military that overthrew the 48 years fascist dictatorship in 1974. He had to endure fascism, repression, starvation, war, trauma. Being educated by such a person, of course I'm moved by ideology and activism, it couldn't be otherwise. I really, really, really like democracy and freedom that my old man gifted me, very nice stuff
I don't intend to lose it.
I don't really know why I presented a justification for the way I am or try to be. Just be sure that I will not stand on my ass if I see this Islam garbage becoming predominant here.
First off, apologies for my first post, it upset you and it was wrong of me to say you were spouting garbage. You were however being aggressive towards people who were offering you reasoned arguments by telling them to "shut up". That kind of approach won't engender respectful responses. However, I was out of order, so apologies for that...I'll try to be more reasoned and considered in my response.
Now, please don't misunderstand me, and I don't mean to ever disrespect the efforts of your father and those like him, but I met Vitor Alves once before he died, he and my father-in-law (a university professor who was imprisoned briefly under the dictatorship) were good friends. The ideologies of freedom and democracy that both these men stood for included the right of someone like the idiot in the news article you linked (and I agree with you on that, the guy is an idiot) to speak his mind and have his opinions no matter how repugnant those opinions may be to people like you and I.
That's what freedom is.
But with regard to that article, you're blowing things out of all proportion, and using it as a stick to beat an entire culture....which is what the writers and publishers of that particular piece of crap newspaper wanted. You're allowing yourself to be manipulated by ridiculously superficial "journalism"
You're right, I no longer live in the UK, but most of my family do, many of my friends do (both Portuguese and English), and of course I visit often. The article you linked is akin to say, some individual coming to my street and posting "Brits out" stickers everywhere, then phoning Tal e Qual, or Correio da Manha and getting them to send a journalist along to cover this "wave of anti-British sentiment". The journalist takes a few snaps, then goes to the local tasca, buys a few locals a Sagres, and says "Do you think that's it's good that English people (I'm the only one in my street by the way) come here, push up house prices, take Portuguese jobs and inflict their culture on everyone. Would you like it if you were forced to eat baked beans and crap English food in this tasca?"
Of course the locals say that actually that doesn't sound all that nice, and then the story is spun as "Hatred as English immigrants attempt to take over Principe Real" or whatever.
You see, it's a non story...it's one person's opinion but sadly people are taken in by this crap, and in the case of the Daily Mail, it's a story that serves to back up their constant anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant policy (which is ironic considering the owner, despite being the 4th Viscount Rothermore, is not actually classed as a resident of the UK to avoid paying tax there, and yet his paper constantly writes about immigrants who rip off the UK welfare system).
It does nothing more than spread hatred and misinformation. Don't be fooled by it.
As for Sharia law, I am in complete agreement with you, it's disgraceful...but of all the Muslim countries in the world, do you know how many of them have Sharia policies? Do you know how many significant Sharia political parties there are in those countries? On balance, sharia policies are far less popular than far right, ultra conservative policies are in western nations. It's not even close. You repeatedly seem to see Islam as being closely connected to Sharia law....they're not. It's like someone thinking that because certain dictators like Salazar and Franco pushed Catholic views, then Catholicism must be connected with undemocratic fascist dictatorship.
I don't know anything about you, but have you spent much time in Islamic countries, or much time around Muslims? I didn't always "take pretty pictures" for a living. For most of my professional like I was a teacher. Between 1996 and 1998, I worked in school in London teaching English to immigrants, most of whom were from Middle Eastern countries. By and large, their goals in life were the same as yours or mine. To have a job and a home, to have the freedom to follow their beliefs and felt no need to push those beliefs onto others. (To be honest, this is true of every single muslim I've ever met).
After I came to Portugal in '98, I spent a couple of summers working in Cairo. One time pre 9/11, the second time post 9/11. I travelled pretty extensively through Egypt at the time, and have also travelled pretty extensively in Morocco. At Easter, my wife and I drove from the coast down through the country to the edge of the Sahara, and in the various places we stayed we worked with local guides so I could get better photographs. We got to know many local people, who as was the case in Egypt, were without exception, friendly, hospitable and well informed about the world. They were all as scathing and disgusted by sharia law as any westerner is.
I was there when the bomb went off in Jamaa el Fna, Marrakech (on the other side of the country, luckily for me), and the Moroccan people I was with were all as equally shocked and outraged as the western media.
So to link this ridiculous guy in the Mail article, and to take it seriously as some kind of movement for instatement of Sharia law in the UK doesn't do you any favours. I regularly meet Portuguese people who tell me that "things were so much better under Salazar", but I don't for a second believe that there's any general wave of feeling or desire for that kind of government again. Neither should you think that because a newspaper with a very clear anti-Muslim agenda reports on a single nutcase putting some Sharia law stickers up in the UK, that there is a wave of support for it among the local Muslim community. There isn't even support for it in most Islamic countries.
As for that "Islam garbage becoming predominant here", Portugal has been shaped by Islamic influences for a millennia. From the inter-breeding of races to the palm trees in the streets. From the agricultural techniques to Muslim-based names of areas and parts of the country, like Algarve (Al-Gharb), Alfama (Al-Hamma), Bensafrim (Ben Safarim) and, (yep, you guessed it) Benfica.
Edit: Why do I have a suspicious feeling that I've just wasted my time typing all that?