"When the hundred vessels appeared, their crews had a good laugh: a European fleet, all lights blazing, had drawn up in a vast semicircle at the entrance to the bay. It looked as if they were expecting a review. The ships fired a salvo of blank cartridges, one after the other. Then a voice blared through megaphones, first in French, then in English:
'Turn back! Turn back! France cannot take you in! Europe cannot take you in!' The Third World armada replied with a single, colossal cry. It was not a battle cry. It was the vast, primitive voice of hope, of welcome, a sort of joyous, triumphant bellow, like a child's gleeful discovery of a toy. And the ships continued to advance."
(...)
"The one hundred vessels began to enter the harbor, one after the other, in a long, silent procession. No trumpets blared, no flags waved. Just a slow, inexorable advance. From the shore, the onlookers—the few who remained—watched in a daze, as if hypnotized. There were no shouts, no resistance. Just the quiet ripple of the waves against the hulls, and the shuffling of countless feet as the first waves of humanity began to spill onto the beaches.
They were everywhere, a human tide: men, women, children, old people, all pouring out of the ships, their faces etched with a mixture of exhaustion and a strange, quiet triumph. They were not an invading army in the traditional sense, but a force of sheer numbers, overwhelming by their mere presence. The air filled with a murmuring, a new language, a new odor. Europe, it seemed, was no longer Europe."
PS: Entre 2017 e 2024, o número de imigrantes em Portugal aumentou 267%. As consultas a utentes estrangeiros nos CSP do SNS aumentaram 332%. O número de alunos estrangeiros inscritos nas escolas públicas aumentou 309%...
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