For 18 years, Portugal and the world have appeared on the stage of Portuguese TV programme Prós&Contras. Journalist Fátima Campos Ferreira was the face of the oldest debate on national television, giving up, as she herself has admitted, «her body to the bullets» every week, for discussion and clarification around the most divisive issues of society. She emerged «wounded, but whole». And as a legacy she left a space of vital thought that boosted democracy, in prime time. A dignified documentary heritage that stayed on for posterity, thanks to the professionalism and courage that only women like Fátima Campos Ferreira are able to possess. The country is grateful to her and continues to follow her laudable work.
If you could choose which would be the moments that have most marked the country and the world in the last 20 years?
I think there are three major events that have marked the world and the country in these first twenty years of the 21st century: a) The terrorist attacks of September 11. b) The sovereign debt crisis triggered by the fall of the Lehman Brothers in September 2008. c) The pandemic, which exposes perhaps the most violent fracture of our generation. Any one of these events develops long-term processes.
Professionally, what was the most decisive moment for you in these two decades?Professionally I would mention the Debate that I conducted and coordinated for 18 years. In the thousands of testimonies that passed through this Ágora that was Prós&Contras, the atmosphere of modern Portugal, post-Expo 98, remains. Society respired the great problems in this debate, the divergences and the projects, but also human existence itself, and the meaning of time and of love. A collection of thought for future generations.
What would be, in your opinion, the most urgent change that the country and the world need to make in the next 20 years?
Without being optimistic or pessimistic, I think that changes are made by processes, and in the long term. The most important one has already begun, but it will take many decades. Step by step, the awareness of the planet’s sustainability is being created. It is in this that the future resides, and with advances and setbacks the human species will learn, once again, to walk onward.
If you could choose which would be the moments that have most marked the country and the world in the last 20 years?
I think there are three major events that have marked the world and the country in these first twenty years of the 21st century: a) The terrorist attacks of September 11. b) The sovereign debt crisis triggered by the fall of the Lehman Brothers in September 2008. c) The pandemic, which exposes perhaps the most violent fracture of our generation. Any one of these events develops long-term processes.
Professionally, what was the most decisive moment for you in these two decades?Professionally I would mention the Debate that I conducted and coordinated for 18 years. In the thousands of testimonies that passed through this Ágora that was Prós&Contras, the atmosphere of modern Portugal, post-Expo 98, remains. Society respired the great problems in this debate, the divergences and the projects, but also human existence itself, and the meaning of time and of love. A collection of thought for future generations.
What would be, in your opinion, the most urgent change that the country and the world need to make in the next 20 years?
Without being optimistic or pessimistic, I think that changes are made by processes, and in the long term. The most important one has already begun, but it will take many decades. Step by step, the awareness of the planet’s sustainability is being created. It is in this that the future resides, and with advances and setbacks the human species will learn, once again, to walk onward.
