Minister in sports while Portuguese history is auctioned off

The document is dated December 29, 1519. D. Manuel I, the Fortunate, grants Vasco da Gama the title of Count of Vidigueira. It is the consecration of a national hero, a navigator made noble, the greatest symbol of maritime expansion and the construction of an unparalleled empire. It is the first noble title granted to a Portuguese navigator. The document, on parchment, has now been put up for sale by Sotheby's auction house in New York. The Portuguese State did not attend. Not a single bid. Not a single intention. Not a single gesture. In a country that erects statues to the past and speaks of Camões in occasional speeches, this silence is glaring. The royal charter, valued at between 150,000 and 250,000 dollars, was not considered a priority. The Ministry of Culture, which also oversees Youth and Sports, looked the other way. The minister, overwhelmed or simply distracted, seems more committed to sports initiatives and youth events than to fulfilling her duty to preserve the nation's historical foundations. The truth is this: Vasco da Gama was auctioned off and the State did not care. It preferred to watch from afar, speechless, as if it were an unimportant archaeological curiosity. But it was not. It was a founding document, a material testimony of Portuguese identity, which should be kept under the care of the Torre do Tombo or on public display in a national museum. The problem is not just the minister's — it is a State that, from legislature to legislature, from government to government, has demonstrated a structural detachment from its own history. A country that allows documents like this to be released onto the global market, without any resistance, is a country that is renouncing its cultural sovereignty. The most tragic thing is that all this happened without scandal. The letter found no buyer. A bitter irony: neither foreigners nor Portuguese wanted it. But if a millionaire had taken the step, Portugal would have lost one of its most symbolic documents forever. And not a single voice would have been raised in protest. Culture, Youth and Sports in a single portfolio? Perhaps it is time to ask whether this is not too much. Or, worse, whether Culture is not being sacrificed in the name of the political visibility of the other two. Portugal needs a cultural policy that is not merely formal. It needs leaders who know how to distinguish a summer festival from a royal decree. And who have the courage — and the sensitivity — to act when History calls.

Because there are times when the country is measured not by words, but by silences. And this was a silence that diminished us all.