“Let this event be more than an academic moment. Let it be a public gesture. A gesture of commitment. A gesture of confidence in democracy and knowledge.” It was with this appeal that the Rectorate of NOVA University Lisbon hosted, on Thursday the 5th, the event “Will There Be Democracy! University and Critical Reason”, which inaugurated Pulsar, University and Public Space, a permanent series of lectures, debates and civic forums devoted to the major issues of our time and to strengthening the democratic public sphere.
“With this series, we affirm the university as a civic heart that beats in the democratic public sphere, through initiatives that do not merely produce discourse, but create concrete conditions for thinking together,” NOVA’s Rector, Paulo Pereira, stressed, referring to the university’s heightened responsibility as a place for producing knowledge, fostering thought and mediating democratically – a speech you can read here.
Before a full auditorium, he reiterated NOVA’s commitment to being “open to society”: not merely observing the world, but engaging with it and intervening in the public sphere, bringing together the academic community and society for an exercise in listening, debate and building the common good.
The presence of the philosopher José Gil, Professor Emeritus at NOVA and author of the essay “Portugal Today, the fear of existing”, marked the opening of the event. And, alongside the risks we are grappling with, tools for citizenship, increasingly indispensable, were also presented.
José Gil: “An unrecognisable image of human relationships”.
Let us begin with José Gil’s words. At 86, he set out his view of the world. He spoke first of the risk posed by a greater threat now confronting us, namely the “apogee of techno-fascism”, citing various sources of contemporary critical thought, from Jonathan Rauch, in an early-2026 The Atlantic article entitled “Yes, it’s fascism!”, to Naomi Klein and her internationally recognised Doppelgänger. He noted that “today’s extreme discourse lacks theoretical principles”, that it is “culturally poor”, yet used, in a disguised way, as the threat of an approaching “end of the world”.
“Instead of prompting global solidarity, the way we dealt with Covid-19 ended up leading to an extraordinary perversion,” José Gil observed, adding that “then, the contagion triggered by the announcement of the end of the world crossed America’s borders, reaching not only Europe but also Asia.” The worst of it? All of this has now been revisited and amplified by the fact that “we feed an algorithm” that creates in us an “absolutely insatiable need to consume”, without forgetting that this “digital economy” bears unavoidable responsibility when it comes to the planet’s “environmental destruction”.
In short, he made his warning clear against “an immense and disproportionate power that is preparing” to “feed entire armies of robots”. This, in a scenario in which public life and private life “can barely be distinguished any more”, as we move towards “an unrecognisable image of human relationships”.
Debate: “You can’t fight the wind with your hands”
Moderated by José Maria Pimentel, economist, lecturer and host of the podcast «45 Graus», the debate featuring João Cancela (NOVA FCSH), Susana Peralta (NOVA SBE), Sandra Monteiro (editor of the Portuguese edition of Le Monde Diplomatique) and David Dinis (deputy editor of Expresso) began by acknowledging the lack of discussion in the public sphere.
“Above all because of the absence of shared reference points,” João Cancela noted, to which Sandra Monteiro added “a lack of pluralism and plurality, of encounters beyond what happens on social media”, warning of “the collapse of the order based on International Law”. In this context, another issue arises, as Sandra Monteiro also warned:“today’s journalism is no longer a pillar of democracy; it has become part of the problem”, recalling that “since 2019 we have seen the regular presence of André Ventura” as a “protagonist of television news”. But, as David Dinis pointed out, the origins of all this are much earlier, going back to the moment “clickbait” was invented to generate more advertising. “You can’t fight the wind with your hands.”
All of this is taking place against a backdrop in which, according to a study published by the ICS and cited there by Susana Peralta, around 41 per cent of Portuguese people are comfortable with the idea of having “a strong leader” who could, “in some circumstances”, solve all our problems. “The solution? Read newspapers, pay for them…,” the economist remarked, so that a free press can continue to fulfil its duty of holding power to account. And also “not to ostracise the other, never to exclude; above all, to try to understand what is happening…”.
Tools for citizenship: “Do not obey in advance…”
This was the first commandment presented by Joana Gonçalves de Sá, a researcher in data science and machine learning whose work focuses on algorithmic bias, in the talk that followed, entitled “Tools for citizenship”.
“My starting point is simple,” she clarified: “when people talk about the possible return of techno-fascism, it makes me very anxious,” the specialist admitted, before inviting the room, provocatively, to confront some of its assumptions, using an interactive tool to prompt the audience about how many people with racist behaviours are present in their relationships, or about the years in which temperatures set records over the last decade and a half, which were almost, almost all of them.
Inspired by “20 ideas for combating tyranny”, she presented her suggestions, or commandments, as the author of that book,Timothy Snyder, calls them. Thus, after “Do not obey in advance”, came “defend institutions”, followed by “make eye contact and small talk”, and concluding with “contribute to good causes”.
At the end, she presented her “Democracy Box”, a toolkit which, used in everyday life, fosters a more active and present citizenship.
The event ended with a musical moment by Samuel Úria.
