Continuity with Method: Identity, Legitimacy and the Future
Commentary by Manuel Silvério
Former President of the General Assembly of the Macau Civil Servants’ Association (ATFPM)
The issue is easy to state and hard to solve: how to keep Macau distinctive, preserving Macanese* identity while ensuring renewal, continuity and real space for a new bilingual/trilingual generation –capable of contributing to education, the economy, culture and public life. The reactions I received to the previous piece confirm one essential point: this is not an academic debate – it is about the future. It is worth acknowledging those who gave this discussion substance through thoughtful contributions: André Ritchie, António Monteiro, Carlos Beja, Carlos Seruca Salgado, Diogo Calado, Fernando Gomes, Gilberto Camacho, Leonel Alberto Alves, Sérgio Pérez and Vicente Domingos Pereira Coutinho. To the many others who replied through other channels, my thanks as well – even when the response was brief, because that too shows how deeply the subject resonates.
André Ritchie was blunt when he shared the article: it is an old debate, with little visible progress, and mistrust – sometimes disguised as systemic paternalism – which remains convenient for some. The conclusion is harsh but clear: if opportunities are not created in time, they end up arriving “for our children” – and, without drama, life goes on, but continuity is lost. The line is uncomfortable precisely because it points to the cost of delay: words are not lacking; what is lacking is follow-through.
A recurring idea - highlighted by António Monteiro -is that “young” is not merely an age; it is a phase of life. Engagement must happen before life fills up with unavoidable obligations. If that window is missed, everything becomes harder: work, family and responsibilities reducing availability. This is not an excuse; it is reality. That is why continuity cannot depend on occasional invitations: there must be a normal, predictable and demanding pathway that allows people to enter early, learn, take on tasks and grow without having to “ask for permission”.
Another point emerges clearly: when an association becomes personalised, renewal turns into an exception. Associations cannot exist to preserve positions; they must exist to fulfil a mission. Sérgio Pérez described how, at certain moments, the energy of younger members was held back by tutelage, mistrust or excessive “protection”, and how projects capable of bringing diverse people together lost momentum. Fernando Gomes touched the central nerve: leadership that fails to train successors weakens the “pipeline” and turns continuity into a vague promise.
Vicente Domingos Pereira Coutinho voiced a similar concern: when renewal is not treated as a normal process, progression depends on exceptions and rare moments, rather than resting on criteria and continuity.
The third point relates to identity. Gilberto Camacho reminded us, with the rare force of someone speaking from history and from the soul, that culture is not invented overnight. Macanese culture – like any culture – needs time, transmission and everyday life. Preserving it requires two things that are simple to state and difficult to sustain consistently: documenting and transmitting.
Documenting prevents loss; transmitting prevents freezing. Without documentation, what was lived disappears; without transmission, what was inherited becomes a museum piece. No one wants Macanese culture to survive only as a display case; we want it to survive as life.
This is where Carlos Beja’s message reads almost as a moral synthesis of the debate. He wrote, rightly, that there is “much more that unites us than divides us”. In a Macau made up of Chinese, Macanese and Portuguese – many with a dual attachment to their motherlands – hope lies in intergenerational and multiracial solidarity, practised naturally across several languages. This is not a line for a frame; it is a programme. When the community organises around what unites it – service, competence, respect and continuity –Macau’s distinctiveness stops being mere memory and becomes a force for the future.
There is also a context that makes this debate more urgent. Carlos Seruca Salgado stressed an important point: Macau’s uniqueness and commitment to the motherland are not mutually exclusive; they reinforce one another. A Macau confident in its history and in its capabilities is more useful to the country. That is precisely why internal continuity – cultural and civic – is not an identity-related whim; it is a matter of public usefulness and stability. A Macau that knows who it is, and that trains successors, is a stronger Macau.
There is an institutional point that should be stated plainly, because it grounds this discussion. As Leonel Alberto Alves rightly recalled, the Basic Law itself, in Article 24, includes permanent residents linked to the historic Portuguese presence within the MSAR’s legal-political design. That means something fundamental: this reality was not treated as a “leftover of the past”, but as a structural component of the political community. More than 25 years on, the question is not whether a status exists; it is whether we can transform it into a civic project – with continuity, method and results – rather than reducing it to nostalgia, commemorative dinners or a museum.
And today, as the MSAR seeks to deepen co-operation with the Lusophone world and attract more Portuguese investment, one obvious point bears repeating in my own words: attracting investment also means attracting people. People with skills, languages, professional ethics and connective capacity – because it is human capital that gives depth and continuity to financial capital.
As Leonel Alberto Alves also reminded me in wise words, there is a defining mark that has always characterised us: internationalism – not only in linguistic terms, but in the ability to adapt to different ways of living and working. This should be valued by new generations: keep Portuguese as a bridge, but invest also in other globally circulating languages with commercial reach, strengthening Macau’s competitiveness and the strategic usefulness of these profiles.
This is where Diogo Calado’s testimony helps bring the discussion down to earth: a Portuguese national with extensive experience in mainland China, now based in Macau, married to a Macau resident of Chinese background, with a clear family project to raise his daughter in a multilingual environment – an example of how Macau’s distinctiveness is built through concrete choices. Macau’s difference is not preserved by decree; it is built through study, languages, work and commitment to the city – and, above all, through transmission to the next generation. His example reminds us that the future is not abstract: it is made at home, at school, in professional choices, and in how we create conditions for the young to participate early, with demanding standards and a sense of mission.
The challenge, then, is not to “defend the past”, but to give it a future. And that future is not built through occasional speeches; it is built through pathways, responsibility, mentorship and a culture of normal renewal. If the answer is “one of these days”, then André Ritchie is right: opportunities arrive “for our children”. If the answer is “now, with method”, then Macau continues to stand out – not by chance, but by choice.
To be continued…
*Customarily, the term “Macanese” denotes Macau’s community of mixed Portuguese and Asian descent, and its diaspora. – Note by The Macau Post Daily
