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Crisis - Austerity in Portugal

David Martins stands in his shoe repair shop. Mr. Martins started working at eight years old on October the 5th, the anniversary of the Implementation of the Republic after the overthrow of monarchic rule. At the time of Mr. Martins' first working day, still a child, the date was a normal business day. The date would later be established as a national holiday, one of the most important ones to be celebrated, rejecting absolutism and celebrating democracy. In 2013 the date will no longer be a holiday once again, a government measure to cut deficit by reducing public holidays. Mr. Martins, now 78, earns a pension of a couple hundred euros which doesn't allow him to stop working. For him, who since his eight years old never stopped working, this is a circle that now closes, back to days when the date was a normal labour day with no celebrations of revolution, popular sovereignty or democracy and when nothing was illegal in face of a rising world of capitalism. Not even child labor.

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Violeta Moura/4SEE
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Crisis - Austerity in Portugal
David Martins stands in his shoe repair shop. Mr. Martins started working at eight years old on October the 5th, the anniversary of the Implementation of the Republic after the overthrow of monarchic rule. At the time of Mr. Martins' first working day, still a child, the date was a normal business day. The date would later be established as a national holiday, one of the most important ones to be celebrated, rejecting absolutism and celebrating democracy. In 2013 the date will no longer be a holiday once again, a government measure to cut deficit by reducing public holidays. Mr. Martins, now 78, earns a pension of a couple hundred euros which doesn't allow him to stop working. For him, who since his eight years old never stopped working, this is a circle that now closes, back to days when the date was a normal labour day with no celebrations of revolution, popular sovereignty or democracy and when nothing was illegal in face of a rising world of capitalism. Not even child labor.
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