April is a month sacred to the Portuguese democracy, having toppled on 25 April 1974, the authoritarian Estado Novo. This moment allowed for the Portuguese democracy to be renewed, offering a second chance to a nation that had commenced its tryst with parliamentary democracy with the establishment of the constitutional monarchy in the 1800's, and declared its Republic in 1910.
In the face of the fiscal difficulties that the Republic has been facing however, there have been a number of questions regarding whether they really achieved much. In the words of Professor João Confraria, a Portuguese academic: “The problem of our democratic framework is we do not have a political system strong enough to say 'No more money' to the demands of private interest groups and some state groups….We have failed to forge a viable domestic consensus for 150 years.”
While the country’s problem stem from a failure to inculcate robust institutions of democratic critique, there can be no doubt that the 25 of April also brought in a sea-change to the Portuguese people. There has been a growth of the middle-class, larger numbers have availed of education, and the country has managed to sustain the procedural requirements of a parliamentary democracy. South-Asians know that the process of democratisation, especially in the face of entrenched elites who refuse to share power, is not easy. However, what must not be forgotten is that Portugal’s problem is also a result of its location in the international order.
We should remember that while styled the ‘Carnation Revolution’, the changes of the April 25 flowed from a coup d'état. Though encouraged by a people tired by authoritarianism, the radical social changes unleashed in the course of the coup were curbed in the following years. The coup was launched because the army had had enough of the unceasing loss of young Portuguese lives in the battlefields in Africa; and supported by segments of the Portuguese elite because they realised that the Estado’s policy of holding on to its ‘colonial possessions’ was causing them not only loss of lives, but an isolation from Europe. It is suggested therefore that April 25 represented a strategic turn of the Portuguese establishment, outwards from its colonies, and inwards towards Europe. Some argue that this joining of the European community was also a way for Mario Soares to stabilise his government against the internal resistance he continued to face subsequent to the ‘revolution’.
But how did ‘Europe’ receive Portugal? Often missed amid the hype about Europe, is that it is a disciplinary project. A core group of ‘European’ states determine historically specific ‘best practices’, and enforce them across the board. Non-core countries, especially those of the European south are seen as inherently unable to embody these values, allowing the ‘Europeans’ to be school-teacher act to these errant children of Europe. Thus Frau Merkel threatens to withdraw from the Euro, suggesting that Germany can do without these pile-ons to the Euro. The Portuguese however point out that the good lady does seem to recognize that her country exports a good amount to Portugal, precisely because of the existence of the Euro. Spain has similarly been castigated for years now, on how the Spaniards don't work 'hard enough'. Then there are the warnings that have followed the Portuguese government's request for aid, that aid would come along with conditions.
With a perspective conscious of the intra-European hierarchies, one can see that while Portugal has bumbling and corrupt elite; the problem it faces is also one of perceptions. Portugal’s situation is not just of financial mismanagement but one of humiliation, where Northern institutions, and especially the tyrannical ratings agencies, seem to have ganged up against Portugal.
The turn to Europe came at an opportune moment for Portugal, but it also came at a price; that of discipline, dealing with prejudice and junior partnership. The costs of that bargain are now being paid. After the holiday for the 25 of April therefore, it may not be a bad idea for Portugal to refigure which side it wants to turn, and perhaps renegotiate its relationship with ‘Europe’.
(A version of this post first appeared in the Herald 1 May 2011)
Portugal’s Carnation Revolution was a significant moment in global history because it marked the simultaneous liberation of both colonizers and colonized from dictatorial power. With the fall of the Salazarist regime, the Portuguese people were able to move into a system of democratic governance. At the same time the African colonies of Portugal saw a halt to the Portuguese colonial wars and were born into independent sovereign existence. For India the fall of the Salazarist regime saw Portugal recognize India’s claims over Goa. There is very little to protest therefore, at least from an Indian nationalist and standard anti-colonialist point of view.
It was for these reasons that the presence of a screaming mob from the Hindu Janajagruthi Samiti outside the Instituto Camoes in Panjim was something of a mystery to those attending the celebrations on the twenty-fourth.
To unravel this mystery we need to refer to the news report by the Navhind Times dated the twenty-fifth of April. The report indicates that earlier in the day a bunch of ‘freedom fighters’ led by Naguesh Karmali had approached the Vice-Chancellor of the Goa University demanding to know why the University was involved in the celebrations. These freedom fighters argued that “celebration of the national events of Portugal in Goa [are] an insult to the sentiments of freedom fighters as well as people…who fought for the Liberation of Goa from colonial rule”. To suggest why even the commemoration of an anti-colonial moment in Portugal’s history could nevertheless be odious to the Goan people, Karmali indicated that “those persons, who were active part of Portuguese dictatorship under Salazar regime, became integral part of democratic governance in that country after 1974 by sidelining the Communist, whose role in the Portuguese Revolution was undisputed”.
Karmali has never been known for logic, and this time his logic is just plain bizarre! It is clear that all he is trying to do is demonize Portugal and the Portuguese people. In the eyes of Karmali, the eyes through which he would like all Goans to see history and Portugal, the Portuguese are irredeemable. They are, forever evil, and we should sever all ties with Portugal. Karmali would be least concerned with the Portuguese however, if it were not for people in Goa who wish to continue having links with the Portuguese. It is these people that irk him the most, and it is really the links of these people with Portugal that he would like sever. “[V]arious activities previously held in Goa and linked to the erstwhile Portuguese rule as well as culture of that country, have a certain community as their focus, and are aimed toward creating a divide in Goan society”.
It sounds as if Karmali is suggesting, though admittedly not openly saying so, that it is the Goan Catholics that harbour a fondness for the Portuguese. Thankfully, we know this suggestion to be factually incorrect. A good number of the students at the Instituto bear such surnames as Tari, Chari, Khaunte, Bhobhe, Kamat, Pai, Vernekar, Amonkar, Naik. The students at the Instituto increasingly come from a variety of social and religious backgrounds making Karmali’s statements meaningless. As such we should study Karmali’s statements not for the community he means, but for the community he seeks to create, and the company he keeps.
Interestingly at the demonstration on the evening of the twenty-fourth, Karmali himself was not present. This seems to correspond to a larger pattern emerging in India, where the violent positions are by and large taken by lower-caste groups belong to such outfits as the Bajrang Dal, Shri Ram Sene, Hindu Janajagruthi Samithi, while the BJP, largely composed of upper-castes and the anglicized, toes the moderate line and makes soft, polite noises of disapproval. Nevertheless we should see both groups as acting in concert, playing that age-old game of ‘Good Cop – Bad Cop’. When the BJP is seen as the only group that can control these louts, it makes sense to the average citizen, to elect the BJP so that these elements are kept in place.
The demonstration outside the Instituto should be seen not as a peaceful demonstration but an active attempt to intimidate, both Goan citizens of India, as well as the Portuguese institutions in Goa. Cultural aspects apart, the systematic picketing and threatening of Portuguese related cultural events in Goa, should and must be seen as an attempt to hound the Portuguese institutions out of Goa.
If this is the intention, what possibly motivates this action?
On the cultural front, we do not have to fear that the Goan Catholic culture will die if we loose a link with Portugal. Large portions of the Goan Catholic have also had a robust relationship with British-India and the English-language cultures. These cultures, as well as the Konkani cultures of the Goan Catholic are throbbing with life; destruction of a Portuguese link would be a setback, but it will not destroy them.
The attempt of Karmali and gang is culturally much more serious than hitting out at the Goan Catholic. It attempts to create a collective forgetting of the Goan past. This forgetting will impact not just Catholics, but Hindus and Muslims as well, and their relations with each other. A good portion of the Goan past, its relation with the subcontinent, and the world, a full four hundred and fifty years of it, including commentaries on the past before this, is documented in Portuguese. Block the renewed cultural relations with Portugal and the Portuguese language and you will ensure the death of that heritage, and memory of those histories in Goa. Once that history is effectively unavailable, you open the doors for the rewriting of Goan history, to fill it with the poppycock that the Hindu Right excels at.
We already have a good amount of popular commentary, spinning myths and tales about the Goan past, passing off as history. The roots of this scenario could, I believe, be traced to the drought that hit Goa subsequent to Liberation and until diplomatic relations between Portugal and India were resumed after the April Revolution. During this time, access to Portugal was limited to a select few alone. When facts are unavailable, fantasy floods in. With the resuming of relations, access to Portuguese culture has become much more democratic, and it is this liberation from restrictions that bothers the Rightist groups in Goa. The more people can access information independently, the less they need mediators. It is this democracy that the Karmali and gang fear desperately, and it our imagination of the past, and our options for the future that they seek to control.
It’s funny, but celebrating their revolution, seems to have helped us flush out the fascists in our midst. 25 de Abril Sempre! (April 25 Forever).
The 3rd of April 2009, saw a commemoration of Aquino de Bragança at The International Centre, Goa. Aquino de Bragança was born in Goa, and in the heady days of the anti-colonial struggles was drawn into the cause of African liberation, and came to be advisor to Samora Machel, the first President of Mozambique.
While Aquino de Bragança is a figure who must be explored in his own right, I would like to reflect on the words of Fitz De Souza who spoke at the event. Fitz De Souza, also of Goan origin, has been lawyer and politician. Former deputy Speaker of the Kenyan parliament, he was one of those involved in the efforts to draw up a constitutional framework for Kenyan independence. Prior to Kenyan independence, in the course of the anti-colonial resistance in Kenya, he was also provided legal defense to those accused by the colonial administration of participation in the Mau Mau rebellion. Fitz De Souza, then is no ordinary man, and like Aquino de Bragança, played a crucial role in the unfolding of the post-colonial world that we now inhabit.
Rather than play the usual game of mumbling pleasantries, Fitz decided to stick his neck out and castigate the Goan community worldwide, pointing out how they did not play as significant a role in the anti-colonial struggle as they could have. This is true, people of Goan origin, very much like the rest of their ilk in the subcontinent, saw themselves as occupying a definite rung in the racist hierarchy of the 19th - 20th century. Not quite white, they nevertheless bought into the propaganda of the ‘Mission Civilisatrice’, believing that since they were Aryan, they would eventually get white status. They believed in any case that they were more than a few rungs higher than the ‘animal-like’ Africans.
It was in his subsequent statement though that I differed with Fitz. He went on to suggest that the British in their ‘complete racism’ planted the idea in the head of the Goans that ‘the Goans were not Indians, but Portuguese, that they were not crooks and thieves (like the Indian Bania) but honest and reliable souls’, on whose clerical shoulders, the Empire was in fact built.
My disagreement stems from the counter-suggestion Fitz offers; that the Goan is in fact ‘Indian’ and that this whole image of their being Portuguese is a racist fantasy that we ought not to buy. I would like to suggest that unfortunately, it is Fitz who in denying the Portuguese-ness of the Goan is buying into a racist imagination. This imagination is racist because it presumes that people occupying a definite territorial area are necessarily one people; and that because they come from the sub-continent of brown people, they cannot really be European. This imagination suggests that merely because the Goan shares the same colour as the people across the political boundary of the former Portuguese-India, they are the same people.
It is a testament to the power of racist imaginations that even a lawyer like Fitz could fall into its easy embrace. The Goan was Portuguese not because the English drummed this charming fantasy into their heads, but because by the LAW of Portugal they were Portuguese citizens. They were citizens who could also vote for their representatives to the Portuguese Parliament. That there may have been a practical failure to wholly realize this legal vision is not denied. However the mere fact of articulation in law is fact significant enough to trigger the imaginations of people. The British-Indian (which for all practical purposes Fitz is) will find it difficult to understand this position, because the British-Indian was always a subject of their Empire. It was their frustration at not being recognized as (white) Citizen of the Empire that eventually led to the Indian freedom struggle.
In a world filled with various ideas, ideologies and desires, it is Law that by and large performs the crucial role of determining what constitutes reality and what fantasy. The Portuguese Indian had been living for centuries within the embrace of a legal regime that gave them significant rights to participate in the Empire. It was by Law then, that they were Portuguese. It was the reality of this legality therefore, that allowed any subsequent suggestion by the British, or indeed, Salazar’s Estado Novo, to be that much more believable. Like Portuguese-ness, Indian-ness too, is an imaginary construction, made ‘real’ primarily through Law. The tenativity of this identity made obvious by that fact that the Pakistani and the Bangladeshi who until recently were ‘Indian’ are today viciously not considered so.
The Portuguese practice, where the Goan was Portuguese, has in fact the potential of upsetting the racist notions that continue to govern our world. Thanks to the operation of law, I can without batting an eyelid, unproblematically indicate that I am Portuguese. I don’t have to be white-skinned, nor do I need to have a drop of continental blood in my veins. By my being Portuguese my mere physical existence upsets racial categories. When like Aquino de Bragança, we can then also include the black-skinned African into this legal category; that is when we exploit the anti-racist potential of this legality to the maximum.
This week, Portugal will celebrate the 35th Anniversary of its revolt against the Estado Novo inaugurated by Salazar. One of the paradoxes of history, is that at the overturning of a
‘fascist’ dictatorship in fact resulted in the overturning of a liberative discourse vis-à-vis citizenship. The standard line of any 'politically’ Portuguese today is that ‘the past is the past, let us move forward to building new relationships’. Thus anything associated with the Estado Novo is seen as necessarily regressive. Look closely and you will see
them wince when the Goan expresses oneness with Portugal. This is a past that they would like to forget. However, this discomfort is not merely a discomfort with the Estado Novo. The discarding of colonial discourse today allows the Portuguese, once regarded as imperfectly European and not quite white, to now became actively European, and wholly white. The abandoning of Tio António Oliveira’s legal regime of citizenship – admittedly reinforced to support the dream and persistence of Empire – has carried the Portuguese into the racist regimes of continental Europe, where whiteness and distinction from the formerly colonized is at the heart of political and cultural identity. The Revolution it turns out may also well have been a counter-revolution!
The claim for a Portuguese identity should not necessarily embarrass us, since we must claim it as a deliberate act of overturning the racist stereotypes that we surreptitiously nurse at our breasts. If however we claim it, as did (and continue to do) the Goan elite, merely to mark cultural superciliousness, then and only then are we guilty of buying into a racist realm of imagination. On the anniversary of the Revolution, that we in Goa unfortunately missed, it would perhaps be worthwhile to contemplate the mixed bag that Portuguese colonialism has given us, and use these contradictions of this colonialism to make the world a better place.
(Published in the Gomantak Times April 22nd 2009)
(This essay has been profoundly influenced by the works of Dr.Boaventura de Sousa Santos. For these works and the inspiration, many thanks.)
Itinerant mendicant captures two aspects of my life perfectly. My educational formation has seen me traverse various terrains, geographical as well as academic. After a Bachelor's in law from the National Law School of India, I worked for a while in the environmental and developmental sector. Following a Master's in the Sociology of Law, I obtained a Doctorate in Anthropology in Lisbon for my study of the citizenship experience of Goan Catholics. Having worked some years at the Centre for Research in Anthropology at the University Institute of Lisbon, I am now a priest for the Archdiocese of Goa and Daman.I see myself as a mendicant largely because so many of my voyages have been funded by scholarships and grants.This blog operates as an archive of my homilies, and writings in the popular press.
Portugal, but it also came at a price; that of discipline, dealing with prejudice and junior partnership. The costs of that bargain are now being paid. After the holiday for the 25 of April therefore, it may not be a bad idea for Portugal to refigure which side it wants to turn, and perhaps renegotiate its relationship with ‘Europe’.
