Letters from Portugal: Building impressions

Remonstrated an elderly friend in Lisbon, “These days, it is fashionable to decry everything from the time of the Estado Novo as bad! This is simply not true!” Without pronouncing on whether the Estado Novo was a paragon of virtue and has an undeservedly bad reputation, one could agree that there are things one could appreciate from the Estado Novo. 

In matters of the built form for example, there is much that one has to appreciate (if one can separate the form from the authoritarian socio-political context that gave birth to it). The constructions of the Estado Novo are often examples to behold. Solid, monumentalist structures, these buildings were very much influenced by the European fashions of the times, whether it was the Iberian styles favoured in Franco’s Spain, or the tough, no-nonsense, forms of Stalinist architecture And yet, not everything that the Estado Novo produced was (or is) worthy of delirious acclaim. Take Portugal dos Pequenitos for example.

Portugal dos Pequenitos, or Portugal of the little ones, is an architectural theme park in the historic city of Coimbra. Set up in 1940, the park is a mélange of scaled miniature replicas of a variety of monuments and buildings that constituted Portugal in 1940. Thus, one has representations of; the famous monuments within continental Portugal, homes from different regions in continental Portugal, as well as monuments, or other built forms from what were then Portuguese territories spread across the world. The objective seems to have been to stamp in the minds of the young, and those of infantile imaginations, the grand diversity that was Portugal, underlining the refrain of the time “Portugal não é um país pequeno” (Portugal is not a small country).

Rather than constitute buildings in their entirety however, the theme park focuses on particularly noteworthy features of buildings, and incorporates them into single constructions. The result can be quite overwhelming, like eating too much of a rich dessert (Portuguese desserts are particularly heavy, but this is another matter), forcing one, after a point, to effect a quick escape from the place. But then, given that the visiting children, the park’s intended audience, don’t seem to suffer from such affected sensibilities, perhaps if some want to effect quick escapes, they are welcome to?

If there is one particularly embarrassing portion of the park, then it has to be the entrance to the park, that is constituted, or was at the time of my visit some years ago, of towering statutes of muscular ‘African’ men depicted from the waist up, arms crossed over their chests. In a politically correct age, when we do not engaged in racialised depictions of persons, where the ‘African’ as the ‘savage’ with thick red lips is definitely not a polite representation, this reception to the park is quite horrific. Perhaps, however, the answer to this debacle is not to get rid of them, but to place those statues in the context of its time, highlighting the racialised understandings of the Estado Novo).

In racial terms, what should please the activists of Goa Indica, is that when one excitedly runs over to the representative models from (Portuguese) India, it is not the Arch of the Viceroys that stands out, but the representation of Goan temple towers, and a building that looks like a blend between temple and mosque. It seems that, contrary to popular opinion, the Estado Novo, was also at pains to recognize the presence of non-Christians in its most symbolic overseas possession. So much for the Estado Novo.

(A version of this post first appeared in the O Herald dated 18 March 2012)

Letters from Portugal: The politically-correct Portuguese

You know how a number of us Goans like to say ‘Hanv Portugues’ (I am Portuguese) right? Now get this; while there are some Portuguese who will indeed be flattered by this and cavalierly acknowledge that indeed being Goan makes you Portuguese, or at the very least, quasi-Portuguese; there are also a good number, especially the politically correct Portuguese, who will visibly wince when they are faced with this exuberant assertion by Goans who do not hold Portuguese nationality.

This statement is uncomfortable for the politically-correct Portuguese because it reminds them of the now-embarrassing claims of the Salazar regime, when the Estado Novo claimed that it did not have colonies, but only overseas territories, and all persons therein were in fact Portuguese. Those statements made Portugal an international pariah, out of step with a world that was marching forward into a new ‘post’ colonial order; and to make this claim of a Portuguese identity is today seen as quaint at best.

What these Portuguese don’t realize however, is that when being embarrassed by these affirmations of an also-Luso identity (because most of these Goans are not casting away their sub-continental identity), they facilitate a certain kind of racism. Etienne Balibar, a renowned scholar of citizenship studies, calls this form of a response ‘differential racism’. The kind of racism that most of us are familiar with is a biological racism, one that assumes that genetic differences, that manifest as colour and facial features for example, can be the basis for differences among human beings. Differential racism on the other hand marks differences not between races, but sees cultural differences as insurmountable. 

Sterling examples are provided by the politically-correct Portuguese. They don’t want you to say that you are Portuguese. They want you to say that you are Indian. In their mind this Indian has definite cultural features distinctly not present among the Portuguese. For example the Indians have a caste system, which the Portuguese categorically do not have. There is the usual orientalist imagery of how the Indians take their religion much more seriously than the European. Then there are the observations of how Goan Catholicism is imbued with local syncretism. Inherent in these assertions of difference is the assumption of Catholicism as European, and the existence of a kind of Catholicism that is pure, unblemished by local traditions. The unspoken affirmation is that Portuguese Catholicism is of this sort. What is being set up through these sorts of affirmations is not only that to be Portuguese one must be exactly like them, but also that these distinctions are, at the end of the day, insurmountable. Eventually it boils down to a biological racism, once a brown person, always a brown person.

The tragedy is that while the Estado Novo used the rhetoric of one Portuguese identity mischievously, it did in fact, and continues to; possess interesting possibilities to deal with racism. This rhetoric built on the longer (if restricted) history of the Portuguese Empire that recognized multiple non-continental groups as citizens of the Empire. This made it made it possible for racial discrimination to be actively challenged, either then, or now. What contemporary politically-correct Portuguese seem to not to realize is that it is possible for us to exorcise the baleful influence of the Estado Novo and reuse our common history to a much more interesting end, by affirming not difference, but the commonality of persons across borders. Engaging in this project would eventually be much more politically correct, than unwittingly raising walls of radical difference. 

(A version of this post was first published in the O Heraldo 8 Jan 2012)

Letters from Portugal: Sabores do racismo

Writing in The Guardian some time ago, and dealing with the issue of racism in Portugal, Joana Gorjão Henriques, a Portuguese journalist wrote that ‘Even though Portugal has racial profiling, race crime and the daily subordination of black people by whites, most Portuguese would deny that their country has significant "racial problems" – that's what they have in America, France or the UK. Such attitudes are a hangover from the dictatorship years and the “luso-tropicalism” ideology created by the Brazilian Gilberto Freyre in the 1950s, which spread the idea that the Portuguese were better colonisers – and that ongoing British or French soul-searching over race was a result of “bad colonizing”.

This is the curious feature of Portugal, in that as much as they aver that things have changed since the bad days of the Estado Novo, and things have changed, some things still remain; perhaps not the same but they linger. But this is another matter, and perhaps we should stick to discussing racism.

The problem perhaps lies in the fact that when we (or ‘the Portuguese’) think about racism, we think of dramatic occurrences, ‘significant racial problems’. In doing so, we seem to excuse the small, hidden acts of racism that we effect on a daily basis, that lay the basis for the more significant acts to emerge. If we acknowledged these small acts, we would realize that racism inheres not in the dramatic acts, but in these small quotidian actions. Take for example the simple act in which we brush away the ‘coloured’ peddler of wares, or jump back, even if ever so imperceptibly, when a person of colour approaches us.

Bairro Alto, one of Lisbon’s more popular night-spots has a number of street-vendors who seem to have racially divided their occupations. If ‘the Africans’ sell you beads and trinkets, the South Asians sell you roses and toys that flash with light, and the Portuguese-Gypsies politely offer you ‘drugs’ of various sorts.

It is with this background that the reader should imagine me setting off, rather dandily, on one of my first evenings in Lisbon to a dinner party. Being ever so well-brought up, I had in hand a designer bouquet for the hostess. Stopping enroute, at the Jardim Principe Real, not too far from Bairro Alto, I approached (what I presumed to be) a lady to ask for directions. The response left me bewildered for what I received was a rather rude brush-off as she rushed away saying ‘No, no, no’. Scratching my head in bewilderment, it too me some time to realize that the bouquet in my head (and probably the colour of my face) gave the good lady cause to assume I was trying to sell her my bouquet! Or take the example when another lady, seemed somewhat nervous – she actually jumped back - when I approached her (admittedly in the less secure Intendente neighbourhood) for directions to my destination.

Two swallows admittedly do not make a summer, and this is not to argue therefore that ‘the Portuguese’ are racist. It merely illustrates some of the possible flavours of racism. Indeed, one should inquire into my own South-Asian racism, when my response to such racism is to point indignantly to my class location, given that our class locations allow us so often to operate as white. One could also inquire, whether like most South Asians from a certain background, I am also not reading race whenever my ego is bruised by someone whose respect I merely take for granted. And yet, each of these inquiries should not prevent the partner in these encounters to inquire if they too sniff the odour of racism in their actions.

To repeat a point and elaborate somewhat, racism should be understood as inhering not merely in the dramatic and violent acts that attract our attention, but also in the quotidian acts that draw from gut instinct, preconceptions, and unconscious reactions. It would be impossible to deny that any of us is not racist, given that the contemporary world order is still recovering from its colonial past, a past that was actively based on racial stereotypes. If we can recognize that in this game of racism, it is not just about aggressors and the violated, but also about all of us participating in a market where we use racist ideas as capital to build on in whatever form, then perhaps we can get away from these ridiculous suggestions that we are not racist and begin to examine what exactly are the ingredients that contribute to the peculiar flavour of our individual racism.

(A version of this post was first published in the O Heraldo 16 Oct 2011)

Letters from Lisbon: Of Gates and Cyclical Time

Lisbon used to be an Arab city once. At any rate it was ruled by Arabic speakers. Some time in the tenth century, the Portuguese King supported by Frankish crusaders began their attack on the Arab kingdoms in the region and captured the city from the Arabs after a successful siege of the city in 1147.

Given the importance that Lisbon would assume for Portugal, a number of legends grew around the capture of the city. One of these legends surrounds the figure of Martim Moniz. A Frankish noble, Moniz is said to thrust himself into the gates of the castle as they were being shut by the defending Arabs. As per the legend, Moniz was either jammed by the doors or cut down in the course of his valiant attempt. His attempt however, resulted in the gate eventually being overwhelmed, allowing the Crusaders entry into the castle and eventual victory.

Moniz was immortalized by naming one of the gates of the castle after him and later by the naming of a square, Praça Martim Moniz in the city below. Today the Praça Martim Moniz is an interesting space, giving its name to the neighbourhood around it. Architecturally, it is a huge, horrifically ugly modernist nightmare. The square in its current formation is the result of the Estado Novo’s attempts to modernise the city. In the process of that modernization attempt, large portions of the Mouraria (the old Moorish quarter) had been destroyed. Today we would mourn the destruction of that loss, given that it is the Arabic feel of the old city, its narrow lanes, the buildings clinging tightly, together that draws the tourist sighs, and more importantly their Euros. But perhaps the damage to the Mouraria had already been too far gone, and the only option was to push forward with the modernist experiment. The ugliness of some of the buildings that skirt the Praça must be seen to be believed. These monstrosities could only have come from hell!

Almost ironically though, if Martim Moniz jammed the gates of the castle to drive out the Arabs and fashion the city as a decidedly Christian space, his memory seems to be playing the same role all over again. The neighbourhoods around Praça Martim Moniz, today play host to large portions of the lower income migrants to Portugal. These migrants come from the Punjab (both Pakistani and Indian), Bangladesh, Brazil, Angola and Moçambique, and almost amusingly, from the same Muslim North Africa whose people Moniz originally fought against. Around the Praça one finds Chinese stores selling fashion for the thrifty, South-Asian stores that allow you to breathe in the scents of home, and restaurants (both legal and illegal) offering Africa and Chinese food. Descend into the two commercial centres that stand on the square and you could sometimes imagine yourself in an oriental bazaar and encourage the idea that the Arabs never left Al-Isbuna. Some of the more secure Lisboetas celebrate Martim Moniz as their own centre of multiculturalism.

The red and green republican flag of Portugal flutters over the castle Moniz’s sacrifice won. There are times when in the Praça Martim Moniz, playing on the Islamic confession of the migrants, I joke with friends; ‘You see that flag fluttering up there on the hill? Someday, inshallah, that flag will be all green. And ‘we’ shall have returned’.