Libero Della Piana visits Portugal where the New Europe is at odds with new African immigrants.
Earlier this year I traveled to Portugal and got a first-hand look at the rapidly shifting world of race relations and national identity in today\\\'s Europe. A Portuguese travel guide, for example, warns tourists that they are more likely to hear African music on the streets of Lisbon than the traditional fado ballads. But the Portuguese reception of African immigrants has been far from totally benign: they have also been subjected to increasing racial violence.
Antiracists have emerged to take on these fights, and are poised to redefine the racial identity of Portugal. But they face resistance not only from conservatives inside Portugal, but from big powers like Great Britain and Germany who are shaping the new European Union (EU).
The Link Between Racism, Colonialism & Fascism
In the fifteenth century, tiny Portugal was one of the largest colonial powers in history. For half of the twentieth century, the fascist dictatorship of Antonio Salazar held together far-reaching colonies and a crumbling economy at home with political repression and brute force. The imposing \\\"Monument of the Discoveries\\\" in Lisbon-a perennial tourist favorite-is one of the reminders of the fascist colonial policy. Because of this history, colonialism, racism, and fascism-and opposition to them-are intimately linked in Portugal.
By the 1960s, the Portuguese colonies in Angola, Mozambique, and Guinea-Bissau were in full rebellion. These national liberation movements triggered a radical movement within the Portuguese military. Tired of fighting to retain colonies whose riches they never saw, they instigated a coup against the fascists within Portugal itself on April 25, 1974. The victorious soldiers were met in the streets by millions of Portuguese people bearing red flowers, turning the coup into the Carnation Revolution. This revolution opened the door to independence for the colonies and democracy at home.
It also led to migration to Portugal by former colonial officers and formerly colonized Africans. For the first time, homogeneous Portugal faced immigration from Angolans, Mozambicans, and Cape Verdeans who came seeking jobs, education, or entry into other Western countries.
New Racial Conflicts
Walking through Lisbon, one is aware of black faces on the street, behind counters, and, more often, in the kitchens. But, according to the Portuguese National Institute of Statistics, of the ten million Portuguese today, only 180,000 are immigrants and fewer than 100,000 are Africans; other Europeans and Gypsies make up the rest.
Despite their relatively small numbers, these Africans have made an impact, especially on Portugal\\\'s youth. The city of Almada, an industrial center with a large black population situated across the Tagus river from Lisbon, was celebrating its annual youth program while I was there. The celebration ended with a big public concert headlined by a popular Portuguese-speaking reggae band from Angola called Kussundulola. Reggae and hip-hop, as well as the traditional music of Africa, are increasingly popular among white Portuguese.
A new spurt of immigration began in the mid-1980s and was met with a racial violence that shocked many Portuguese. The Institute of Race Relations\\\' European Race Audit noted that, between 1986 and 1992, racist attacks in Portugal were responsible for eight deaths. Tensions culminated in a June 1995 race riot where a mob of fifty skinheads went on a rampage in the Bairro Alto neighborhood of Lisbon, injuring twelve blacks and killing 27-year-old Alcino Monteiro, a naturalized Portuguese citizen from Angola. A nearby police station took two hours to respond.
A few days later, 10,000 protesters marched through Lisbon in protest. The incident drew international press and mobilized antiracists who pushed for tough sentencing and police reform. Eleven members of the mob were convicted of murder and sentenced to 14 to 18 years in prison.
In recent years, antiracist organizations in Portugal have emerged in response to the increase in racist violence. While there, I met extensively with one of these groups, the Anti-Racist Front (FAR), founded in 1994. One of the first things I noticed was that most of the national leaders of the FAR were white Portuguese natives. One of the challenges to FAR and others is how to further activate a recent immigrant population in a potentially hostile new country; as well as how to build an antiracist movement in a country where many people have never met a person of another race.
FAR\\\'s leadership and activists mostly come from Portugal\\\'s leftist parties, particularly the Portuguese Communist Party (PCP). They reject the notion that Portuguese are purely European and white, and acknowledge the historic influence of Sephardic Jews and Moors in Portugal. Their main slogan is escolhe o teu mundo-Choose Your World.
Fortress Europe
FAR also holds that \\\"racism has economic roots\\\" in the European Union in general and the Schengen agreement in particular.
While barely known in the U.S., the Schengen agreement is the focal point of heated controversy over the shape of the new European Union (EU). The agreement, originally signed by EU members in 1985, deprives individual European countries of much of the power to make their own decisions on immigration, amnesty, and policing of borders. It eliminates many barriers between countries of the European Union while making it much harder to immigrate to an EU country from outside.
The big European powers like Germany and Great Britain view southern European countries like Portugal, Italy, and Greece as easy backdoors for illegal entry into their own countries, and they are determined to staunch any such flow.
Schengen also establishes the elaborate Schengen Information System that tracks criminals, migrant laborers, and \\\"undesirables\\\" throughout the member countries. Someone barred from entry in Belgium one month can be readily identified in Portugal the next. The agreement also authorizes expulsions, detentions, and other harsh immigration measures. No wonder its opponents call it \\\"Fortress Europe.\\\"
Since adopting Schengen, a string of complaints about the mistreatment of immigrants and refugees by Portugal have been launched by its former colonies. According to the Italian paper Il Manifesto, a diplomatic crisis between Portugal and Brazil developed when Portugal harassed, beat, and excluded more than 300 Brazilian travelers from the country in 1992. The issue was inflamed by the Portuguese ambassador in Rio de Janeiro, who described the Brazilians seeking visas as \\\"vagabonds and whores\\\" and \\\"miniskirted little mulattos.\\\"
UNITED, the European Network Against Racism, has grown to over 500 organizations, including the FAR, and declared the week of March 13, 1999 \\\"Europe Wide Action Week Against Racism.\\\" It used the events to publicize the 1,365 deaths of refugees and other immigrants resulting from Schengen since its inception.
But progressives aren\\\'t the only ones who oppose Schengen and the European Union. In northern Europe in particular, extreme nationalist organizations and parties have come out against Schengen because it liberalizes movement across borders within the EU. As a leader of the fascist Vlaams Blok party of Belgium said in the International Herald Tribune in 1994, immigration from \\\"countries like Portugal\\\" could lead to a \\\"social revolution\\\" in Belgium because of competition for jobs. To much of Europe, Portugal is seen as an economic burden, and to the racist right, the Portuguese are barely Europeans at all, due to their \\\"dubious\\\" racial stock.
Nonetheless, the right wing in Portugal supports full participation in the European Community and Schengen.
Escolhe o teu mundo
The PCP, which has considerable clout and prestige in Portugal, has introduced an innovative parliamentary bill aimed at giving legal residency to anyone who works in the country, along with their families. This bill would help protect the rights of the estimated 40,000 undocumented immigrants in Portugal. But the bill would violate Schengen. Schengen has never been approved by the Portuguese parliament or people. But, like NAFTA, Schengen is a trade agreement with immense power and little accountability. Now the PCP\\\'s bill is deadlocked over the impact it would have on Portugal\\\'s place in the new Europe.
To the Anti-Racist Front the issue is clear: Portugal cannot adequately address racism at home without disassociating itself from the policy interests of its bigger, richer neighbors. Unlike France, Germany, or Britain, Portugal is new to immigration and issues of racism at home. But Portuguese antiracists are ahead of the game. They are actively involved in educating the Portuguese public, legislating antiracist laws, and directly confronting racist aggressors even while 98 percent of the population is still Portuguese.
This early antiracist commitment is a reflection of the powerful links of racism, colonialism, and fascism in Portuguese history. These links help groups like FAR, which also draw on the immense popularity of the 1974 Revolution. Swastika graffiti appear here and there among the old buildings of Lisbon, but almost everywhere they are crossed out by young radicals. The antiracist instinct in Portugal is a continuation of the anti-colonial and anti-fascist movements.
Like the Portuguese colonies of thirty years ago, Portugal itself is now in a struggle for its own national and racial identity. On the one hand is a \\\"European\\\" Portugal, a junior partner in the anticipated economic success of an increasingly entrenched Europe. A Portuguese friend told me a recent rightwing column proclaimed that the Portuguese descended from the Vikings!
On the other is a Portugal that accepts responsibility for its colonial past, embraces the historical influence of Jews and Moors, and welcomes all its residents as Portuguese people. The reality is, in the next generation, more and more Portuguese will be descended from Africa. Their Portugal will truly have to escolhe o teu mundo, choose its world.
