Rui Tavares studied history for years, until in 2009 he plunged into politics as an MEP. A mixture that he sees as decisive for the future: history, of course, and human action on it.
Today, the politician known for the podcast “Agora, Agora e mais Agora” serves as a deputy in Portugal for the left-wing Livre, which he co-founded in 2014. He is in Brazil to participate in the São Paulo Book Biennial and launch “O Pequeno Livro of the Great Earthquake”, by Tinta-da-China Brasil.
He, one of the main voices against the growth of the ultra-right in the São Bento Palace, says that Brazilians, but also the international community, should not be naive in relation to a coup attempt by President Jair Bolsonaro, which includes in the basket of those he calls of apprentices to tyrants.
Regarding the War in Ukraine, he appeals to sectors of Brazil in which he observes an uncritical view of the government of Vladimir Putin. “Don’t fall into a trap: if you are anti-colonialist, Putin is your enemy.”
How do you evaluate Portugal’s relationship with the past of colonization in Africa and Brazil? It is natural for countries to want to foster patriotism, but to be truly proud of their history, it is necessary to know the good and the bad. The consequences of that story are still with us, sometimes in ways people don’t realize. That economic model of the empire delayed the development of the kingdom and its domains. Part of the educational deficits that cause countries to have economies today that are far from being the knowledge economy and decarbonization, as the future demands, rests on this history. A fracture we’re all paying for.
What do you think of the thesis that there is prejudice, or even Lusophobia, on the part of Brazilians in relation to Portugal? Lusophilia and Lusophony sometimes coexist in the same discourse. On this side, brasilophilia and brasilophobia sometimes have the same conditions. In the same sentence, the person expresses affection and friendship to the other country and then says something tainted by the greatest of prejudices. The lack of love that sometimes appears towards the other country is, to a large extent, a kind of lack of self-love towards our country.
Basically, this unresolved complex in both countries has two other effects: first, that of not projecting countries into the future, after all, history does not predetermine everything — we are its agents. Second, we have elites that are very Europeanized and that use this feeling in relation to the old metropolis to basically incorporate a discourse that seems anti-colonial in relation to the past when, in fact, it remains colonial in relation to the present and the future. As they colonize their own country, they dress up as the scarecrow of Lusophobia, which makes it possible to hide or avoid certain important debates.
We are talking about societies here, but how would you describe the bilateral relationship in the field of diplomacy today? We have to use our imaginations to find what I call objects of political desire that can unite us. Nor should we overvalue what should be undervalued. The President of the Portuguese Republic devalued the cancellation of lunch [com Bolsonaro], and I think it did well. What we must always appreciate is the enormous importance and international prestige that Brazil’s diplomatic history has. The Palácio do Planalto will have new tenants in the future, as will the Palácio de Belém and São Bento, and the ties between the countries will remain.
What is the relevance of the results of the elections in Brazil this year and how will it define the bilateral relationship? Not only in Portugal, but all over the world, the elections this year in Brazil are being looked at carefully. Just as the 2018 elections represented a moment in the national populist wave, if this reactionary, populist wave is reversed, it will send an important signal to the world at large.
I saw that Brazilians looked with interest at political innovations in Portugal, such as the contraption, a way that the lefts had to overcome their sectarianisms to unite around social causes, but I also look with great interest at how old political barriers in Brazil are being overturned in the name of rule of law values. We hope that this ability to overcome old rivalries that Brazilian politics has will be able to preserve the essentials of the democratic Constitution.
How do you see Bolsonaro’s coup speech and what are the possible global consequences of a coup d’état in Brazil? We cannot be naive about these risks. If we were to let a government violate the values ​​of the Constitution, these apprentice tyrants will not simply go out of power when they lose the elections. Fraudulent elections and electoral scams are not conditions that we can rule out. We saw this in the US with the 6th of January and with the electoral laws in Hungary completely skewed. The risk for democracies from this authoritarian drift is serious and serious.
Many of the diplomacy proposals that you have suggested are within the scope of the CPLP, the Community of Portuguese-Speaking Countries. What assessment do you make of it? Very short. It’s in their routines, in their bureaucracy and, at times, nit-picking. But the solution is not to wait for more imaginative politicians, but to be more imaginative ourselves. With the degree of affection that exists between all Portuguese-speaking countries —which should not hide the painful side of our common history—, there is much to be done. If the CPLP is centered on governments, we should make the community of Portuguese-speaking peoples.
How did the Ukrainian War affect the European Union? The post-war world is over. What is up to us is to see if human rights and popular sovereignty have any chance of a future, or if we are going to return to a time of neo-imperialism. Sometimes I see in other parts of the world, particularly in Latin America, people who minimize what is happening because “it is there in Europe”, thinking that Russian imperialism, as it is in a way a rival to that of the USA, is more excusable . My appeal to intellectuals and readers is not to fall into this trap. If you are anti-colonialist, anti-imperialist, Putin is your enemy. Anyone who thinks that the enemy of my enemy is my friend is being inconsistent with their anti-imperialism.
X-ray | Rui Tavares, 49
Postgraduate in history, he is a deputy in the Assembly of the Republic of Portugal and a councilor in the Lisbon City Council. He co-founded the Free party and was a member of the European Parliament from 2009 to 2014.
