While part of Portuguese society reveres a historical past described as one of harmony and integration among peoples, the movement for historical reparation in the country is growing. And, if the clash in the field of discourse were not enough, the examples of discrimination that expose racism to Portuguese style multiply.
United Nations observers were in Portugal for a week earlier this month to assess the situation of the Afro-descendant population. The preliminary notes, which will lead to a report in September next year, describe the scenario as worrisome and surprising — but not in a positive way.
AT leaf American Dominique Day, president of the United Nations working group on People of African Descent, summarizes the main reports collected: beatings by the police, discrimination in the school environment, mistreatment in prisons, gynecological violence (in the case of black women) and hypersexualization of bodies.
The surprising factor, he explains, was to observe how the Portuguese national identity is still defined by the colonial past. “Colonialism and Portugal’s role in creating the modern transnational economy — which, we know, was based on the commercialization of people like me — remain a source of pride, even as racial brutality and human rights abuses are known.”
For activist Mamadou Ba, who arrived in Portugal from Senegal more than 20 years ago and has worked for the NGO SOS Racism since then, systemic racism in the country, of course, has always existed, but it gained momentum as a kind of rebound effect as anti-racist movements have grown stronger over the past five years.
“There was a great onslaught by the most conservative and reactionary sectors proposing a reinforcement of the Luso-Tropicalist ideology, with an idea of benign colonialism, more beneficial and different from others [praticados por outras nações europeias]”, resume.
He assesses that one element in particular served as a catalyst for racism: the election of the first deputy of the Portuguese ultra-right to the Portuguese Parliament, two years ago. “André Ventura’s election [conhecido como Bolsonaro português] it was a greenway for the manifestations of racism”, he says. “We have seen several manifestations in daily life that are much more aggressive and with greater intensity, because people no longer feel any ethical censorship.”
Year by year, the balance of allegations of ethnic-racial discrimination made in Portugal increases. While in 2014 there were 60, in 2020 the figure was 655 — an increase that the Commission for Equality and Against Racial Discrimination (CICDR), responsible for accepting the complaints, attributes to greater public awareness of the issue.
Of the last year’s amount, 27.9% have skin color as a discrimination factor — a number admittedly below the real level, since racism can also be present in discriminations recorded as by nationality (22.1%) or ethnic origin ( 12.2%), for example. Of the complainants, 78 clearly stated that black skin color was a reason for discrimination. And the virtual environment emerges as a stage for crimes, with 48.7% of the reported cases having taken place on social media.
If these numbers help to illustrate part of what black men and women experience in Portugal, the country is experiencing a blackout of another type of data: it is not possible to measure the real size of the Afro-descendant community, since the State does not contain data on the population’s self-declaration.
Despite numerous recommendations, the Portuguese National Institute of Statistics decided not to include a question about ethnic-racial origin in the census. It was justified that, among other things, such data could institutionalize ethnic-racial categories and legitimize the classification of people — an argument that, for Dominique Day, does not hold up.
“The truth is that Portugal has limitations in combating racism by not keeping data disaggregated by race, as there is no way to understand how the problems have a racial element at their core,” he says. “Without data, it is not even possible to know whether the Portuguese government is doing well in its efforts to promote equality and unravel systemic racism.”
What is possible, in part, to calculate is the size of the African population in Portugal. More than 106,000 Africans add to the numbers of the foreign community residing in the country, according to data from the Foreigners and Borders Service. Cape Verdeans, for example, are the third most present nationality, with 36,600, only behind Brazil and the United Kingdom. The official numbers, however, leave out, among others, immigrants who have not yet regularized their situation.
Portugal has a law to combat racism created in 1999, after pressure from organizations such as SOS Racism. Mamadou Ba, however, says that making the mechanism effective is a challenge and explains that more than 80% of complaints are filed or expire. “Institutions such as the justice system and the security forces end up being a cane for the expression of racism in Portuguese society.”
Dominique Day explains that the United Nations observers found widespread discrimination, which does not subside if the citizen is already Portuguese naturalized or even has access to education. The worrying scenario found unfolded into a set of 40 preliminary recommendations for the Portuguese State.
Several possible actions can mitigate discrimination, says the expert, but Portugal will always fall short of what is necessary if it does not settle accounts with the past. “The failure to renegotiate national identity has limited the ability to be anti-racist because isolated measures are being offered rather than dismantling structures that perpetuate racial hierarchy.”
The visit of the United Nations working group on People of African Descent, created two decades ago, was requested by the Portuguese government itself. Observers toured the capital Lisbon, as well as Porto and Setúbal.
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