Jokes and anecdotes with Portuguese people, which are becoming rarer among the new generations, or historical and social questions about the colonial past should not be labeled as anti-Lusitanism or Lusophobia on the part of Brazilians, say academics from Brazil and Portugal heard by the leaf.
The six interviewees disagree with the arguments used by Portuguese journalist Carlos Fino in a recent interview with the newspaper. He, who has just released the book “Portugal-Brasil: Raízes do Estranhamento” (Ed. Lisbon International Press), the result of his doctoral thesis, stated that Brazilians are ashamed of their Portuguese heritage and try to dilute it, in an anti-Lusitanism that it’s rooted.
Historian Gladys Sabina Ribeiro explains that anti-Lusitanism existed in Brazil in specific periods of history, but not as a national sentiment. During the period of independence, from 1820 to 1830, and in the final decades of the 19th century, the movement was directly linked to fierce disputes in the incipient labor market of the time, when the labor of Portuguese immigrants was favored to the detriment of Brazilian citizens. .
“[O antilusitanismo] it was a street movement in which the Portuguese were targeted because they represented a model of life that no longer mattered”, describes Ribeiro, a professor at the Universidade Federal Fluminense (UFF). dos Dois Terços, a rule that forced companies to allocate two thirds of their job vacancies to Brazilians.
Author of books on the subject, such as “Rio de Janeiro dos Fados, Minhotos e Alfacinhas: O Antilusitanismo na Primeira República” (ed. Eduff), Ribeiro has her work used as a reference by Fino in the author’s thesis, but disagrees with what describes how the essentialization and generalization of antilusitanism made by him in the interview.
Historian Thiago Krause, a professor at the Federal University of the State of Rio de Janeiro (Unirio), reinforces Ribeiro’s arguments and says that the intellectual rapprochement between Portuguese and Brazilians is growing, demonstrating that Lusophobia does not find fertile ground in spaces such as Academy.
Author of books and articles on the colonial period, Krause explains that intellectuals have already sought in Portugal the reasons for Brazilian inequalities, but for essentially economic, not xenophobic, reasons. “Portugal was one of the poorest countries in Central Europe; the attempt was to understand the roots of Brazilian underdevelopment.”
The defense that Brazil should have more symbols that go back to the connection with Portugal says a lot about the still scarce discussion of the colonial legacy carried out in the European country, points out the Portuguese anthropologist João Leal, who teaches at the Universidade Nova de Lisboa.
“The examination of the colonial past has been much more explored in relation to former African colonies than to Brazil; and the issue of slavery is still complicated to introduce in Portugal.”
As an example, the professor mentions the statue of Father António Vieira next to three indigenous children, inaugurated in a Lisbon public square in June 2017. The monument was criticized, many by the local black movement, and was even vandalized in 2020 amid the global wave of protests against statues associated with racism and slavery.
Leal, who did fieldwork in the South and Northeast of Brazil and served as a guest professor at UFSC (Federal University of Santa Catarina), says he has never encountered Lusophobia. He criticizes the attribution of the practice to Brazilian society: “There is no ‘Brazil’ or ‘the Brazilians’, but the Brazils and the Brazilians”.
Brazilian social scientist Ana Paula Costa, a researcher at the Portuguese Institute of International Relations at Universidade Nova de Lisboa, agrees with the anthropologist. For her, it is a mistake to speak of anti-Lusitanism among immigrants in Portugal — there are at least 183,993 Brazilians living in the country, according to official data. “I think anti-Lusitanism is a very strong word, it’s almost like reverse racism. There is a very unequal power relationship”, she says.
“Even because of the colonial issue, what we usually call the mongrel syndrome is still very present in Brazil, which is to deify everything that comes from the global North”, he continues. “This still comes from the colonial relationship of admiring and putting on a higher level everything that comes from the metropolis.”
Costa draws attention, however, to a growing movement of contestation, among immigrant communities in Portugal, of traditional narratives about Portuguese colonialism.
“In Portugal, history is told in a way that tries to alleviate the ills and violence that this past has. What has been done here, especially by Brazilians, is to bring another narrative. attempt to bring a new version of the story that always existed, but could not be told.”
A professor at the Institute of Humanities at the University for the International Integration of Afro-Brazilian Lusophony (Unilab), historian Lourenço Cardoso says that Brazil has distanced itself from Portuguese references, but largely because cultural hegemony was concentrated in the USA, not in the Portuguese country.
This, however, does not mean that traits of the Portuguese heritage are not rooted and revered among Brazilians, points out Cardoso, who studies whiteness. “The much-publicized characteristic that Brazilians get along well with others, root of the myth of racial democracy, is a Portuguese heritage, as well as the mutt complex.”
He is critical of Fino’s suggestion about creating a holiday to mark the arrival of the Portuguese. “It’s a proposal in bad taste, colonial and racist. The arrival of the Portuguese meant the extermination of native peoples and the enslavement of Africans”, he says.
Former minister and ex-deputy Aldo Rebelo (non-party), author of a bill that in the late 1990s proposed punishments for those who abused foreign expressions, says that the Luso-Brazilian relationship is covered in displays of affection. and symbology. “On the 7th of September, for example, what we remember most is Portugal. The leader of our Independence was Portuguese.”
Although he observes a revaluation of the Portuguese heritage, he considers that Brazil, in comparison with the other countries that make up the CPLP (Community of Portuguese-Speaking Countries), makes little effort. “And that would even be a geopolitical benefit, because it’s the community in the world that we have the most identity with.”
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