The BE coordinator this Saturday condemned Portugal’s role “in the trade of enslaved people”, saying that “it is not a comma” in the country’s history and that the “racist structure” was not overcome on April 25.
“It must be recognized that Portugal has played an important and decisive role in shaping the structures of racism today, historically and internationally. The role that Portugal played in the trade of enslaved people is not a blemish in our history. a comma is not a period, not an exception, not a comment or a footnote,” emphasized Mariana Mortagua.
The leader of the bloc spoke at the opening of the first anti-racism meeting of the Escola Secundária D. João V party in Amadora, Lisbon district.
Mariana Mortagua, who said “three very brief things about the past, present and future,” recalled that Portugal was “the largest trader of enslaved people in Africa” and that it played an important role “in what is today the modern idea of race.”
“The structure of racism as a structure of power and inequality is an invention designed to dehumanize and justify slavery and the trade in enslaved people, and Portugal played an original and fundamental role in this process,” he said.
Speaking to an audience of 50 people, the BE coordinator stressed that Portugal had contributed to “a process of dehumanization that is then fed and nourished by colonialism, which has long been supported by Portuguese governments and power structures.”
“This is our historical responsibility for the formation of modern racism. Current racism has its own history, and this history is slavery. And Portugal was one of the greatest global agents not only in the creation of human trafficking, but also of all the social structures that allowed this slavery and colonialism to be justified by the dehumanization of people, dehumanization is the idea of superior and inferior races,” he explained.
Mariana Mortagua also stated that there is currently still a “national denial”, “created by the dictatorship”, of Portugal’s role in the slave trade.
“This denial of this idea and Portugal’s contribution to racist structures in its role in colonialism and human trafficking has not been overcome since April 25, and this is also part of the denial that we have to face,” he noted.
According to the BE leader, it was clear that the end of the Colonial War and the Revolution “automatically put an end to racism and all the problems that Portugal had to deal with in the past.”
“One of the greatest failures of the 50-year revolution in Portugal is precisely the recognition of this past. One of the important things for the future is the recognition of this history, and the recognition of this history means an apology to the victims, because there was violence, because there were massacres, because they condemned countries, populations and communities to violence and the denial of their rights, and because the Portuguese state (…) has the duty to recognize the victims and to apologize to them,” he said.
Author: Lusa
Source: CM Jornal
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