Portuguese Minister of Culture Pedro Adão e Silva said this Friday that Portugal must face and “know how to match” its history with Brazil, which is also “the result of a history of violence”.
Pedro Adao e Silva spoke at the first official public meeting with Brazilian Minister of Culture Margaret Menezes as part of the Luso-Brazilian Cultural Dialogues initiative at the Casa da América Latina in Lisbon.
Margaret Menezes is in Portugal as part of a five-day state visit by Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva starting this Friday.
Margaret Menezes, a Brazilian artist with a career of over thirty years who has taken over the Brazilian culture department portfolio, acknowledged the “emotions” of her first performance outside of Brazil in Portugal, emphasizing her focus on presenting the country’s cultural diversity.
There is a “cultural-ethnic melting pot”. “We are giving the opportunity to engage in this culture in a new way. We want this diversity to be represented. We live at this moment in Brazil with this thought and resume what was interrupted. [com a administração do ex-presidente Jair Bolsonaro]”, He said.
At a crowded meeting, Pedro Adão e Silva said it was “a moment of mutual discovery” and “great joy that Brazil is back” after an “interregnum too long for everyone”, referring to the four years of rule. Lula da Silva’s predecessor.
“There is a responsibility in how we project ourselves, because there is a lot of mutual ignorance, in how we look at the Brazilians and how the Brazilians look at us, the Portuguese. It’s time to unfreeze these mutual images. an identity that probably never matched the existing identity and is not the one we have today,” said the Portuguese Minister of Culture.
On the eve of the celebration of the 49th anniversary of the Revolution on April 25, 1974, Pedro Adao e Silva said that it was necessary to look at the history of the country.
“We need to know how to live up to this pride in our shared history. [com o Brasil] and not forgetting that if we have a common history, it is the result of a history of violence, the way Europeans arrived in South America. I think that these historical, far-reaching, complex processes, full of contradictions, must be faced with this complexity,” he stressed.
At the session, both remembered that the Portuguese language united the two countries, but the music served as a bridge: Minister Margaret Menezes took the microphone and sang “O que é, O que é?” Brazilian Gonzaginya. , accompanied by a large part of the public, moved at times.