Portugal must apologise, be held accountable for colonisation, says president
Portugal must apologise and assume responsibility for the exploitation and slavery during the colonial period, President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa said in a speech following Brazilian President Lula da Silva’s welcoming session on Tuesday.
De Sousa took this position in his speech at the commemorative session of the 49th anniversary of the April 25 Revolution, commemorating a military coup in 1974 that ended the dictatorial Estado Novo regime and initiated the decolonisation of Portuguese colonies. It took place at the Portuguese parliament, following a welcoming session for da Silva, which in his view, “makes perfect sense”, because Brazil “was a precursor in decolonisation.”
“This is also useful for us to look back about Brazil. But it would also be possible about all colonisation and all decolonisation, and for us to take full responsibility for what we did,” he said.
“It’s not just saying sorry – which is undoubtedly due – for what we did because saying sorry is sometimes the easiest thing to do: you say sorry, turn your back, and the job is done. No, it is the assumption of responsibility for the future of the good and bad things we did in the past”, he added.
According to de Sousa, the colonisation of Brazil also had positive factors, “the language, the culture, the unity of the Brazilian territory.”
“Of the bad, the exploitation of the original peoples, denounced by António Vieira, slavery, the sacrifice of the interests of Brazil and Brazilians,” he pointed out.
“The worst of our presence that we must assume just as we assume the best of that presence. And the same can be said of the best and the worst, the worst and the best of our presence in the Empire throughout colonisation,” he added.
In this speech, the president of Portugal also left a message of condemnation to those who are “selfish in the face of the dramas of the immigrants.”
Earlier, during the session welcoming the president of Brazil, the Liberal Initiative party was only represented by its parliamentary leader, leaving the remaining seats empty, while the Chega MPs held up placards against Lula da Silva and, every time his speech was applauded, they banged on the bench with their hands.
De Sousa, who in March had already criticised the parties on the right for having opposed Lula da Silva’s upcoming speech, again said that it makes perfect sense to associate this date with the president of Brazil.
Brazil “represents the first of Portugal’s first decolonisations” in 1822, “April 25 began to exist because of decolonisation”, and therefore “, today’s meeting, which is a meeting of all times, made perfect sense,” he said.
The president stressed that Lula da Silva “is the president of the Federative Republic of Brazil, the symbolic representative of a sister country, and not only or especially the holder of each historic moment” and was, “moreover, elected by those who had the right to elect him, the Brazilian people – and not other peoples or larger or smaller parts of other peoples.”
During the commemorative session, de Sousa also condemned Portuguese people who are “selfish in the face of the dramas of immigrants”, who “build Portugal, pay into Social Security, create wealth.”
This statement by the president drew applause from all parties except Chega, with left-wing and PSD MPs giving a standing ovation.
De Sousa pointed out that “hundreds of thousands of brothers” from Portuguese-speaking countries live in Portugal, “tireless in what they have done for Portugal.”
He added that Portugal’s “national design” is not only to “grow economically more, which is important, or create more equality, or reduce poverty or lack of social and territorial cohesion”, but to be a “platform between oceans, continents, cultures and peoples”.
“How can we, a country of emigrants – who must be more sympathetic to the dramas of our emigrants – be selfish when faced with the dramas of immigrants who belong to others?” he questioned, receiving applause.
(Inês Escobar Lima | Lusa.pt)
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