(1) Fábio Silva
(1) Fábio Silva has a master's degree in Cinema at the Lisbon Theater and Film School. In 2018, he co-directed his first documentary film, Hip to da Hop. He also directed the short films The Death of Isaac and Fruit of Thy Womb, both selected in several national and international film festivals. He is currently working on Your Back Still Burns, his next feature documentary.
Editors’ Comment: This contribution is part of a collaboration between Radical Creativities and Reset!
Paula Cardoso is the figure at the head of Afrolink, the community of African and African descendant professionals focused on skills enhancement, alliance building, dissemination and business support. Credits Sara Matos
It is assumed that Black communities living in Europe are going through a phase of change for the better, given that the UN has declared the years 2015 to 2024 to be the International Decade for People of African Descent. Over the course of these years, the Member States of the European Union should be putting in place concrete measures to combat stereotyping and the different types of violence that target these ethnic minorities. Portugal is one of the countries that made this pledge.
This is a huge commitment, since there have been various events throughout history of the country that should taint the sense of national pride with a feeling of shame: for example, it is estimated that between the 16th and 19th centuries, over 11 million enslaved people were traded between Africa and the Americas. The 20th century was no less bloody. Oliveira Salazar, the Portuguese dictator, pushed to the limit his refusal to give up the colonies of Angola, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique and São Tomé and Príncipe, resulting in millions of African people suffering and dying until they were free from the compulsion to be part of the “Overseas Empire”.
Today, almost 40 years after the former colonies became independent, the far right is gaining greater electoral currency with the Chega party already the third largest political force in Portugal, having gained more seats in parliament. This only serves to confirm the findings of a European Social Survey study published in 2020: over 62% of Portuguese people express racism, showing that, for example, there are those who believe that certain ethnic or racial groups are more hard-working or even more intelligent than others. In recent years, there have been a number of incidents in Portugal that back up these survey findings, such as cases of police officers brutally beating young people of African heritage, the murders of Black people in public spaces perpetrated by ex-soldiers, and those on the front line of the anti-racist fight being continually subjected to death threats and harassment.
In view of this historic wound and these racist acts that continue to be committed, what has the Portuguese State done to shift this paradigm? Very little. A significant part of the work has been developed by independent organisations for Africans and people of African descent. Whether the scope is journalistic or cultural, all of these share the common goal of decolonising Eurocentric thought, deconstructing the persisting social categorisations of ethnic and racial minorities, as well as raising awareness of diverse identities of the Portuguese- speaking African countries, or PALOP (países de língua oficial portuguesa).
What are these organisations? What work has been done? What funding arrangements have been made to guarantee their continuation?
One of the independent bodies that has been working longest in this field is the cultural association Batoto Yetu Portugal (BYP). Created in 1996, it emerged with the aim of helping African immigrants who had arrived in Portugal in the 1960s, 70s and 80s, and the children of this first generation of African people living in the country. “Our significance can be measured by the original terms of our campaign and that there is no space for them in the formal system, or in mainstream cultural and artistic spaces”, says Djuzé Neves, the director of BYP. “We support migrants in finding work, offer schooling support to young people, take tours to spaces where there is African presence, produce books and collect digital material on this topic, and many other projects”. However, he points out that in spite of a number of achievements over almost three decades, their financial survival relies mainly on donations, associates, friends and the help of patrons, such as the contemporary artist Vhils.
State funding can only be obtained through public tenders, which makes it impossible to depend on it for survival. There is also crowdfunding, which was used recently in an attempt to find funding to install 20 street name signs produced by BYP that relate the history of African Lisbon spanning from the 15th century to the present day. The signs have been ready since 2020, but the application for support submitted to Lisbon City Council for them to be installed in the public sphere has already been refused twice and, unfortunately, there is no prospective date for the installation. This means that the goal of telling the stories of the Black people living in the Portuguese capital in an accessible form to residents and tourists has stalled.
Another important independent organisation that is engaged in the same arena is Bantumen, a web-based culture magazine that is devoted to the young Black Portuguese-speaking community. It was created in 2015 by Eddie Pipocas and Vanessa Sanches, with the aim of filling the gap that existed at that time in “highlighting the success of African artists”. According to its two founders, there was a lack of a platform that promoted Black artists, since it was rare for us to see, for example, two musicians from PALOP countries together on a mainstream media newspaper cover. And, although seven years have passed since then, it seems that this reality has not changed. “Without Bantumen there are artists that would never even be visible.In the most well-known media there is no space for Kuduro musicians, and articles are rarely written about Black rappers.” It doesn’t seem to matter how many years in a row they have been the most listened to artists in Portugal on platforms like Spotify, or that they often sell out the Lisbon Coliseum (one of the biggest venues on the country, with a capacity of over 4000). In spite of these factors, articles about Black artists in the mainstream media, when they do appear, always seem to be fragmented and stereotyped.
Managing to bring to the surface the vast range of successes this community has had is one of the fundamental goals that drives Bantumen and this is the rationale behind its Power List, an annual initiative that highlights 100 Black people with Portuguese as their native language from a range of fields, such as culture, politics, science, sport, and fashion, among many other projects. In spite of these efforts, it seems that views of Africans and people of African descent tend to be restricted to a feeling of pity. And both realise that this is one of the reasons why it is so difficult to get financial support: “The majority of brands are only interested in working with us if we put ourselves in the role of victims. If we haven’t suffered it seems that it doesn’t make sense to talk to us”.
They recall, moreover, that at first when they were looking for institutions that were already established and could help to promote Bantumen, they were strongly advised to find someone white to front the project, since this would apparently make it easier to get funding. “People aren’t used to seeing Black personalities building their own means of representation in Portugal. They want it to always be others talking about us.” Yet, they affirm that they would not budge on this point. It will always be them that are the faces of their project, regardless of whether or not they obtain funding. “We have already managed to give life to Bantumen through publicity, consulting, and our web store. We started apply for support more recently, but these tenders are really not always visible. And those that do exist and might consider embracing our community mainly support white organisations that include a few Black people. We’re an exception for them, they think that we are based in one of the PALOP countries and that our audience is only Africans.”
This is a perspective that is shared by Paula Cardoso, an entrepreneur who very recently appeared on the cover of the North American magazine Success Pitchers, and is the woman behind the online platform Afrolink. She says that the idea “began with the creation of a private Facebook group where the African community and people of African descent could meet.” But she quickly realised the importance of creating a place to bring people together that was visible to all, and this is how the site came about three years ago, with the goal of building Black representation in the labour market, and showing that minorities are not just football players if they are men, and cleaners if they are women. “Afrolink is a personal cry that gained ground to become a collective expression. I worked in journalism and I know whose history prevails in the mainstream press where Black people are concerned. My job is to break down these narratives, to pit myself against what is imagined by white Portugal.”
One of several initiatives that the digital platform promotes is the Afrolink Market, a monthly event that started in 2021 and takes place in Lisbon, for Africans and people of African descent who live in Portugal to get together to share experiences of business and build relationships. “Portuguese people who don’t belong to an ethnic minority need to understand that we are not all the same, that we come in different shapes and sizes. They created an Observatory for Racism and Xenophobia where Ana Catarina Martins, the custodian, was saying that there was no problem with structural racism in this country. However, we still don’t have data to show where our community is living and in what conditions, there is no salary comparison with other Portuguese people, and a whole array of other important and objective information that we need is lacking.” Drawing on entrepreneurial methods, Paula Cardoso creates events and appears at seminars without fear of responding to opinions that differ from her own, even though she is well aware of living in a society made up of people who would like her to be silenced, because many still believe that “talking about racism is what drives racism”.
In spite of various challenges that these independent bodies are faced with, nothing seems to be enough to dampen the sense of the mission that they all share: to build a more equal world, where nobody is disadvantaged because of their origin or ethnicity. These and other independent organisations such as SOS Racism, Afrolis, the Black Arts Union, Afropris, Famafro, The Blacker The Berry, and so many others, are absolutely essential in a society that still refuses to publicly apologise for centuries of slavery, that does not try hard enough to reduce the acts of physical and verbal aggression that are systematically committed against the communities of African people and those of African descent, and that gives second place in its political agenda to actions that could lead to social justice and equity between ethnic minorities and the rest of the population. This is why there is still a long way to go in the fight and resistance for these organisations, although, fortunately, in spite of all the constraints that they face, they are working in partnership and have no intention of lowering their raised fists any day soon.