translation - (Diogo Dalot on being called up for the World Cup in Qatar) “There are moments that last forever, and being on this call-up will be one of them. We will carry the history of Portugal with us… We are from a land that explored, discovered, conquered and spread its culture to the 4 corners of the world.”
Unfortunately a very common and stupid sentiment shared by too many Portuguese people. I guess during Salazar/Estado Novo education on Portugal’s brutal colonization was incredibly sanitized, to the point of praise. So many monuments to “explorers” all over the country, from mainland to the Azores. They worked so hard to label bloodthirsty monsters as bright eyed sailors.
You’d think after the Carnation revolution things would’ve changed, but if I’m not mistaken NATO had something to do with the communists not taking power.
The current government has done absolutely nothing to properly tackle Portugal’s bloody history let alone any kind of reparations.. I guess during Salazar/Estado Novo education on Portugal’s brutal colonization was incredibly sanitized, to the point of praise
Spot on, it’s called lusotropicalism and it’s still very much a thing
Totally forgot the specific term so thanks for adding it!
I cannot unsee how problematic it is to glorify “explorers” through the innocent-looking aetherics of wooden ships, compasses and maps, in the imperial core. We need to decolonise kid’s media and the notion of “adventure” in entertainment.
I didn’t grow up in Portugal so I have no idea what exactly is taught in class, but the fact that so many Portuguese people are proud of their “explorers” compared to myself; Canadian born to Portuguese immigrants, who looks at those figures with disgust, tells me all I need to know.
Not only that, but the government’s absolute denial when it comes to addressing colonialism is cowardly at best and malicious at worst. Like, if you’re going to be proud of anything it should be the Carnation Revolution.
As someone from a country that the Portuguese colonized: Fuck your culture :)
