Entries by Lusolobo

Postcolonization-2

‘Repair is recognizing what history has denied us’ Portugal needs ‘to pay the cost’ of slavery and other colonial-era crimes, the country’s president Marcelo da Sousa declared at a recent dinner with foreign journalists. ‘The country takes full responsibility for the wrongs of the past and that those crimes – including colonial massacres – had […]

Postcolonial-1

‘Portugal has a romanticized interpretation of its past.’ Portugal was the European country with the longest historical involvement in the slave trade, kidnapping and forcibly transporting about 6 million African men, women and children across the Atlantic between the 15th and 19th centuries. Although it abolished slavery to the Portuguese mainland in 1761, the trade […]

Leadership

There are numerous terms to describe the wide array of far-right parties and their leaders. They are in one way or the other extreme right, radical right, populist, nativist, ultranationalist, authoritarian, neofascist, illiberal, ‘anti-woke’, anti-Islam, anti-immigration and Euro- and climate-sceptic. The PopuList – an innovative project involving more than 100 political scientists from over 30 […]

Tapestry

A beacon of hope for the preservation of coral reefs An amazing piece of tapestry by Algarve textile artist Vanessa Barragão has been donated by the Portuguese government to the United Nations, which will display it permanently on the wall of the Delegates Lounge at its headquarters in New York. The four-by-two meters artwork, entitled […]

Airfield

‘We leave peace behind and face noise with fear’ After 50 years of delay, the Government has finally decided on the location of Lisbon’s new airport and considered the former Alcochete Shooting Ground (Campo the Tiro Alcochete) the best place to build the new Aeroporto Luis de Camões. An infrastructure which – according to the […]

Júdice

Poet, essayist, writer, novelist and academic On the 17th of March Nuno Júdice, one of Portugal’s most famous contemporary poets died in Lisbon at the age of 74. Nuno Judice was born in Mexilhoeira Grande (Algarve). Poet, essayist, writer, novelist, and – until 2015 – professor at the Faculty of Social and Human Sciences at […]

Decolonization

Retornados were not always received with open arms The Portuguese decolonization proposed by the Armed Forces Movement (MFA) was one of the main points of political divergence on the very day of the military coup 50 years ago. ‘Our intention was good but the change of the Program on the 25th of April, 1974 in […]

Contos dos tempos

Sem rosto Foi mais de quarenta anos, quando trabalhei como médico no Norte de Moçambique, é que aconteceu o seguinte. Numa certa noite fui chamado pelo motorista da ambûlancia para julgar um caso de morte numa pequena aldeia longe do hospital. Como não estava bem claro se se tratava duma morte natural, tive de levar  […]