Sheila Khan
University of Manchester / CES, Coimbra University / CICS, Minho University
Portraits of a Daily Portuguese Postcolonialism: African Mozambicans’ Colonial
Memories and Postcolonial Identity Exile
“Pois que partir é também ficar, partindo-se.
Exílio e demora, ritual e encenação.
A aurora de todos os inícios descobre-se
ritual nessas flores baptismais ou mortuárias,
que a despedida anuncia no seu começo”.
Ana Mafalda Leite, in Os Aromas Essenciais1
1. Introduction and Theoretical Stance
In his essay entitled “Reflections on exile” Edward Said has asserted that “exile is never
the state of being satisfied, placid, or secure. Exile, in the words of Wallace Stevens, is a
‘mind of winter’ in which the pathos of summer and autumn as much as the potential of
spring are nearby but unobtainable. Exile is life led outside habitual order. It is
nomadic, decentered, contrapuntal)” (Said, 1990:366). I have begun this paper with
Said’s assertion as it inspires this piece of work into its concrete trajectory: the life and
identity narratives of those Mozambican men and women who have left their homelands
after the political independence of Mozambique (25 June, 1975). Over the last years I
have come to terms with the idea that narrative and memory are elements needed when
one aims at looking in-depth into the colonial and postcolonial subjective life stories. In
other words, as far as I concerned, narrative demands from memory an ontological and
epistemological social and cultural patrimony, as memory requests from narrative an
archaeology of temporality, human interaction and narrativity (see, Riessman, 1993;
Andrews et al., 2006; Rimmon-Kenan, 2000)2. In the scope of Portuguese postcolonial
studies, it is not customary to refer to postcolonial narratives of exile identity and social
1
Leite, Ana Mafalda . ‘Esta linha que há em meu peito’. In Guita Jr, Os Aromas Essenciais. Lisboa,
Editorial Caminho, 2006, pp. 11-15.
2
As remarked by Somers and Gibson, “we come to know, understand, and make sense of the social
world, and it is through narratives and narrativity that we constitute our social identities” (Somers e
Gibson, 1998: 58-59).
1
invisibility vis-à-vis the former colonised subjects3. In fact, I believe that more
reflections have to be carried out at both an ethnographic and sociological level, in spite
of the enormous contributions emerging either from literary4 (see, amongst many other
publications, the works of Ribeiro, 2007, 2004; Ribeiro and Ferreira 2003; Sanches,
2006; Mata and Padilha, 2007; Medeiros, 2007; Gould, 20085, 2007, 2006, 2004); or
from historical and anthropological research (for example see Santos, 2001; Almeida,
2000, 2002; Castelo, 2007; Oliveira and Castelo, 2006). With this aim in mind, my
paper will focus on the colonial memories and identity exile narratives experienced by
African Mozambican immigrants in Portugal. Moreover, I intent to historically
reformulate these individuals’ life itineraries, by drawing upon the concepts of memory
(Radstone, 2000; Cunha, 2006; Connerton, 1989; Nora, 1989) and narrative/identity
narrative (Somers, 1992, 1994; Somers and Gibson,1994), in order to shed light on the
3
On her essay ‘Capelas Imperfeitas: Configurações Literárias da identidade portuguesa’, Isabel Allegro
de Magalhães commented openly on the social and cultural invisibility of the former african colonised
men and women living in Portugal by affirming that “as margens, no Portugal do pós-25 de Abril, tanto
são as margens sociais do tecido nacional, conformadas pelos cidadãos de quem se não ouve a voz …,
como por todos aqueles que passaram a fazer parte integrante do tecido nacional quando deixaram as
antigas colónias (ou territórios sob a administração portuguesa), hoje países autónomos e que por
razões económicas vieram para o país ex-colonizador” (2001: 310). Parallel to Magalhães’ assertion,
Inocência Mata understands that the existence of social margins of this postcolonial Portugal reflects that
Portuguese postcoloniality still overlooks the real presence of the Other, by indolently refusing its
sociological value within Portuguese society by reducing the social peripheries to voiceless social actors.
As observed by Inocência Mata: “é inegável que os africanos trouxeram para a ‘civilização’ portuguesa
novos valores, hábitos, costumes e tradições culturais … . Porém, nesse processo de enriquecimento da
cultura portuguesa nem sempre são entendidos e valorizados os sujeitos portadores dos sinais culturais
dessa celebrada contribuição que têm sido omitidos do grande ‘relato da nação’ portuguesa. Trinta anos
depois do desmantelamento político do império colonial português, o discurso da nação … continua a
textualizar os africanos aqui residentes e seus descendentes como os outros!” (Mata, 2006: 289).
From a literary lens, two recent portuguese novels – Margarida Paredes (O Tibete de Àfrica, Ed. Âmbar,
2006); Júlio Magalhães (Os retornados, Um amor nunca se esquece, Ed. Esfera dos Livros, 2008), both
written from a postcolonial and imperial perspective, give an account of this silence that surrounds not
only African communities in Portugal, as well as the so-called ‘retornados’. For instance, in his novel,
Júlio Magalhães clearly depicts the social ostracism that ‘retornados’ had to face within Portuguese
society as follows: “mas a verdade é que a grande maioria destes « retornados» tratou de deitar mãos à
obra: espalhou-se pelo país – com subsídios da IARN ou sem eles – e aproveitou a dinâmica que trazia
de África para abrir negócios, dedicar-se ao trabalho e aproveitar lugares disponibilizados por
trabalhadores que tinham descoberto com a democracia o direito à greve. Não foi fácil a adaptação ao
país, ao clima, à mentalidade vigente, a uma população ainda pouco instruída. Mas dez anos depois, a
meio da década de 1980, os «retornados» imprimiam a Portugal uma dinâmica económica que se tornou
decisiva na integração europeia, mas que jamais foi reconhecida” (Magalhães, 2008: 167).
4
It is important to refer to the research works being published on postcolonialism of Portuguese
expression, namely to the recent book of Hilary Owen entitled ‘Mother Africa,Father Max – Women’s
Writing of Mozambique 1948-2002’, 2007, Lewisburg, Bucknell University Press.
5
Isabel F. Gould kindly allowed me to read her latest article still waiting to be published. Nonetheless, I
deserve myself the right to say that her newest work is undoubtedly valuable to the understanding on the
relationship between imperial experiences and Portuguese identity and its perceptions – ‘Decanting the
Past: Africa, Colonialism, and the New Portuguese Novel’ (forthcoming in Luso-Brazilian Review).
2
performative role these epistemological concepts play in these individuals’ lives, and by
concentrating on how social actors through their narrations, subjective analepsy and
prolesis make sense of their social worlds, because, as we are reminded by Riessman “
human agency and imagination determine what gets included and excluded in
narrativization, how events are plotted, and what they are supposed to mean.
Individuals construct past events and actions in personal narratives to claim identities
and construct lives” (Riessman, 1993: 2). Finally, I will add to my analysis a
postcolonial reading of the assembled memories and narratives of African Mozambican
immigrants who I have been interviewing over the last years (Khan, 2004; in progress,
my postdoctoral research). With a view to contextualising my approach to my research
subject I will resort mainly to the theoretical framework inherent to postcolonialism of
Portuguese expression.
“ A imaginação é a maneira como se arruma a memória”6
António Lobo Antunes
“Deveríamos rir-nos da fragilidade da memória,
ou pelo menos sorrirmos das artimanhas do seu esquecimento”7
Lídia Jorge
2. Breaking the glass of silence: Exile, Narrative, Memory
In his article ‘Between memory and history: Les Lieux de Mémoire’, Pierre Nora has
stated that “among the new nations, independence has swept into history societies newly
awakened from their ethnological slumbers by colonial violation. Similarly, a process of
interior decolonization has affected ethnic minorities, families, and groups that until
now have possessed reserves of memory but little or no historical capital” (Nora, 1989:
7). Departing from this reflection, I intend to travel into the producing and fertile
domains compounded by narrative, memory and exile, more precisely those of the
African Mozambican immigrants’ mnemonic domains of subjectivity, in a postcolonial
Portugal.
6
Blanco, Maria Luísa. Conversas com António Lobo Antunes. Dom Quixote, Lisboa. 2002, p. 114.
7
Jorge, Lídia. Combateremos a Sombra. Dom Quixote, Lisboa. 2007, p.11.
3
After the political independence in Mozambique (25th June, 1975), many men and
women devotedly believed that the new Mozambican society would release them from
the caveats imposed by Portuguese colonial rules and ideology. This faith in the future
was basically based upon the idea that they were no longer the so-called “assimilados”,
those who the system recognised as having the ability to partake the same rights and
duties as the white Portuguese citizens. As referred to by Rocha (1996), the educational
skills provided to this tiny minority were conceived from a paternalistic scheme of
assimilation, for the colonial State wished to use these individuals to enhance its
principle of mixing with other cultures and races (for example, see Castelo’s (1998)
analysis of the well known lusotropicalist ideology propelled by the dictatorial regime
of Oliveira Salazar); to make of them faithful followers of Portuguese nationalism, in
order to uphold colonial hierarchy with loyalty, and masquerade the existing racism,
discrimination, and economical exploitation.
Eduardo Mondlane (one of FRELIMO’s political leaders), observed that culturally and
economically, the social position of the “assimilados” was comparatively inferior to the
white Portuguese population. Emphasising this assumption, Mondlane (1983) described
the status quo of this group by stating that the “assimilado“: “finds himself at a
disadvantage: he always had to do better than a Portuguese child. One girl, who was at
secondary technical school in Lourenço Marques, commented: «the Portuguese didn’t
treat African and Portuguese pupils in the same way. Sometimes the discrimination was
quite clear»” (Mondlane, 1983: 49). In reality, more than economical exploitation and
socially subtle ostracism, many of these “assimilados” underwent a process of refusal of
their African culture and traditions, by embarking themselves into a voyage of cultural
and identitary exile, as they were neither Mozambicans nor Portuguese citizens. This
experience of ambiguity and duality fixed in these individuals’ minds a route of inner
displacement, filled with contradictions, and above all a space for constructive and
ductile social agents, as the world is – and was - for them a place of transformations,
reconstructions, redefinitions, and identity a matter of survival, or, in Cioran words:
“l´exil, a ses debuts, est une école de vertige” (Cioran, 1986: 65-66, cf. Said, 19908).
8
Peculiarly, Edward Said saw this moment of double consciousness by asserting that “while it perhaps
seems peculiar to speak of the pleasures of exile, there are some positive things to be said for a few of its
conditions. Seeing «the entire world as a foreign land» makes possible originality of vision. Most people
are principally aware of one culture, one setting, one home; exiles are aware of at least two, and this
4
Mozambican poetry gives illustrative examples of this feeling of cultural ambiguity, of
personal expatriation, on the grounds that the leading figures of this poetry were
themselves part of the “assimilados” social group. In “Grito Negro” (1980), the poet
José Craveirinha provided the reader with one the most vibrant and pungent poetic,
social and cultural testimonies with regard to Africans cultural alienation and revolt:
“I am coal!
You tear me brutally from the ground
and make of me your mine, boss
I am coal
and you burn me, boss
to serve you forever as your driving force
but not forever, boss
I am coal
and must burn
and consume everything in the heat of my combustion
I am coal
and must burn, exploited
burn alive like tar, my brother
….
I am coal
and must burn
and consume everything in the fire of my combustion
Yes, boss
I will be your coal”. (quoted in Mondlane, 1983: 112).
Noémia de Sousa sang through her poems the blood and tears experienced by cultural
manipulation, the tears of her people’s sorrow, the search of her Africa ancestry and
‘Negritude’9, history, past and memories, by exorcising the malevolent discourse and
astute agency of the White man. In her poem “Black Blood”, Noémia de Sousa depicted,
and deeply characterised the umbilical and ontological inquiry for the Black mother-
plurality of vision gives rise to an awareness of simultaneous dimensions, an awareness that – to borrow
a phrase from music – is contrapuntal” (Said, 1990: 366).
9
Chabal (1996) has considered that: “the negritude phase is, of course, universal in the evolution of
African literature, even if it has taken various forms and has been called by entirely different names. In a
nutshell, what I mean by negritude is simply the attempt to recover, redeem and proclaim African
indigenous culture as the basis for African literature. Negritude is thus the most overt and explicit phase
of cultural nationalism to be found in modern African literature. Although in the Portuguese African
colonies negritude never took the amplified and exalted form it assumed in the French African empire”
(Chabal, 1996: 41). Chabal, Patrick. et al. The postcolonial literature of Lusophone Africa. London:
Hurst & Company, 1996.
5
figure, as a representation of the poet’s African purity, epiphany, roots and soils, and,
ultimately, a demand for forgiveness10:
“Oh my mysterious Africa of nature
my raped virgin
my Mother!
How long have I wandered in exile,
alien to you,
distant and self-centered
through these city streets
impregnated by foreign men!
Mother, forgive me!
Mother, my Mother Africa
of the slave songs to the moon,
I cannot, I cannot deny the black blood, the barbarious blood that was your
legacy to me…
For in me, in my soul, in the fiber of my being,
it is stronger than anything.
I live and I suffer and I laugh within it, Mother!” (quoted in Owen, 2007: 78).
In fact, Mozambican poetry aimed to voice the political revolt which had been
suppressed for so long, and to reach out for the paramount desire of all African
Mozambican men and women: the birth of Mozambique as an independent African
country and nation. The reading of the above poems sheds light on the ambivalent
feelings of many Mozambicans concerning their understanding of who they were and
how they, actually, perceive themselves. The utterances of the interviewees that will be
analysed in this paper also demonstrated how identity cannot be thought of as a fixed
construction, but rather as a fluid and socially-constructed ontological phenomenon.
The assembled data analysed within this paper will be organised according to
chronological sequences regarding the past memories and present perceptions
Mozambicans immigrants hold in relation to their life experiences and narrative selfrepresentations11. Thus, each interview piece will be designated as narrative moment I –
10
On the primordial nature inherent to a human being, Simone Weil commented that: “to be rooted, is
perhaps the most important and least recognized need of the human soul” (quoted in Said, 1990: 364).
11
The assembled data is result of a doctoral research carried out in London, 2000-2001 (Khan, 2004). The
interviews were conducted with the interview guideline, in which questions were asked by respecting
chronological sequence of these Mozambicans’ life trajectories. I have replaced their real names, for
fictitious ones to prevent the participants from being identified. The theoretical framework results from
recent research that is being carried out in my postdoctoral research. By the time I had written my PhD
thesis I had not yet concentrated on the postcolonial approach, this intention came out later when I
6
colonial memories – and narrative moment II – postcolonial narratives. This analytical
option fosters the assumptions that, as regarded by some authors, “personal stories [I
wish to use the classification life and identity narratives instead of personal stories] are
not merely a way of telling someone (or oneself) about one’s life; they are the means by
which identities may be fashioned” (Rosenwald and Ochberg, 1992: 1). Following the
same theoretical thought, John Merrill calls attention to the fact that “narratives, … are
contextualized within their constructions: what they are depends on when and where
they are said and, of course, by whom. Narratives are ripe and fertile: they are
simultaneously products of individual and society and society and individual and
society are their products. Narratives are social” (Merrill, 2007: 1; see, also Somers
and Gibson, 1998). As narratives are social, as remarked by Merrill, the historical and
sociological background will be respected throughout the reading of the presented
data12.
To many Mozambicans, who now look at the past from a postcolonial perspective, the
past events and feelings are told in a narrative manner as for these individuals life
during colonial Mozambique is remembered as a story itself, and never as a fixed
picture.
initiated my postdoctoral work, and decided to go back to these interviews and give them a different
reading and analysis.
12
The uses of narrative within sociological, social psychological and cultural studies arenas are, at the
present, indisputable (see the book edited by Molly Andrews, Shelley Day Sclater et al., entitled “The
uses of narrative: Explorations in Sociology, Psychology and Cultural Studies”,New Brunswick (USA),
2006). Certainly the various approaches to this term point out, at least, one important feature of human
narratives, that they are, undoubtedly, social, and that they have an immediate effect of human
interaction. As observed by Merrill, the most common and prolific means people have to redefine and
reconstruct self and reality is through the lens of narrative. According to this author, “narrative is not only
seen as formative material for the self and reality, but in some cases, a bridge between the two: between
individual and society. The locus of the argument is that social reality exists because of human action, as
do individual selves. Narrative as a form of communication, implicating what is said and how it is said in
this process, then, is seen as being an essential conduit for the development of self and reality” (Merrill,
2007: 7). Accordingly, narrative is understood as being the core element to render meaningful what
people do and say, as human actions are made knowledgeable through narration (see, Atkison, Coffey and
Delamont, 2003; Bucholtz and Hall, 2005; Holstein and Gubrium, 2000; Bruner, 1984,1991; Sarbin,
1986; and Hardy, 1968). Effectively, Barbara Hardy, has put emphasis on the very precious nature of
nature within human lives by asserting that: “we dream in narrative, daydream in narrative, remember,
anticipate, hope, despair, believe, doubt, plan, revise, criticize, construct, gossip, learn, hate, and love by
narrative” (Hardy, 1968: 5).
7
a. Narrative moment I – Colonial memories
André: (Mozambican immigrant, departed from Mozambique in 1984 to Portugal. For
many years he lived and worked in several European countries, for instance, Germany.
He arrived in England in 2000. At this point of the interview, I am asking him how he
perceived himself during the colonial system in Mozambique. He replied:
“na minha juventude apercebia-me que eu sendo mulato … havia uma influência
muito grande, principalmente, quando o branco me dizia a mim que eu era não
era igual ao negro, eu era influenciado por essa situação, portanto, nós não
tínhamos consciência exacta de sermos africanos, quais seriam os nossos
valores. …. Foi uma arma do colonialista para considerar o mulato acima do
negro, foi um aspecto de estrato social em dizer que eu sou superior ao negro,
sou mais assimilado que o negro, porque sou mais aproximado ao branco”
(Khan, 2004: 168).
Daniela: (Mozambican immigrant, she came out from Mozambique in 1977 to Portugal;
then she went to live and work in the United States. She later emigrated to England in
1997):
“em Moçambique, sempre se notou aquela diferença que havia entre o negro e o
mulato, havia essa diferença, aquela coisa de «eu sou mulato e tu és negro»,
havia aquele conflito” (Khan, 2004: 156).
b. Narrative moment II - postcolonial narratives
André: (I am enquiring him about how he sees himself, in terms of cultural
identification, after leaving Mozambique behind):
“Senti-me, senti-me um pouco, talvez confuso em relação às minhas origens …
contava aquilo que nós chamamos de piadas, rebaixamento aos governantes, e
ao próprio africano, porque eu ainda estava confuso de dizer assim: «eles são
brancos, eu sou mulato, eu não sou preto», a minha vida teve uma mudança,
comecei a ter sempre isto: «eu convivo com pessoas, independentemente, da
pessoa ser branca, indiana, seja o que for” (Khan, 2004: 192).
Daniela: (I am enquiring her about how she sees herself, in terms of cultural
identification, after leaving Mozambique behind):
“Eu considero-me europeia, não me considero moçambicana, não me considero
portuguesa. Sim, tenho passaporte português, sim nasci em Moçambique, mas
não me considero nem uma coisa nem outra” (Khan, 2004: 194).
The reading of these identity narratives, shows, particularly, that memory prepares the
ground for the narrativization of these individuals’ perceptions of their identities. Past
and present come together both as a historical and social frame in which they rely upon
to claim (Riessman, 1993; Rosenwald and Ochberg, 1992) their cultural identifications
8
and express the feeling of exile. In other words, the lonely experience of identity
deprivations felt at not having an acute sense of what their roots and land are (Said,
1990). In regard to individuals’ memory patrimony, or sites of memory as Pierre Nora
designated it (1989); Paez et al. have argued that memory is social “first of all, because
of its content: people always remember the world in which other people also live.
Memory of the past is always that of an intersubjective past, of a past lives in relations
with other people” (1997: 152). Halbwacks (1968) addressed the study of human
memory by stating that when an individual travels back to his/her past, he/she perceives
it and life as a retrospective reality, mostly fraught with memories both individual and
collective. Hence, narrative is a form of telling something according to a chronological
and contextual order, where social, cultural and historical structures are taken into
consideration as the corpus in which events have occurred (see also Paul Connerton,
“How Societies Remember”, 198913). In light of these narratives, the strict interaction
between society and the self is undeniable. A racialised narrative emerges from André’s
life story, or memory/identity narrative. During his account, he confessed that, from
time to time, he perceived himself as racist and as using discriminatory attitudes toward
others, which had been imbued by the colonial White man on him, and which he, in
turn, used towards those he recognised as ‘blacks’. Going back to his interview, relevant
moments should be remembered for the scope of this analysis: “senti-me confuso em
relação às minhas origens” [‘I felt confused about my origins’]; “eles são brancos, eu
sou mulato, eu não sou negro” [‘they are white, I am a mulatto, and I am not black’].
For Daniela, the departure from Mozambique was extremely traumatising to her and her
family. This respondent referred to her identity as “europeia” [‘european’], as she never
identifies herself with Portuguese mentality, though she had a “passaporte português14”.
13
In accordance with Connerton’s assertion: “the life of the interviewee is not a curriculum vitae but a
series of cycles. The basic cycle is the day, then the week, the month, the season, the year, the generation.
The narrative of one life is part of an interconnecting set of narratives; it is embedded in the story of
those groups from which individuals derive their identity” (Connerton, 1989: 24-26).
14
Júlio Magalhães’s most recent novel, Os retornados – Um amor nunca se esquece (2008), depicts
vividly the exile experience and feeling the majority of the so-called ‘retornados’ underwent by the time
they were forced to leave Angola shortly before this country’s political independence from an enduring
colonial system. Some characters in Júlio Magalhães’ narrative painfully expressed their inner emotions
and perceptions of Portugal as a unknown nation, from which they clearly discerned were not a part of: “
José Coimbra tinha sido acomodado à pressa na última fila com mais quatro pessoas. Coimbra pensou
em regressar a Portugal, até porque «regressar» não seria o termo correcto, já que nasceu em África e
nunca estivera no Continente” (p.127); “não se sentia um retornado porque nasceu em África, na África
portuguesa” (p.174); “Era a estranha a sensação de regressar a um país totalmente desconhecido. Tudo
9
She also refuted to be Mozambican, as she felt emotionally hurt when living in the
newly-formed Mozambican society, under FRELIMO’s government, after the political
independence of this country. Daniela stated that “para uma pessoa ser feliz não tem de
estar no seu país. Se naquele país, encontrar aquelas coisas pelas quais tu lutas e
desejas, és dali” [‘to be happy a person does not need to be in his/her country. If in that
country a person finds those things one fights for and wishes, then you belong to the
place’] (Khan, 2004: 194). Both André and Daniela’s subjective trajectories and
immigration experiences, in Mozambique, Portugal, Germany and the USA, echo Said’s
assumption that ‘exiles’ feel an urgent need to reconstitute their broken lives, and,
therefore, “exile is sometimes better than staying behind or not getting out” (Said, 1990:
360).
3. Exile Identity Narratives: What is Portuguese Daily Postcolonialism?
As suggested by Connerton (1993) an interviewee’s life cannot be thought of as a
curriculum vitae, but rather as a series of cycles. According to the author, the basic
cycle is the day, then the week, the month, the season, the year and the generation, thus,
it is feasible, so to speak, to ‘besiege’ one’s memory15. Although my very intention is
not to get redundant, or repetitive, but rather explicit, I will continue dialoguing with
André and Daniela’s sites of memories and identity narratives. My aim, at this point of
my reflection, is to explore the idea of daily Portuguese postcolonialism. To be more
precise, how Portuguese postcoloniality is perceived and represented by these
respondents. For daily postcolonialism I understand the day-to-day experiences,
emotions, feelings, perceptions, representations, memories and narratives one holds as
o que conhecia de Lisboa era as fotografias que via nos livros de História …. Desta vez estava mesmo a
aterrar em Lisboa. Não por opção mas por obrigação. As suas lágrimas tinham um misto de emoção,
mas também de profunda tristeza. Aquele planar do avião a perder altura para se fazer à pista marcava
definitivamente o fim de um ciclo de vida africano” (p.152); “O inesperado e precipitado regresso de
milhares de portugueses ao Continente teve como consequência imediata o aumento da população
residente. Se muitos encontraram apoio em familiares que tinham cá, a grande maioria chegava
completamente desenraizada, sem pontos de referência e para a escuridão total. Nem nas profundezas do
mato africano se sentiriam assim tão desprotegidos” (p.165). The same contextual and historical
framework can be identified in Margarida Paredes’s novel O Tibete de Àfrica (2006) in which the main
character – a ‘retornada’ as well- epitomises her fragile identification and cultural loyalty towards
Portugal by saying: “não era angolana, não era portuguesa, era retornada. Com o tempo apercebi-me
que ser retornada era uma espécie de doença que todos os récem-chegados tinham contraído em África.
Ser retornado era muito pior que ser feio, gordo, careca ou corcunda” (p.59); “A minha deslealdade
para o país que me acolheu não me incomodava, eu nem sequer nasci aqui” (p.66).
15
See Fussel, P. The Great War and Modern Memory. New York, 1975.
10
a result of his/her social interaction with a specific cultural setting. In fact, I have
asserted elsewhere that “postcolonial research agenda cannot simply rely on literary
sources, as it fails to bring light other colonial and postcolonial voices that have
remained anonymous and silent” (Khan, 2007: 94). Thus, an ethnographical research
approach shall be carried out with a view to shedding light on life narratives whose
silences are kept doubly marginalised: both as social and narrative peripheries. Over the
last years, the study of Portugal as a post-colony has witnessed an enormous and acute
attention from many prominent academics. For the aim of this analysis, I will resort to
Margarida C. Ribeiro (2004) and Boaventura de Sousa Santos (2001)’s theoretical
contributions, in order to critically look at the interviews complied for this paper. For a
better presentation of the data, I have structured it under the label of ‘narrative moment
III - postcolonial narratives’.
c. Narrative moment III - postcolonial narratives’.
André:( I am asking him about what was his perception of Portuguese society by the
time he was living in Portugal, to which he replied as follows):
“[Em Portugal] vi que socialmente havia racismo, havia discriminação. Mas,
aos poucos, eu que julgava que eu estava desfavorecido, vou encontrar um povo
que está menos evoluído” (Khan, 2004: 173).
Daniela: the same question was asked to her:
“[Em Portugal] havia aquelas pessoas que estavam muito revoltadas pelo facto
de nós estarmos …, porque diziam que estávamos a invadir o país, … outros
vinham com racismo, sentia que o povo português era aquelas regras
estipuladas, eram aqueles caminhos que tinhas que seguir, uma mentalidade que
mesmo sabendo que essa mentalidade era muito similar e foi implantada por
portugueses, eu sempre senti que aquilo não era [Portugal] não era lugar para
mim” (Khan, 2004: 174).
Over the course of the interviews, both immigrants confessed that, in Portugal, they
were unexpectedly confronted with a strange and diverse reality from that which they
were used to. For them, this reality represented a new environment that culturally and
socially did not coincide with the Portugal in which they lived: that Portugal represented
and reproduced in Africa (see, Magalhães, 2008; Paredes, 2006). A vigilant reading of
the data suggested that in spite of the existence of sameness in terms of language and
cultural references, these immigrants recurrently discerned Portuguese society as more
retrograde, racist, and culturally-underdeveloped in comparison with the colonial setting
they used to be a part of. Particularly, the notion of Portugal as an imperial nation is
11
clearly dismantled as, for these participants, Portuguese society cannot be understood as
being a former colonised subject, but instead as a “império como imaginação de centro”
(Ribeiro, 2004: 15)16. The respondensts’ above perceptions corroborated Santos’ (2001)
reflection concerning the fact that Portugal in comparison with other former colonised
countries, was but a minor colonial country. As a matter of fact, these individuals’
perceptions of the Portuguese as ‘envious’, ‘racists’, ‘immature’ with a ‘narrow
mentality’, allow us to propose the conjecture that postcoloniality in Portugal is still
fragmented and haunted (Medeiros, 2003) by internal and profound peripheries that are
socially constructed (see Magalhães, 2001).
4. Conclusion:
This paper remains incomplete, mainly for two reasons: one reason results from the
scarcity of space to analyse such complex human universe of the “assimilados”; the
other one concerns the awareness that much more was left unsaid as this reflection only
touches the tip of the iceberg that, undoubtedly, is composed by other voices, life
experiences and memories. Nonetheless, the journey into the center of these
immigrants’ identity narratives and mnemonic utterances shows the urgent need that
postcolonial studies have in order to verify and enquire into other realities of the day-today Portuguese postcolonialism (see Khan, 2007). As I have pointed out, throughout my
reflection, I also do not pretend to refute or relegate to a second place the contributions
emerging from literary, historical and anthropological research regarding the nature of
Portuguese postcoloniality. However, I allow myself to notice of an absence of areas of
research that would shed light on other human and social realms that compose the
postcolonial Portuguese tissue. In this sense, and as far I am concerned, the compiled
narratives and memories can be thought of as spontaneous proposals that allow us to
enlighten the corners of a ‘house’ still unexplored, and haunted by social and cultural
prejudice and stereotypes that need to be dismantled. My above assumption is inspired
16
See Isabel Allegro de Magalhães’ book “Capelas Imperfeitas”, for a literary perspective, regarding
Portuguese literature on colonial war. In Magalhães’ analysis there stands out the problem many returned
Portuguese soldiers had to face after coming back from the colonial wars in the former Portuguese
African countries, by asserting that: “aquilo de que nos vamos apercebendo em todas as personagens é,
afinal, uma permanente não-coincidência de si com o tempo e o lugar do presente; é a impossibilidade de
se ficar onde se está, porque em nenhum lugar é possível ser: nem no país antes da partida, nem lá, nem
depois do regresso, aparentemente tão desejado” (2002:171, 2001: 329-333; see, for instance, Lobo
Antunes’ Fado Alexandrino (1988); Carlos Vaz Ferraz’s O Nó Cego (1986); Cristóvão de Aguiar’s
Braço Tatuado – Retalhos da Guerra Colonial (1990); Joana Ruas’ Corpo Colonial (1981)).
12
by Isabel Allegro de Magalhães’ reflections on the literary configurations of Portuguese
identity, when she warns us on the following: “no início deste novo milénio … falta
ainda prestar mais atenção à configuração de imagens que os outros fazem de nós, em
particular as construídas pelos povos que colonizámos e que nos olham com
simultânea proximidade e distância [my own emphasis] de lá e de cá do mar”
(Magalhães, 2001: 343). In fact, thinking both Magalhães’ words and the narratives and
memories here presented and analysed, is, surely, an attempt to invite Portuguese
postcoloniality to look introspectively at itself as a social, cultural presence that was
historically created and shaped by the intersection amongst other cultures, other
peoples, other epistemological enunciations and knowledge(s) (see Mata, 2006).
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