Reliving Alcácer Quibir

4 August 1578, the youthful King of Portugal Dom Sebastião led his troops and those of his ally, the deposed Sultan of Morocco, against those of the reigning Sultan of Morocco outside the town of Casr al Kabir. Outnumbered and outflanked by the Moroccan armies, the battle was a complete rout for Dom Sebastião’s armies. This young and enthusiastic King lost his life, as did vast numbers of the Portuguese aristocracy who were slaughtered on the battlefield. The resultant power vacuum in the Portuguese kingdom allowed for the Spanish King Phillip II to ride in and lay claim to the Portuguese crown. For the next 60 years, the Portuguese and Spanish crowns would be united while Portugal and its domains, which were maintained as distinct, were nevertheless swallowed into the global Spanish empire.

Following a trend characteristic of history writing where the Southern Europeans are concerned, Dom Sebastião’s decision was cast by some historians as prompted by fanaticism. Others however point that the decision to embark on this ‘crusade’ was not Dom Sebastião’s unilateral decision. On the contrary, he was encouraged by large sections of Portuguese society, both nobility and the merchants, who expected large gains from the enterprise.

The events that have unfolded in Portugal since the last column seem to suggest that the Battle of Alcácer Quibir may not be a terribly inappropriate metaphor for this country that is literally verging on an abyss. A couple of days after the hugely popular demonstration of the Geração a Rasca, a Facebook campaign began demanding that the PS Government headed by Prime Minister José Socrates step down. This demand appeared rather bizarre. After all, nothing radical was going to change if the Prime Minister stepped down. The PS would most likely be replaced by the PSD and the latter would have to make the same or similar unhappy choices for the country. Larger cuts on social spending, higher taxes, lower wages, perhaps take financial support from the ogres in Brussels and Washington.

These Facebook activists however got their wish. In a move seemingly designed to bring down his Government, José Socrates sprung a surprise on the Portuguese, announcing, without earlier consultation with others, renewed financial plans to help deal with the crisis while in Brussels. None too happy with this situation and no doubt hoping to gain from a mid-term election, the PSD indicated that it would not support these budgetary proposals. That was that, political crisis in Portugal.

The crisis is further compounded by the flanking measures of the ratings agencies that additionally assault the country by lowering its credit rating. The options for Portugal are grim. It is suggested, that the prescriptions from Brussels and Washington will lay the Portuguese economy low for a long time to come. In addition, the imperial politics being played will result in Portugal compromising its sovereignty as external forces indicate how the country is best run.

On the other hand, there is the embrace of Empires of a different kind. Both the Chinese and the Brazilians have offered to buy out Portugal’s debt. There is however no such thing as a free lunch. Already Lisbon is awash with jokes suggesting the annexation of Portugal to Brazil. While the thought of an annexation or a departure from the EU into a Luso-commonwealth may be just a joke, it would be interesting to see what implications the eventual resolution of the crisis will bring to the Portuguese self-image.

Dom Sebastião’s body was never recovered from the battle-field. This absence allowed for the emergence of Sebastianism, a Messianic belief, not unlike that of some Shia Muslims, that the young King had hidden himself and would arrive at the opportune moment to lead the country out of its misery into glory. This might not be a bad time for the young Sebastian to wake up and rescue his country.

(First published 3 April 2011)

A Geração à rasca

Three French men, Louis XVI, Napoleon Bonaparte and Alexandre Dumas, are credited with declaring that ‘Europe ends at the Pyrenees’, or alternatively, that ‘Africa begins at the Pyrenees’. What these wicked, wicked men suggested was that the Iberian peninsula, comprising Spain and Portugal, shared more with Africa, northern Africa at any rate, than it did with Europe. A number of Portuguese too will laughingly use this reference to explain away the laxity that marks this western most part of the European continent.

It is no secret that the Portuguese economy is today in an unholy mess. A good number of Portuguese will lay the blame for this mess squarely on the same laxity. The sins on this list are rather long. They will agree that Portugal is not marked by a meritocracy. If you don’t come with the right name and the right background, moving forward could be substantially difficult for you. Add to this the political graft that marks the country’s operation. Business interests and political leadership are shamelessly twined, official power used to further private interests. Joining the European Union has meant that the directives from Europe regarding the setting up of systems and procedures are met, but in a manner that recalls the spirit of that famous response by the Spanish Viceroys in the Americas, ‘I obey, but do not comply.’ The procedure is followed, but the spirit absent, resulting in applicants being caught in the nightmare of bureaucratic purgatories. But perhaps what makes this worse is the situation where there is no widespread culture of popular dissent in Portugal.

In apparent synchrony with the North African comparisons however, the pot boiled over subsequent to the Afro-Arabic revolutions. Fed up with the situation in the country that includes the cut back of funding for students, the lowering of salaries of public functionaries, the rolling back of the rights of workers, the significant amount of unemployment among the young, a good amount of these under the excuse of dealing with the economic crisis, a group of 4 young persons finally said enough is enough. This group of 4, speaking in the name of the geração à rasca, or the cornered generation called for a demonstration in Lisbon on the 12^th of March. They pointed out that their generation was the most qualified generation in Portugal’s long history ever. And yet, large numbers of these youth are unemployed and have to emigrate, to find futures outside of the country.

The response to this call was monumental. Hundreds of thousands of Portuguese congregated to march in the protest scheduled to end at Praça de Restauradores. So large were the numbers that once at the end of the march, they carried on to other parts of the city, continuing to voice their protest at the systems that has pushed the lives, dreams and ambitions of so many in this country into crisis.

As powerful as this demonstration was however, one wonders if it continued to resound with the problems that mark this wonderful but sadly traumatised country. The leaders of the demonstration failed to offer a suggestion to go forward beyond the manifesto that launched the demonstration. The manifesto itself, framed in the broadest possible manner to attract broad support, did not get down to specifics. And here lies the problem, one that we share in Goa. We can demonstrate all we want, but until we are able to mobilise this anger and transform this into a sustained critique of the system, and create agendas for change, we will remain in the rut.

This is not yet the moment for critique though. This is the moment to congratulate the geração à rasca and wish them strength to network and combine to create options for systemic change in their country.

(First published 20 March 2011)

Lux tua vita mihi.

Like so many children in India I grew up in Goa in the shadow of the former British Empire. As a result London was a fabled city, the former centre of a truly global empire, and imagined to be filled with architectural marvels that should rightly grace an imperial centre.

Visiting London for the first time was a truly depressing let down however. There was practically nothing that was on a truly monumental, imperial scale. The experience on travelling to Lisbon on the other hand was an entirely different matter. Here indeed was a city that knew how to present itself as an imperial centre. Huge squares framed by monumental buildings. Façades of churches that, to borrow a phrase from James Fergusson, seemed to have been conceived by giants and finished by jewellers. And to top it all, as if to stick a tongue in the England’s gloomy direction, was the light.

Lisbon’s name is said to be derived from the ancient name for the settlement Olissipo. This name in turn was associated with the mythical founding of the city by Ulysses, the Greek adventurer of the epics. The more boringly pedantic, will tell us that the name derives not from the Greek adventurer, but from the words that meant ‘safe harbour’. In time, Olissipo was transformed to its Arabic version Al-Isbuna, until when after the Crusader conquest it came to be called Lisboa. While there may be good reason to name the city for its safe harbour, it seems a travesty that Lisbon is not in fact called Luz Boa, and named for its good(Boa) light (luz).

This city has the most amazing light! It is a light that is sharp and sparkly and does the most amazing things to the city. The contribution of this light first dawned on me when traversing the city one morning early in my stay of the city. Moving from the cold shadows of the Rua do Loreto into the light in the Praça de Camões, one realised how privileged one was to live in this incredibly beautiful city of light. Whether it is out in the squares, or on jacaranda shaded avenues, the light that this city receives converts the golden yellow, salmon pink and powder blue façades of its buildings into so many Fabergé eggs. Polished by the scores of feet that daily caress the limestone cobbled streets of the city, in this light these sidewalks shine like so many silken ribbons nestling these exquisite precious eggs.

And this light induces ecstasy. Standing on the edge of the Praça de Camões is the neo-classical façade of the church of the Incarnation (Igreja da Encarnação). Surmounting this façade are a series of dramatic ornamental urns sculpted to appear as if with flames at their mouths. Come sunshine and these urns catch the rays of the sun to incarnate variously as the burning bush of Sinai, or the icon for the Sacred Heart of Jesus. If light ever contributed to the drama of architecture this is a perfect example. The profound changes that this sight works on one’s sentiments can only be experienced every attempt at description falling short. It does drive home the point however to the perfection of Lisbon as a stage for this light. And it is thus that my heart confesses, ‘Lisboa, lux tua vita mihi’ (your light is my life)!

(First published 6 March 2011)

First impressions of the Metropole

The colonial adventurers who travelled to the ‘Orient’ often had strange and bizarre stories to tell of the ‘exotic East’. Today, when we do not find these realities we assume that their demise resulting from modernity and development. However, these ‘realities’ were oftentimes figments of these westerners’ imaginations. Strangers to foreign lands, they tried to make sense of the differences they experienced as best as they could. Comparisons were made to what they already knew from home. Worse still, at times they were ill, sometimes violently so, and wrote in a delirium, or recollected their experiences from the time of the delirium. None of this, you will agree, makes for a coherent or dependable travelogue.

Things are not easier for the modern traveler. When we travel, we suffer the discomfort induced by culture shock and jet-lag. The speed of contemporary travel, when we can dine at home, and lunch half way round the world heightens our nostalgia for home. Finally, we are hostage to the frameworks that have already been put in place for us by those who have come to our land, or gone before us to foreign lands.

The Goan who travels to Portugal is hostage to all of these challenges. There is definitely the nostalgia for home, but there is also this colonial baggage that we carry. We recollect that statement originally intended for the now vanished City of Goa, ‘He who has seen Goa, need not see Lisbon.’ And then, we actually take it seriously! We come to Portugal, with these ideas buzzing in our heads and promptly seek to place the images we encounter, into little Goan boxes.

My own first trip to Portugal took me to the University town of Coimbra. The journey from Lisbon to Coimbra took me past the margins of the river Tejo. Fortunately I am not the only one to have imagined these margins to look like the beloved Khazans of Goa. Unfortunately though, the other person who made the comparison was another jet-lagged, home-sick Goan. Over the days spent in Coimbra, huffing and panting up the roads that led to the University perched on a hill over the old town, comparisons were made to the old Lyceum in Panjim´s Altinho. The aesthetic of many of the University buildings was so similar, and our Lyceum similarly perched on a hill. Added to this was the period of my visit. Travelling in June, the season was nominally summer in Portugal. But the weather that year was strange. We had almost daily torrential downpours that pulled wet curtains over the sun. Given the warmth that otherwise prevailed, the hill slopes around the university, like some tropical jungle, sprung verdantly to life. This fortunately, was no nostalgia-induced hallucination. Much of that foliage was in fact tropical. A good amount of tropical vegetation both from America and Asia that first moved in the course of the colonial ‘adventures’ now find themselves very much at home in Portugal.

It is perhaps when the traveler puts down roots; or stops to remain in the land for a while longer; when her interactions with the local turn from casual to quotidian. It is then perhaps that the old boxes suddenly seem insufficient. That is when a fresh struggle begins, to find new words to express a reality that does not quite fit the mould.

(First published 20 Feb 2011)

A Goemcar in Lisbon

To be a Goan in Lisbon is to be in a relationship, caught between two rather different kinds of nostalgia, or more appropriately, saudades. The first is a nostalgia, a terribly bitter-sweet longing for Goa that has been left behind. The names of streets, the colour of buildings, the façades of some these buildings, trees, even the names of most people here, constantly remind you of Goa. Here in Lisbon lie the final resting places of people you grew up with on a first name basis; Afonso de Albuquerque, Vasco da Gama, Amalia. Lisbon, you could sometimes say, bears the imprint of Goa. For me personally, as someone who grew up in Panjim, Lisbon is Panjim enhanced. It is also on many fronts, the possibility of what Panjim and Goa can be, if we in Goa can get our act together.

This possibility is not the mere aping of Lisbon however, for there is much to be critiqued and improved on in Lisbon. This is where we come to the second kind of nostalgia, a longing for the old. This nostalgia is a dead-end. There is no future in mourning for the Goan pre-1961 past. This history is either extremely problematic to claim, or it was in fact the history of a small set of Goan families who have access to Lisbon and its metropolitan elite. The Goan living in Lisbon in 2010 does not necessarily need to rely on this past to forge a contemporary relationship with the city; the present moment gives one enough and more opportunities to do so.

It is precisely this present moment that could allow us to reinvent the Goan relationship with Lisbon. This is a necessary relationship to reinvent precisely because of the unsung- and more recently increasingly suppressed - pages of the history that we share. We need to look beyond the chapters of history celebrated by these small select Goan families and look at the manner in which the silent members of Goan society reinvent this relationship. Such an exploration would allow us to move away from the problematic colonial and nationalist articulations of our relationship, and shift toward a more cosmopolitan relationship based on mutual respect and sharing.

This look of a Goan living in Lisbon (and in extension Portugal) is not based solely on Goan emotions and experiences. On the contrary, this look at Lisbon is also based on the recognition of the fact that the contemporary Goan is also a South-Asian. To be South-Asian is to recognize that not only is the contemporary Goan born as an Indian citizen, but is engaged with a larger sub-continental politics. This truly sub-continental lens, freed from the shackles of restrictive nationalism, provides the Goan with an enhanced vision from which to examine and introspect on the Lisbon experience. To fail to do so would otherwise lead us to fall back into the narrow ruts of the nostalgic longing for the Estado da IndiaI under the Estado Novo. As I stressed before, this experience is too limited to provide to us support for a reinvention of a new Goan relationship with both Portugal and the world. In deed a relooking our relationship with Portugal will also impact on the manner in which we relook our relationship with the people we share the subcontinent and the country with.

But perhaps the reinvention of a relationship is beyond the capacity of a tiny column. My offerings here will seek to diary the manner in which a contemporary Goan negotiates life in our former metropole. Who knows what will come out of this exploration?

(First publised 6 Feb 2011)