Racism in Portugal - History

History

The Portuguese people are a southwestern European population, predominantly Mediterranean and Atlantic European. The earliest modern humans inhabiting Portugal are believed to have been Paleolithic peoples that may have arrived in the Iberian Peninsula as early as 35,000-40,000 years ago. The Neolithic colonization of Europe from Western Asia and the Middle East beginning around 10,000 years ago reached Iberia, as most of the rest of the continent although, according to the demic diffusion model, its impact was most in the southern and eastern regions of the European continent.

Starting in the 3rd millennium BC as well as in the Bronze Age, the first wave of migrations into Iberia of speakers of Indo-European languages occurred. These were later (7th and 5th Centuries BC) followed by others that can be identified as Celts. Eventually urban cultures developed in southern Iberia, such as Tartessos, influenced by the Phoenician colonization of coastal Mediterranean Iberia, with strong competition from the Greek colonization.

The Romans were an important influence on Portuguese culture, considering the Portuguese language itself derives from Latin. Other influences included the Phoenicians/Carthaginians (small semi-permanent commercial coastal establishments in the south before 200 BC), the Vandals (Silingi and Hasdingi) and the Sarmatian Alans (both migrated to North Africa, while some were partially integrated by the Visigoths and Suevi), and the Visigoths and Suevi (including the Buri, permanently established in the early 5th century), along with, in the period of the Al-Andalus, minor numbers of Arabs, Berbers, Saqaliba and Jews who also settled in what is today Portuguese territory. The Muslim Moors, mainly Arab and Berber people in origin, and the Christian Mozarabs, were expelled out of the continent, during the Reconquista(Reconquest) and the expansion of the newly-founded Kingdom of Portugal in the 12th and 13th centuries, after the conquest of the southern lands, including Lisbon, the Alentejo and the Algarve.

Portugal has been since then an ethnic homogeneous country with very small populations belonging to different races and cultures. Just sporadic foreign persons were visible and they were well treated despite their ethnicity, except during the period of Catholic Inquisition. However, miscegenation happened outside mainland Portugal, among Portuguese males (whites) and black females from Africa. Starting in the 16th century, large scale miscegenation with female Amerindians and black slaves in the Portuguese Empire's South American territories, and also with black natives in Portugal's African territories, was experienced since the beginning of the Portuguese Age of Discovery. This major wave of open miscegenation throughout the Portuguese Empire was coined Lusotropicalism.

Like the other countries of the southern Mediterranean, Portugal has witnessed a new phenomenon since the 1974 Carnation Revolution and the end of the Portuguese overseas empire: beyond the condition of country of emigration, it became at the same time a country of immigration. There was a very large flow of African immigrants, particularly coming from the former Portuguese colonies in Africa (collectively known as PALOP countries). Since the 1980s Portugal has seen a steady increase in foreign residents, and comparing these figures with the data on Portuguese emigration, one can see that in the same period immigration started to exceed emigration.

Immigration to Portugal before 1980 involved different groups (mainly Europeans and South Americans, in particular Brazilian immigrants), and a different socio-economic integration, than the immigrants who came to Portugal after that date (predominantly Africans).

If until mid 1980s the population of non-European origin (either Portuguese or foreign nationality) is rare and does not present particular problems of integration into the Portuguese society, revealing a great capacity of adaptation, thanks to its will to assimilate and the notion that they were foreigners, and privileged links with the ethnic communities of origin, after the mid 1980s, the same situation is no longer visible. To this contributes the increase of foreigners in Portugal with minor job qualifications and less economic resources, while with the progressive integration into the European Union a great phase of economic growth started and the demand for labor increased. The 1980s also saw racist attacks against immigrants by skinheads and the far-right National Action Movement, a fringe movement.

Since the 1990s, along with a boom in construction, several new waves of Ukrainian, Brazilian, people from the former Portuguese colonies in Africa and other Africans have settled in the country. Those communities currently make up the largest groups of immigrants in Portugal. Romanians, Moldovan and Chinese also have chosen Portugal as destination. A number of British and Spanish people also have chosen Portugal as destination, with the British community being mostly composed of retired pensioners and the Spaniards composed of professionals (medical doctors, business managers, businesspersons, nurses, etc.). Illegal immigration is a major concern and is often associated by the public opinion with several levels of criminal activity and crime importation, despite second generations with Portuguese Nationality are more violent and tend to have a greater than average percentage of criminals. Although being rare and involving in general very low levels of physical violence, racism is usually related with ethnicity rather than nationality, with black people being the most common target of those kind of criminal behaviour or discrimination, after the Romani people. Members of the Romani people in Portugal are known as Ciganos (Iberian Kale), and their presence in the country goes back to the second half of the 15th century. Early on, due to their socio-cultural differences and nomadic style of live, the Ciganos were the object of fierce discrimination and persecution. The number of Ciganos in Portugal is about 40,000 to 50,000 spread all over the country. The majority of the Ciganos do not have today a nomad style of life, rather concentrating themselves in the most important urban centers, where from the late 1990s to the 2000s, major public housing (bairros sociais) policies were targeted at them in order to promote social integration. However, this population is still characterised by very low levels of educational qualification, and high unemployment and crime rates. The Ciganos are the ethnic group that the Portuguese most reject and discriminate against, and are also targets for discriminatory practices from the State administration, namely at a local level, finding persistent difficulties in the access to job placement, housing and social services, as well as in the relation to police forces. There are also reports on discrimination of ciganos by owners of small shops in many parts of the country, including businesses run by other ethnic minorities, such as the Chinese.