Rejected recommendation to preserve coats of arms of Praça do Império in Lisbon – Observer
On Tuesday, Lisbon’s Municipal Assembly rejected the recommendations proposed in the wake of the petition “Against the erasure of the coats of arms of Praça do Império”, including the implementation of an interpretative path in the access tunnel to the Padrão dos Descobrimentos.
As a recommendation for the preservation of the coats of arms of Praça do Império, in the Lisbon parish of Belém, were rejected with 37 votes against PSD, CDS-PP, Aliança, PPM, MPT, Liberal Initiative, Chega and BE, one abstention vote from the PAN and 36 votes in favor of PS, PCP, PEV, Livre and one independent from the Cidadão por Lisboa movement (elected by the PS / Free coalition).
Before the vote at the Lisbon Municipal Assembly meeting, Rafael Pinto Borges, promoter of the petition “Against the deletion of coats of arms in Praça do Império”, which was delivered in February this year, with about 15,000 signatures, addressed the deputies to welcome the negotiation process with the previous executive, under the presidency of the socialist Fernando Medina, which he described as an “exemplary interest” and who should be a model for current and future executives.
Rafael Pinto Borges said he was evaluated “A reasonable solution” to ensure the continuity of the coats of arms of Praça do Império, namely that included in the Portuguese pavement, “a achievement that allows the city to respect itself”, because “the preservation of history is at stake”.
One of the proposed proposals, which results from the work carried out in the previous term, precisely on July 28 of this year, after consultation with the petitioners, indicated that “regardless of the outcome of the point relating to the conservation of floral coats of arms, the Lisbon City Council protects the preservation of history and memory of the place through the implementation of an interpretative path in the access tunnel to the Padrão dos Descobrimentos, in cooperation with higher education institutions, the Olissiponenses Studies Office and other entities that ensure the scientific quality of the intervention”.
The first intervention of the deputies was by Isabel Mendes Lopes, from the Free party, who defended the importance of “not forgetting the past, without uncritically glorifying it”, considering that: “Lisbon can’t live well with its past, and this debate is not just about flower coats, but about historical memory”.
The discussion rose in tone in the voice of the young BE deputy Leonor Rosas, when she stated that the petition is “filled with colonial nostalgia and historical falsehoods” and that it was authored by the “extreme right-wing association Nova Portugalidade, which has shameless Luso-Tropicalism, the whitening of the history of Portuguese colonialism, its violence and the nostalgia for Salazar as a flag, an initiative that was signed by PSD and CDS-PP.
The blocist highlighted the “urgency to contextualize” Praça do Império, “a space that was so central to the project of Portuguese colonialism”, through interpretative paths, recalling Lisbon’s role in the “trafficking of six million enslaved people from Africa to the America ”and that,“ in the 16th century, 10% of the city was made up of enslaved black people”
“We need a broad project of contextualization and insertion of the memory of Portuguese colonialism in the public space, we don’t need legitimate groups of the extreme right”, reinforced Leonor Rosas.
In response to the BE deputy and in defense of honor, the representative of the municipal PSD group, Luís Newton, said he was “a fan of youthful enthusiasm in political politics”, drawing a line that separates partisan divergence from insult and refusing “How to put the PSD to a fascist and Salazar vision”.
“The PSD does not receive lessons in democracy or tolerance from parties that defend North Korea, that defend a Venezuela, that defend a communist Cuba”, warned the social democrat.
PPM deputy Gonçalo da Câmara Pereira advised the BE deputy to go learn history, stating that “Portugal was never a racist country” and explaining that “if in the 19th century there were no blacks in Lisbon, it is because they were absorbed”.
Gonçalo da Câmara Pereira also mentioned that “There is no Portuguese family that does not have black or Jewish blood”, ceding that Portugal “was never a colonialist, it was only when Europe forced it to be”.
Also in defense of honor, the deputy of the CDS-PP Martim de Freitas replied: “We are not fascists, we never were, we are not Nazis, we are not socialists, but we are not communists either”.
José Inácio Faria, from the MPT, considers “it is regrettable that at the beginning of this term there is this kind of political scuffle, it was unnecessary and it would be unnecessary for the BE to persist in what it has already done in the previous term ”, accusing the blocists of “a systematic attack on Portuguese traditions and history”.
PSD deputy Fernando Rosa, who is president of the Parish of Belém and who was a petitioner “Against the erasure of the coats of arms of Praça do Império”, said that “there is no country worth its salt that does not assume its history, in good and bad times”, considering that “it is not a question of the extreme right or the extreme left, it is a question of assuming history”, supporting the idea of coats of arms on the Portuguese sidewalk.
From the PS, Miguel Teixeira lamented “Some extreme of positions”, enhancing the municipal executive’s capacity for dialogue and tolerance.