Visions of Paradise

Some newspapers reported on the minor incident, and several videos documenting it are circulating online and on social media. From them, we know that a few days ago, in Cacém, during a pre-campaign event for his party's local elections, MP André Ventura was approached by a very excited man who proudly identified himself as "African." This man, about whom I know nothing, accused Ventura, as if he were the embodiment of all the evil that some Africans and Westerners believe Portugal has done in Africa: "I am proud to be African," the man in question admitted. "You invaded my country, my continent for five centuries," he accused. "Five centuries of slavery, does Ventura know that or not? Ventura, for five centuries... What did they do there? They stole our gold, they stole our diamonds, they enslaved us. We were robbed, the gold, the diamonds. The Portuguese are to blame." He was so agitated that he had to be restrained by the congressman's security guard, which didn't stop him from continuing in the same accusatory tone: "You're a thief, you're a racist. Ventura is racist."

This episode isn't particularly significant in itself. It's essentially a very angry and misinformed man confronting a politician with somewhat unfounded accusations, a common occurrence in election campaigns. However, when viewed in a broader context, it's clear that this isn't an isolated incident, but rather a symptom of a more widespread misinformation and the tip of an iceberg that could sink us further down the line. I frequently read, online and on social media, the opinions of various Africans or people of African descent who hold the same or similar view, and I know it owes much to woke propaganda, but I suppose it owes even more to school. How history is taught in São Tomé and Príncipe, Angola, Cape Verde, Mozambique, or Guinea-Bissau is none of my business. I suspect that, in many cases, it's a very ideologically shaped history, and I've already written about this in an article in Observador whose title—" I don't want this history taught to my grandchildren" —is crystal clear about my views on this matter. While I have nothing to do with the versions of history that the rulers of the former Portuguese colonies decide should be taught to their children, I do have everything to do with what happens in our schools.

I see with concern that versions similar to the one the irritated African man uttered in Cacém, during his altercation with André Ventura, are being transmitted to our students, not only by some teachers, but also by curious onlookers with teaching aspirations. Have you forgotten that Mariana Mortágua went to a school in Amadora to give a sort of class/lecture on slavery and spread various nonsense and misconceptions? Those responsible at the Ministry of Education must be very alert, very attentive, to the versions of Portugal's colonial history transmitted in the curriculum, so that there won't be a multitude of Mariana Mortáguas in our school classrooms, producing ideas identical to those of the exalted man who confronted André Ventura in Cacém.

But I would argue that this is only one aspect that needs to be addressed. There is another, more deeply rooted one, that requires a deeper exploration. I refer to the need to dispel the underlying idea that Portugal brought violence and arbitrary power to previously paradisiacal worlds. The notions of African innocence and gentleness, which contrast with European greed and aggression, are ancient references that persisted throughout the centuries when, with rare exceptions, and because of yellow fever and malaria, white men were unable to venture beyond the coast. As early as the 16th century, João de Barros, referring to what he called "Ethiopia"—that is, sub-Saharan Africa—lamented that it was riddled with "deadly fevers" that prevented Portuguese penetration into its interior, something that, were it not for these diseases, would supposedly be easy, given its inhabitants' "peaceful, meek, and obedient" people. Although there was another, less rosy image of Africans, this idealization of their sweetness or gentleness persisted over time. In March 1822, for example, the journalist from O Compilador wrote that the "uneducated Africans" were "more virtuous" and "more innocent" than the Portuguese. "Withdrawn into their forests and huts," these Africans would never have forged "in their peaceful deserts, heavy chains to bind their own kind," as did the whites who came there to tear them "from their families, their homes, and their homeland."

This image is a complete romantic fantasy, but curiously, it still underlies the irritation of the African man who questioned André Ventura in Cacém, and that of the woke people who bombard us with the blame of the white man. In other words, the accusation leveled at the whites presupposes an idyllic world in Africa, which the intruders would have disrupted and disrupted. But was that really the case? Isn't it utterly naive to assume such a thing?

There was a time when many teenagers, following the supposedly scientific and authoritative opinion of adults like Timothy Leary, believed that certain hallucinogenic drugs, in the right doses, would allow a person to reach new levels of consciousness and connect more harmoniously with their surroundings—that is, that the widespread consumption of these drugs would make the world a better place. This was the era of psychedelic culture, when pop stars consumed these drugs profusely and championed them. It was during this time, in 1968 to be precise, that the Moody Blues, for example, recorded "Visions of Paradise , " a song about the breathtaking visions, the incomparable sounds, the purity of feelings, and the imaginary paradises to which psychedelic drug use took them. Many young people who lived through that era know that it was believed then that flowers, LSD, and love could change people's minds forever. Of course, reality was very different from this illusion, as was soon realized when, under the influence of LSD, people with paranoid crises injured others to defend themselves from nonexistent attackers, or threw themselves out of windows, convinced they were flying, or even saw cockroaches crawling over their bodies and screamed in horror because they could not drive them away. In other words, far from opening the doors to paradise, hallucinogenic drugs could open them to horror.

Something similar happens with the image of the innocent and peaceful Africa that supposedly existed before the passage of the Bojador River or the era of colonialism. It's a vision of paradise that doesn't correspond to reality. No, the Africa before Gil Eanes or Diogo Cão wasn't a peaceful world free of evil and cruelty. Yes, there were wars, human sacrifices, greed, and slavery. And so, it would be good if, in schools, while combating the ridiculous idea of the white man's unparalleled wickedness and guilt, teachers sought to deactivate, in their students' minds, this kind of woke cultural LSD that, by a thousand means—schools, Disney, etc.—constantly instills in them the romantic, but utterly false, idea of African (or Asian, or American) paradises prior to the Discoveries, which the latter would destroy and poison.