Abstract
With the Carnation Revolution in Portugal in April 1974, and after 13 years of independence wars in Angola, Mozambique, and Guinea-Bissau, the decolonization process of the Portuguese colonies in Africa began. This process led to the departure of almost half a million settlers, mainly from Angola and Mozambique, to the former metropolis. Portugal reacted to this abrupt and massive migration by implementing policies in order to facilitate the integration of those retornados (returnees). The Portuguese context of change arising from the Revolution and the characteristics of most retornados as first-generation colonizers born in Portugal led to an individualized integration of the repatriated population. Therefore, the trauma narratives expressed by a fringe of this population didn’t turn into a collective identity of retornados, neither did it make this trauma narrative shareable by the Portuguese society at large.
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Notes
- 1.
It can be pointed out that in comparison with other similar process, as the French case of the Pieds-noirs, it still does not exist an extended academic production on the Portuguese retornados. Most important studies with a broad scope include Pires et al. (1987; Pires 2003) and Lubkemann (2002, 2003). However, recently a new enthusiasm emerged. We can cite for example two multidisciplinary research groups that are studying the retornados: Memoirs: Filhos de Império e Pós-Memórias Europeias (coordinated by Margarida Calafate Ribeiro, at Coimbra University) and Narrativas de Perda, Guerra e Trauma: Memória Cultural e o Fim do Império Português (coordinated by Elsa Peralta, at Lisbon University). See also Delaunay (2014) and Lourenço (2018).
- 2.
- 3.
- 4.
- 5.
The attacks, that took place until March 18, and the repression from the white population that followed caused a massive movement of Angolan refugees to Congo and the evacuation through an air-bridge of 3500 settlers to Lisbon. See Castelo (2007: 350).
- 6.
- 7.
Decree-Law n°43893, September 6, 1961.
- 8.
Before the revocation, the so-called “indigenous” could obtain the Portuguese citizenship if they complied with defined requirements. If so, they belonged to the juridical category called “assimilated.” In Angola, before 1961, they represented less then 1% of the African population, see Léonard (1999b: 48). On the question of forced labor and other discriminatory measures, see Castelo (2007: 283–330).
- 9.
For a comprehensive analysis of the Portuguese decolonization of Africa, see MacQueen (1997).
- 10.
FNLA, the National Liberation Front of Angola, was one of the three national liberation movements involved in the war against Portuguese colonialism in Angola. The FNLA was supported by the US administration since 1961 both during the colonial war and, after that, during the civil war. Other Angolan national liberation movements in 1974 included MPLA (People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola), supported mainly by the USSR, Yugoslavia and Cuba, and UNITA (National Union for the Total Independence of Angola), supported in the colonial period mainly by China and then, during the civil war, by the US and South Africa.
- 11.
Although concentrated in 1975, the exodus would continue until mid-1977. According to Ribeiro (2002: 437–438), between January 1976 and May 1977 about 45,000 returnees arrived at Lisbon airport.
- 12.
The data on repatriation used in this chapter do not include the few Portuguese from Timor and Macao (less than five thousand). The decolonization of Timor-Leste was halted by the invasion of Indonesia in 1975 and resumed only in 1999, giving rise to a flow of East Timorese refugees rather than colonists. Macao had a special status as a Chinese territory under Portuguese administration, which also ended in 1999, after a long negotiation with China, which culminated in the definition of a transition process that will last until 2049. The negotiated and prolonged nature of this process did not create a rupture similar to the one that happened in the former Portuguese colonies, reason why did not provoke significant and sudden flows of emigration.
- 13.
- 14.
In rural areas, this stigmatization of retornados would have been favored by the contrast between the history of Portuguese emigration to Europe in the 1960s, dominated by a strong ideology of return that legitimized it, and emigration for the colonies in the same period, interpreted as a permanent departure from their local communities, as “a break with home communities” (Lubkemann 2002: 195–196).
- 15.
The term is used herein in the sense given to it by Alba and Nee (2003).
- 16.
The explanation of the integration process of the returnees in Portuguese society presented in this section summarizes the main conclusions of Pires (2003: 189–252).
- 17.
By Fernando Dacosta, a leftist journalist and writer, the book Os Retornados Estão a Mudar Portugal [The Retornados Are Changing Portugal], published in 1984, won the Prize of the Portuguese Press Association.
- 18.
A third type of policy included ad hoc regulatory interventions with the objective of solving very specific problems of integration of specific segments of the repatriated population (see Pires 2003: 243–247).
- 19.
For a more detailed analysis of the implementation of these emergency policies, see Pires (2016).
- 20.
As mentioned in the memoir of the then High Commissioner for the Returnees (Ribeiro 2002), contacts were made and meetings were held with the French authorities to assess the French experience in the integration of pied-noirs. These meetings took place in 1977 on the Portuguese initiative and the High Commissioner concluded that the territorial concentration had been an obstacle to the integration of returnees in France.
- 21.
With the data available, all retornados aged 30 or more in the 1981 Census were considered as adults. Of these, 14% were born in the former colonies and 86% in Portugal (see Pires 2003: 202).
- 22.
Mário Soares, leader of the Socialist Party, Minister of Foreign Affairs in the interim governments after the April Revolution, was responsible for negotiating the agreements that led to the independence of the former African colonies. Vasco Gonçalves and Costa Gomes, officers of the Armed Forces, were respectively Prime Minister and President of the Republic in the transition period after the April Revolution and were identified as being close to the Portuguese Communist Party.
- 23.
The way the memory of the exodus marked the retornados attitudes coexists with the memory of colonial everyday life, giving rise to a plural configuration of their dispositions, in the sense in which Lahire (1998) speaks of a plural person. In most of the returnees interviewed in the early 1990s, the right-wing discourse against decolonization coexisted with a liberal discourse on the regulation of personal and family relationships, anchored in the colony’s experience of everyday life.
- 24.
PS (Partido Socialista): Socialist Party, center left, won the first democratic elections after the Revolution of 1974. PCP (Partido Comunista Português): orthodox communist party, legalized after the April Revolution. PS and PCP were opponent of colonial war and advocates of rapid decolonization. PSD (Partido Social Democrata): Social Democratic Party, center right, liberal-conservative. CDS (Centro Democrático e Social): Democratic and Social Center, right, national-conservative.
- 25.
The Association of the Dispossessed of Mozambique (Aemo) and the Association of Dispossessed of Angola (Aeang) were constituted respectively in 1986 and 1987. Both have as their central statutory objective the claim of compensation by the Portuguese Government for the goods lost by their members as a consequence of decolonization, and were affiliated to the Rome-based CESOM (Confederation Europeénne des Spoilés d’Outre Mer). The issue of the recognition of the “returnees” victim status still remains open, in particular regarding the claims for compensation for the goods left in the colonies, presented since 1994 by these associations that, in 2014, accused the Portuguese State of “violation of the Constitution of the Portuguese Republic, of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and of the European Convention on Human Rights.”
- 26.
The Jornal o Retornado published 211 issues. For this study were used the issues published between October 10, 1975 (date of the creation of the journal) and November 11, 1976 (that is to say, one year after Angola’s independence), as well as the issues published in the last six months of its existence. A particular attention was given to the correspondence column. All in all, more than 150 articles and 643 letters were analyzed. Portugal National Library, J. 3548 V.: Jornal o Retornado, n°1, October 10, 1975, p. 1, “Fundo”.
- 27.
Analyzing the letters published in the journal, it seemed interesting to try to determine if the discourse of the readers that identified themselves as born in the then Portuguese colonies was characterized by a higher degree of radicalization than the other letters. After been able to only identify ten letters written by individuals born in Angola and five from Mozambique natives, we can’t say that these letters can be distinguished from the others in terms of degree of radicalization.
- 28.
Portugal National Library, J. 3548 V.: Jornal o Retornado, n°2, October 17, 1975, p. 5.
- 29.
Between the names of the personalities considered responsible we can find: Rosa Coutinho, High Commissioner of Angola until the signing of the Alvor Agreement, Mário Soares, then Portugal foreign affairs minister, Melo Antunes, a politician that participated in various transitional governments after the Carnation Revolution, or Costa Gomes, nominated President of the Portuguese Republic until the first democratic presidential elections in 1976.
- 30.
See for instance the letter published in the 33th issue, signed “JF”. Portugal National Library, J. 3548 V.: Jornal o Retornado, n°33, May 25, 1976, p. 21.
- 31.
See, for example, Portugal National Library, J. 3548 V.: Jornal o Retornado, n°43, August 3, 1976, pp. 20–21.
- 32.
About the reception of the “retornados” in Lisbon airport, see the article named “Um inferno chamado aeroporto” (“A Hell called airport”) in the 3rd issue. Portugal National Library, J. 3548 V.: Jornal o Retornado, n°3, October 24, 1975, p. 4.
- 33.
Portugal National Library, J. 3548 V.: Jornal o Retornado, n°37, June 22, 1976, p. 21. See also Portugal National Library, J. 3548 V.: Jornal o Retornado, n°34, June 1, 1976, p. 20.
- 34.
Portugal National Library, J. 3548 V.: Jornal o Retornado, n°34, June 1, 1976, p. 20. See also Portugal National Library, J. 3548 V.: Jornal o Retornado, n°25, March 27, 1976, p. 20.
- 35.
Portugal National Library, J. 3548 V.: Jornal o Retornado, n°31, May 11, 1976, p. 20.
- 36.
Portugal National Library, J. 3548 V.: Jornal o Retornado, n°25, March 27, 1976, p. 20.
- 37.
Portugal National Library, J. 3548 V.: Jornal o Retornado, n°24, March 20, 1976, p. 20.
- 38.
Portugal National Library, J. 3548 V.: Jornal o Retornado, n°1, October 10, 1975, p. 1.
- 39.
Portugal National Library, J. 3548 V.: Jornal o Retornado, n°2, October 17, 1975, p. 5.
- 40.
On the supposed inexistence of racism in the Portuguese African colonies, see, for example, Portugal National Library, J. 3548 V.: Jornal o Retornado, n°35, May 8, 1976, p. 20.
- 41.
Portugal National Library, J. 3548 V.: Jornal o Retornado, n°34, June 1, 1976, p. 20.
- 42.
Portugal National Library, J. 3548 V.: Jornal o Retornado, n°44, August 10, 1976, p. 20.
- 43.
This idea is for example expressed in a letter from February 13, 1976 in which the author associates the Portuguese from the former metropolis with “failed adventurers.” Portugal National Library, J. 3548 V.: Jornal o Retornado, n°19, February 13, 1976, p. 2.
- 44.
Portugal National Library, J. 3548 V.: Jornal o Retornado, n°1, October 10, 1975, p. 11.
- 45.
Portugal National Library, J. 3548 V.: Jornal o Retornado, n°19, February 13, 1976, p. 2.
- 46.
- 47.
This contradicts the common idea that only recently novels on this question began to be published (see Diogo Ramada Curto, “Os retornados”, Expresso, 2370, Revista, March 30, 2018).
- 48.
http://expresso.sapo.pt/cultura/2018-04-12-A-controversia-sobre-um-Museu-que-ainda-nao-existe.-Descobertas-ou-Expansao-#gs.XEeyCqo. We can point out that in April 2017, more than fifty individuals from Academy, art and civil society had already published an open letter in the Diário de Notícias, in order to criticize the speech that the Portuguese president, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, made in Gorée Island in which he presented Portugal as a pioneer in the abolition of slavery. https://www.dn.pt/portugal/interior/um-regresso-ao-passado-em-goree-nao-em-nosso-nome-6228800.html.
- 49.
Asked about the audience of this program during the launch in April 2018 of the book derived from the television program, the RTP representative said that it was one of the most watched program of the channel.
- 50.
A key landmark was the publication, in 1979, of Os Cus de Judas, by António Lobo Antunes, one of the most famous contemporary Portuguese writers.
- 51.
- 52.
Retornos, Exílios e alguns que ficaram, 2014.
- 53.
- 54.
- 55.
Henriques, Joana Gorjão. 2016. Racismo em Português. O lado esquecido do colonialismo. Lisboa: Tinta-da-China; Henriques, Joana Gorjão. 2018. Racismo no País dos Brancos Costumes. Lisboa: Tinta-da-China.
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Pires, R.P., Delaunay, M., Peixoto, J. (2020). Trauma and the Portuguese Repatriation: A Confined Collective Identity. In: Eyerman, R., Sciortino, G. (eds) The Cultural Trauma of Decolonization. Cultural Sociology. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27025-4_7
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