Masrura Rashid, shown sitting at her desk in a travel agency in Lisbon’s Mouraria neighborhood March 5, 2024, studied engineering in Bangladesh before joining her father in Portugal.
Muslim Portugal
Portuguese society has not suffered from the sort of construction of stereotypes around and tensions with Muslims that other countries in Europe have, says migration expert Jorge Malheiros at Lisbon University. There was racism and discrimination against some migrant groups, but Islam was long a nonissue.
But “it’s no longer like that.” he adds. There is now “talk about the Islamization of Portuguese society.”
One focal point for such talk is Mouraria, the historical Moorish quarter of Lisbon. It is the kind of place that the far right likes to point to while railing against “uncontrolled immigration,” due to the neighborhood’s multicultural character and history. Migrants from across Africa and Asia live in the Moorish quarter, bringing to it a mix of attire, languages, and cuisines otherwise foreign to Lisbon.
For Masrura Rashid, Mouraria is simply home. She arrived here six months ago, after studying engineering and wandering in the lush tea gardens of Sylhet, Bangladesh. Her father moved to Lisbon first, obtaining the right to family reunification. Now she works at her uncle’s travel agency.
In a street rich in halal butchers and supermarkets, Ms. Rashid does not especially stand out. Donning traditional Muslim attire that fully covers her face, she is keen to learn Portuguese. “It’s easy here,” she shares. “The weather, the environment, the people, it’s all good. This is the first country after my country, so it is the best.”
The rise of Portugal’s far right – which secured a fifth of votes in last month’s general election – does not alarm Abdul Karim, a Bangladesh native. He arrived in 2010 from Saudi Arabia, where there were no avenues to citizenship. Now he is the proud owner of a Portuguese passport, as well as two bazaar-style shops.
“I love Portugal,” he says. “[Chega leader André Ventura’s] party is his party. My work is my work. Portugal for foreigners is great even if the language is hard. Immigrant people come here because migration is easy. People are helpful. There is no racism.”
Khalid Sulimange stands next to a photograph on the wall outside his restaurant in central Lisbon. It shows him as a child, cooking in the same spot.
Why is Portugal so tolerant?
Khalid Sulimange, who grew up Black in a white neighborhood in central Lisbon, has an insider’s perspective on Portugal’s attitude toward race and immigrants.
“The way we do things in Lisbon – it’s different,” says the Mozambique native, who worked for a spell in the United Kingdom as a court translator before returning to Lisbon to run the family restaurant. “We accept more the immigrants here. It is easier here compared to the United Kingdom, even Spain or the United States. … What’s the reason for that? That’s the million-dollar question.”
He has a few theories. The first is acclimation due to the longtime, prominent role of Black people in sports. Portugal’s national soccer team named its first Black team captain, the widely respected and popular Mario Coluna, in the 1960s.
Portuguese society has also long been mixed-race due to its colonial history. And its people, due to their own history of migration, are more inclined to be welcoming.
There are limits to that view, says Dr. Malheiros, the migration expert. Some Portuguese associate Muslim migration with the lack of integration, lack of security, and other social issues on display in other European nations. And when confronted with Portugal’s history of emigration, Dr. Malheiros says, they would argue that “we were the good migrants. We behaved well when we went to France and to Germany. We are Catholics, not Muslim.”
Nevertheless, the tolerant vision still seems more prevalent in the country. Portugal consistently ranks higher than average for Europe when it comes to openness to migrants. The European Social Survey shows that since 2000, there has been a trend toward openness in Portugal, while the perception of migrants as a cultural and economic threat has gone down.
“Portuguese people are more aware of the difficulties that the migrants [experience],” says Dr. Malheiros. “They are aware of this, so they are tend to be more understanding.”
Source link : https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2024/0410/portugal-migration-islam-racism-religion
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Publish date : 2024-04-10 07:00:00
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