In times when immigration continues to be one of the most polarizing issues in Portugal, writer and Secretary of State for Culture, Alberto Santos, argues that literature and education are ways of promoting reflection and dialogue. “Literature can be a tool that helps society understand others”, he tells DN in João Pessoa, where he participated in the Paraíba International Literature Festival (Fliparaíba).
Author of books such as The Slave of Córdoba (2008), The Istanbul Prophecy (2010) e The Secret of Compostela (2013), Santos took a few days off from government duties to travel to Brazil. At the festival, he participated in the panel “The political body of language – When language is a border and a trench”, alongside several Brazilian authors. “It is the perspective of understanding how literature acts on the margins and the center, how it is capable of understanding the margins and the center of societies”, he reports.
In this context, immigration is a clear example. “The key is to understand each other”, he emphasizes, and that is why he believes in the power of literature as a way of accessing this knowledge. The topic, in fact, is not new to him. Years before immigration became a sensitive topic in the country, wrote works that precisely address coexistence between different peoples.
“In my literature, my first books deal with coexistence between Jews, Muslims and Christians at a time that was also difficult, a thousand years ago. Other books deal with the theme of religions and differences, not only religious, but also social and different worldviews. These were always themes that I tried to explore throughout my writing”, he explains. It also reinforces that literature “it can help tolerance and understanding”.
This understanding of the other, he says, is something that Portugal currently needs. “The more we know the other, the more we know the other’s difference, the more we realize that the other, being different, is also a human being, with their anguish, suffering, pain, drama, need to search for happiness, with their right to be happy and to realize their own life project, to have the right to their social elevator, the better the integration will be.o”, he defends.
This exercise, however, also needs to be done in reverse and as a collective effort. “They need to understand us, with a different culture, a different worldview, a different religious tradition”, he adds. “Deep down, They are human beings like us. We, Portuguese, also had our diaspora, we continue to have it, and we went in search of other peoples and civilizations, in various circumstances. We were also immigrants and continued to leave the country in search of other living conditions.whatever the circumstance,” he recalls.
In addition to literature, education is another essential tool. “This tolerance needs to start in schools; it is necessary to train, above all, the new generations and society, to know each other”, he states. And it is precisely schools that have been the site of intolerance and episodes of violence, as DN recently reportedin addition to the most recent case of the Brazilian boy who had his fingertips cut off by classmates at school.
Alberto Santos, who was mayor of Penafiel for two terms, also highlights that effective integration measures are necessary and organization of infrastructures “to support all this demand that now exists”. He also criticizes that the country “It was not prepared in terms of infrastructure, namely medical, school and social, to receive these people”.
The relationship with Brazil
This is not your first visit to Brazil. Tell the DN you keep “a very intimate relationship” with the country, which he has visited for around 30 years. Part of his books, in fact, were written in Brazil. “When I was more available, I always accompanied a businessman friend who came here, particularly to the Natal region. I came and stayed for 15 days, three weeks, and while he took care of his business, I stayed at the house, or at the inn, wherever I was, and wrote”, he says.
For the author, this distance and solitude are important in the creative process. “This way I was able to make this separation, this disconnection from my life and find my solitude, my abstraction, my encounter with writing”, he highlights. “I can say that, apart from the last book, all the others were written partially in Brazil“.
In addition to participating in Fliparaíba, Alberto Santos will have other agendas in the country, including conversations for the publication of his works in Brazil. This will also be the setting of the next book, and the trip also serves to complete the research work. Without revealing details, he only says that the central theme of the new work, on which he has been working for years, is “seeking to understand the human capacity for resistance to extreme situations”.
*The journalist traveled to João Pessoa at the invitation of Fliparaíba
amanda.lima@dn.pt