The repairs went to the theater

Woke people are always assuming that the issue of reparations is sensitive and difficult to address, and that for that reason, debate on the issue isn't taking off in Portuguese society. But they're wrong. Firstly, because the debate began many years ago (it began in April 2017). Secondly, because it's very easy to debate the issue of reparations as long as one assumes, as I have for a long time, that there are no reparations to be made and explains why. Contrary to what woke people think, the issue isn't dormant or still unaddressed. It's, rather, digested and resolved, because everything indicates that the Portuguese have a formed opinion on the matter, which is to disagree with apologies and reparations. In our country, on the contrary, it's believed that the Portuguese should be compensated for what they left behind in Africa.

In other words, unless there is an unexpected change in the course of events and currents of opinion, the issue of reparations is stillborn in Portugal, and I hope it remains that way. It is true that in the summer of 2023, ten woke people, including the well-known activist Mamadou Ba, produced a pompously named Porto Declaration, a list of demands in which, among other things, the Portuguese state was asked to pay compensation to those harmed by colonialism. These woke people circulated the Declaration online to collect signatures. They obviously expected a large turnout for the initiative, but the response was so meager that it never took off. The following spring, some thought that Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa's unfortunate statements would revive the issue. Two or three televised debates were organized, but the issue never gained traction and once again disappeared from the Portuguese agenda and from their concerns. Currently, and unless I'm mistaken, reparations are a niche topic, strictly African or far-left, which has some exposure on RTP África and in rare initiatives by academics linked to the Left Bloc, and that's about it.

The desire to breathe life into a topic that is practically dead, or slumped in a ghetto, was the main reason that led Marco Mendonça, an actor, playwright, and director born in Mozambique in 1995—he's a young man, therefore—to put together the play " Reparations, Baby!", a play that has been widely reported and which attempts, through a new approach—laughter and challenge intended to provoke reflection—to blame and hold the Portuguese accountable for certain aspects of their colonial past. As the author himself tells us, "it can be productive to know that guilt exists, and that it belongs to someone. I believe that, more than ever, people need to experience this guilt, to feel it, or to empathize with those demanding historical reparations (...) Guilt exists, and it is, in a way, in the DNA of the construction of the country and the empire," even if the white population of Portugal refuses to accept it. The Portuguese would not be “heroes of the sea” but rather “heroes of the mas,” always excusing the atrocities of the empire with the customs and traditions of the “men of that time,” always drowned in centuries of lies.

As far as I can see, and despite its potential merits and the approval of the Teatro Nacional D. Maria II, the play hasn't generated the attention and debate its author hoped for, which is perhaps a good thing, since Reparations, Baby! limps a bit from a historical perspective. Of course, art doesn't have to be historically flawless, and a play can be valuable for many reasons other than historical accuracy. But Marco Mendonça wants to bring history into the spotlight, openly admits his intention, among other things, to teach and inform, and is concerned with "throwing facts, historical data, statistics" at his audience. The problem is that he sometimes does so without possessing the required knowledge and without knowing exactly what he's talking about. Throwing at the audience the number of slaves transported on ships registered under the Portuguese flag, for example, is misleading, unless one explains—which Marco Mendonça doesn't do—what the so-called embandeiramento was and its scale. For those unaware, flagging was, and continues to be, a ploy used by shipowners to circumvent prohibitions or stricter laws and was also adopted in the illicit slave trade. Fraudulent use of the Portuguese flag was practiced on a very large scale by slave traders operating in Brazil, when, starting in 1830, by law and treaties, the slave trade was prohibited in that country. However, Brazil continued to do so using the Portuguese flag, having, under the guise of this skill, imported nearly half a million black slaves. It should be added, incidentally, and for the thousandth time, that Portugal was not "responsible for the trafficking of nearly 6 million men, women, and children." This is false. These are the aggregate figures for two countries: Portugal (4.5 million people) and independent Brazil (1.3 million).

The objections a historian might raise to the play don't stop at the numerical errors and half-truths it conveys. There's a fundamental problem with the motto or philosophy that underpins the play. Indeed, " Reparations, Baby!" is proposed to viewers through the following statement by South African singer Miriam Makeba: "The conqueror writes history. They came, they dominated, and they wrote. The people who came to invade us are not expected to write the truth about us." This phrase, and others of a similar nature frequently found on the social media of Africans and people of African descent, are generally presented as an axiom, as something so perfectly clear and self-evident that it doesn't require demonstration. Sometimes they are disseminated with a reactive connotation or charge. Five years ago, in an article containing several misconceptions , Angolan writer João Melo, for example, stated that "history is written by the victors. But it can also be rewritten when the defeated rebel."

We are faced with erroneous statements or maxims, and in João Melo's case, doubly so. In truth, history is not written by conquerors or victors—who would, by supposed inherence, be liars—but by historians. There are good and bad historians, those who are impartial and those who are politically interested in turning things in a certain direction. There are good Black historians—Orlando Patterson, for example—who, essentially and in terms of facts, say the same as good white historians, which is not surprising because history is written based on documents that can be verified and studied by anyone, whether descended from victors or vanquished. That said, an important question remains: could we construct and tell a different history, as is the manifest desire of many Africans, from Miriam Makeba to the author of the play "Reparations, Baby" ? We could, yes, if there were new questions to ask of existing documents—and if they were capable of giving us new answers—and above all if there were new authentic documents, preferably produced by conquered or dominated peoples, that would allow us to challenge or contradict the versions we now have and accept as good.

But are there such documents? It doesn't appear so, or at least they haven't been found yet. This is a limitation not only of much of African history, but of the histories of all peoples without writing, whose existence, characteristics, forms of action, and political and social conduct have come down to us through the transmissions of the literate peoples who came into contact with them. What we know about the peoples of southern Angola comes down to us through what the Portuguese wrote about them; what we know about the Huns was transmitted to us by the Romans; and so on.

This is inevitable whenever peoples with and without writing come into contact or confrontation, meaning that the information obtained about those who cannot write and have not left us their own narratives is partial. But this does not mean it is false, contrary to what Miriam Makeba, João Melo, and countless Africans assume. In fact, aside from numerical or measurable issues, historians always, or almost always, deal with partial, personal, unilateral information, which they must filter and decode. This, to a large extent, is their job. João Melo says that history can be rewritten "when the defeated rebel," but he is mistaken and misleading us. In the cases where this is done, when rebellious peoples come to power and invert or alter the narrative, they do so for reasons of political and ideological expediency, not for historiographical or scientific reasons. In these cases, history ceases to be history—that is, it ceases to be an impartial way of understanding the past and becomes a deception and propaganda, a militant and revanchist history. History can only be rewritten when new concepts are adopted, new documents are used, or new problems are confronted.

It is therefore false that, lacking these ingredients, African reparations advocates can write a history substantially different from that which has been written thus far. When, to circumvent the obstacle of the documentary gap, they resort to fantasy and offer us opinions, provocation, humor, or theatrical representation sprinkled with random historical data, as in the play "Reparations, Baby!" , they are proposing a fictional world, stirring our emotions, engaging in activism and political intervention. All of this is perfectly legitimate, of course, but don't get it twisted: it's not history, and it's often not even true.