© Moussa Sow/AFP via Getty Images
Portuguese President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa on Goree Island in April 2017
Over five centuries after it launched the Atlantic slave trade, Portugal is preparing to build a memorial to the millions of Africans its ships carried into bondage.
Citizens of Lisbon voted in December for the monument to be built on a quayside where slave ships once unloaded. Yet although the memorial has broad support, a divisive debate has ignited over how Portugal faces up to its colonial past and multiracial present.
"Doing this will be really good for our city," said Beatriz Gomes Dias, president of
Djass, an association of Afro-Portuguese citizens that launched the memorial plan.
"People really got behind the project, there was a recognition that something like this is needed," said Gomes Dias. "Many people told us this is important to bring justice to Portugal's history here in Lisbon, which is a cosmopolitan and diverse capital with such a strong African presence."
However, some fear that history risks being hijacked by politics.
"I think it's a good idea, but those behind this monument want to perpetuate a particular vision which, up to a certain point, is a myth," said historian
João Pedro Marques.
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