Memories of a Glorious or Difficult Past? Portugal, Padrão dos Descobrimentos and the (Lack of a) 21st Century Reckoning

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to analyse a particularly influential case of memory continuity in Portugal, that of Padrão dos Descobrimentos. Spaces of collective memory (such as public monuments) raise questions about what we celebrate, remember or rescue from oblivion, providing an opportunity to rethink the trauma. As such, care for public spaces is associated with ethical and cultural values. One of the difficulties with certain monuments has to do with the fact that they recall actions that today we see as traumatic acts. Thus, it is important to reflect on a criti- cal use of memory. On August 8, 2021, Padrão dos Descobrimentos was the sub- ject of a graffiti. One of the sides of the monument could read: “Blindly sailing for money, humanity is drowning in a scarlet sea”. A great controversy immediately arose around the meaning of this gesture, as well as the role played by a monument that, after being temporarily built in 1940 for the Portuguese World Exhibition, was, in its current version, inaugurated in 1960, on the occasion of the fifth centenary of the death of Infante D. Henrique. This episode reignited a deeper cleavage around the uses of history and memory, the Portuguese colonial past, and the role of the Padrão dos Descobrimentos as an instrument for the reproduction of nationalism. In this sense, and with the authors proposing a new theoretical frame of reference based on the thought of Arendt and Ricoeur, its critical reading becomes relevant.