The first favelas in Europe: Lisbon premiere

Nieuws, gepost door: Inspector Casino op 07/04/2013 04:05:52

Wanneer: 07/04/2013 - 16:34

In the current ´financial crisis´ Portugal get its share, so it seems. The talks of state officials with the IMF and other European governments lead to ´austerity measures´ that seem somewhere a golden chance for governments with neoliberal agendas to cut public expenditures drastically, also in Portugal.


In the meantime life goes on and people have to find ways to compensate economic loss or find ways of managing everyday life. In a curious way the influence of ´Grand politics´ lets itself be felt in several mediated ways in different sectors of society. Some people loose their public sector jobs, can not pay their rent or mortgage and may get in a debt cycle. This is the horror scenario for the middle classes. There are though also classes of people who live outside established economy or even society at all. In Lisbon you can see the striking proof of this in the outskirts of the city.

A sunny spring day somewhere in the suburbs of Lisbon. I have taken my bike and go in another direction as usual, not to the old city center, but to the new bairros, scattered around the airport. Whole blocks of appartment flats have been planted in the hills of Camarate, Lumiar and the like the last years. The prices are lower than in the center and the reasonably large apartments are comfortable and inhabited by all kind of middle class families. I thought. It turns out that some of these neighbourhoods are built on land formerly occupied by favelas. The favelas are gone, I thought, the people are now also living in an appartment flat. Integration of social classes it might be called, based on latest sociological research and incorporated by urbanists and city planners.

Still, in these outskirts of town, suddenly some small buildings catch my eye. Are they garden houses, like everywhere in and around Berlin, garages or do people live there permanently? Behind colourful walls, it seems a secret community has come to life, tolerated by local authorities just because of its lack of means to interfere in a proper way and to offer all people reasonable housing? Free establishments of housing lots, independent of ownership regulations? Is this the actual effect of neoliberal cost cutting on public services that have to keep an eye on social developments and housing problems of the poor?

I see these urban developments as nothing more than as the forming of favelas or slums on European soil. Probably there are favelas forming elsewhere in Europe also, but I never saw so much similarity to the favelas I saw in Brasil for the first time, when I was there years ago: self built houses of earthly red looking bricks with plastified roofs, sandy roads, little windows and improvised chimneys. Washed clothes hanging outside on a sloppy rope in the wind, little people running around. A guy passes by with a sack of potatoes just bought by the Lidl supermarket some 10 minutes walking from here. Looking at the cars (yes, they are there), some of them look quite polished. The apartment buildings around the little bungalows contrast in an unexpected way, those parking places are full of older middle class cars, not the latest types

The most striking view is that parts of the favelas seem to have been wiped away with force, destroying everything in and around it. Little TV screens, baby chairs and lost shoes are scattered in huge piles of rubble. Movable garbage bins stand around, stuffed with bags and surrounded with carton boxes and plastic bags full of unidentifiable objects. My artistic eye sees unique pictures, combined with touching wooden constructions, built by neighbourhood children, so I imagine, based upon pans filled with pressed sand. Some children shout from the appartment buildings, they want to be on the picture too. A young guy tries to intimidate me by shouting in Portuguese that photos are not allowed here. Yes, I am an outsider, but not a disaster tourist, I am a journalist, a foreigner, who has seen something of the world, astonished by what I see and what all these people must have witnessed: violent destruction of houses built by people left alone by a society that doesn´t care. Is Lisbon first capital in Europe having to face favelas?

Ok, what is the conclusion? A retreating public sector let this kind of favelas come to life, only destroying them after some time (a year, two years?) with, very probably, police force? Scared people, the silence of retreat, a neighbourhood once full of life with its own codes, destroyed at an unannounced moment? And people being scarred with this memory of state violence? Is this the new reality of a retreating public sector, bullied by the neoliberal czars that won´t stop any of their plans unless they are forced to? Is this the future of Europe? A strong division between the haves and the havenots, a division I first heared of by a critical professor at my university? Where some people are permanently unemployed, having no access to housing projects where they ask for regular incomes and they are forced to build their houses, illegally, themselves?

Is this the new `Weight of the world` an update of the situations in France where Pierre Bourdieu and his fellow researchers reported on? A subworld of people without jobs, without property, maybe even without any citizen rights, because they are illegal? Is this the Europe we hoped for and where generations of visionaries fought for? A Europe dismantled of its social face, of its educational opportunities for the masses, of its strong public services? Have the neoliberal czars almost managed to pervert the Grande Idée de L'Europe of Jean Monnet and his followers? I surely hope we get things together, because this is not the Europe I have been looking for. A copy of the USA with some little sauce of South America. This must be stopped.

Photography at http://hanskuiper.blogspot.pt/2013/04/the-first-favelas-in-europe-premie...

Tags: Favela lissabon poverty


Wie: 
nn

I see you don't know so many about Europe. A place like that exists in every east European country like Romania, Poland.



Wie: 
nn

Favela's in Lissabon bestaan al zeker meer dan dertig jaar.



Wie: 
inspector casino

First: I want to start up a discussion, poverty has always been there, I know.

At nn1: The favelas in this way are different, I am not talking about poor neighbourhoods or settlements of gypsies or ´kampers´in The Netherlands. Gypsies mostly choose to go on with their lifestyle, so it seems. The favelas in Lisbon seem to be inhabited by illegals, very poor people without jobs and chances. In the NL favelas in general are still not tolerated. In the rest of Europe I am not that sure.

To nn2: Show me some proof of favelas in Portugal since 30 years!



Wie: 
nn

I saw them thirty years ago.



Wie: 
Tommy Ryan

I think its great you notice this and also try to spread the knowledge on it. Its also interesting that others new it already '30 years ago' aperantly.

What I think is more important then blowing eachother away with 'I knew it already, what are you whining', that we start wondering why one knows it already and other don't. Aperrently there is something wrong in the way information is spreaded. Apparently the general media has no interest in covering these issues.

Instead of pointing at eachother while both acknoledging that this is a serious issue, lets point at the problem of FIRST the favelas and the source of their existence and how to deal with it, and SECOND the information about them, the spreading of the analysis of the problem.



Wie: 
nn

@Inspector Casino
I think the first favelas near Lisbon were the result of the loss of their colonies in 1974.



Wie: 
Inspector Casino

@TommyRyan That´s the point, the fact that there has been poverty and poor neighbourhoods are elsewhere in Europe, doesn´t disqualify this observation. The favelas anywhere in Europe are a sign that things are changing drastically and that to keep some formm of social welfare state needs to be fought for. The right wing liberals know what they are fighting for. I think the main task is ´wí´n´níng the heart and minds´of the people, that means spreading information on what is going on, as many disturbing facts are not reported by the mainstream media.



Wie: 
nn

favelas didn't exist in lisboa???????

Casal Ventoso known for its favela look

Portugal's largest metropolitan areas of Lisbon and Porto are the main sources of both petty crime and violent crime.[4]
Greater Lisbon: Theft is widespread in tourist destinations in the Greater Lisbon area such as the towns of Sintra, Cascais, and Mafra. Casal Ventoso, a neighborhood of Lisbon where drug traffickers and drug users used to gather, was demolished in response to its increasingly unsavory reputation. Amadora the municipality where Buraca and the feared Cova da Moura neighborhood is located, a stopping point of many of the displaced people of the former Casal Ventoso, and Marvila, a parish in eastern Lisbon municipality, as well as some areas of the municipalities of Odivelas, Loures and Vila Franca de Xira around the Portuguese capital, have a higher incidence of crime. Automobile break-ins sometimes occur in parking areas at tourist attractions and near restaurants. There are reports of organized crime and gangs.



Wie: 
nn

[spam deleted]


Global IMC Network www.indymedia.org Afrika Ambazonia Canarias Estrecho / Madiaq Kenya South Africa Canada London, Ontario Maritimes Quebec Oost Azië Japan Manila QC Saint-Petersburg Europa Abruzzo Alacant Antwerpen Athens Austria Barcelona Belarus Belgium Bristol Brussels Bulgaria Calabrië Cyprus Emilia-Romagna Estrecho / Madiaq Euskal Herria Galiza Duitsland grenoble Hungary Ireland Istanbul Italy La Plana Liege liguria Lille Linksunten Lombardia London Madrid Malta Marseille Nantes Napoli Netherlands Northern England Norway Nottingham Oost-Vlaanderen Paris/Île-de-France Piemonte Poland Portugal Roma Roemenië Russia Scotland Sverige Switzerland Torun Toscana Ukraine UK-GB Latijns Amerika Argentina Bolivia Chiapas Chile Sur Braszilië Sucre Colombia Ecuador Mexico Peru Puerto Rico Qollasuyu Rosario santiago Uruguay Valparaiso Venezuela Oceanië Aotearoa Manila Melbourne Perth QC Sydney Zuid-Azië India Verenigde Staten Arizona Atlanta Austin Baltimore Big Muddy Binghamton Buffalo Charlottesville Chicago Cleveland Colorado Columbus DC Hawaii Houston Hudson Mohawk LA Madison Michigan Milwaukee Minneapolis/St. Paul New Mexico New Orleans NYC Philadelphia Pittsburgh Portland Richmond Rochester Rogue Valley San Diego San Francisco Bay Area Santa Cruz, CA Sarasota Seattle Urbana-Champaign Worcester West Azië Beirut Israel Palestine Process FBI/Legal Updates Mailing Lists Process & IMC Docs Projecten Print Radio Video Regio's United States Topics Biotech