Sabera Parvin, 42, chose Portugal as her home, having already traveled the globe by the time she arrived in 2022. “I spent 16 years in the Middle East as a doctor in a high position. Each year I visited a different country, […] I visited other parts of Europe, like Norway, Germany, Denmark… But I always found the people in those countries quite grumpy,” she shared during the dress rehearsal of the play “An Enemy of the People”.
In Portugal, she feels welcomed: “If you see a Portuguese person and smile and say ‘good morning’, even if they don’t know my language, don’t understand me, at least they will smile and that’s the most important thing, because we leave in the morning to face a stressful day and […] it makes a difference; it’s how the day begins with positive vibes.”
Dil Bahadur Ale, 28, also harbors no “negativity” toward the native Portuguese population: “When I arrived in 2017, I worked in agriculture in São Teotónio [Alentejo] and the Portuguese community was very nice. And they still are because I have many Portuguese friends. They welcomed us well back then because there weren’t many immigrants at that time.”
Nowadays, there are “immigrants all over the country,” which “has changed the perspective a bit.” Reflecting on the events on Rua do Benformoso in Lisbon a year ago, Dil speaks candidly: “They pointed to a community, a community that works, that does business […]. What they experienced that day was completely unprecedented […], suddenly some people arrived telling them to stand against the wall and stay there for two, three hours, without any evidence. It wasn’t good.”
On December 19, 2024, a “special criminal prevention operation” by the Public Security Police (PSP) on Rua do Benformoso forced dozens of people against the wall with their hands up for searches.
Director Marco Martins aimed to include individuals who lived through that moment and “never have a voice” except during incidents in the cast of “An Enemy of the People,” written by Norwegian Henrik Ibsen in 1882. To do this, he held auditions with residents of Rua do Benformoso and the Mouraria area, which is predominantly inhabited by immigrants from the Asian subcontinent.
Sabera and Dil are two of ten amateur performers in the production, which will debut on December 13 at Theatro Circo in Braga, alongside actress Rita Cabaço and actor Rodrigo Tomás.
The six-month process, according to Marco Martins, intended “to break the barrier” by giving “space and time” to the voices of immigrant people. “Many times, it’s the first time that individual is telling that particular story,” he noted in an interview.
What will emerge onstage is “a kind of choral voice that relates to the portrait of a community that is not homogeneous, where each individual has a particular story.”
This voice is “evidently political,” stemming from the “unjustified operation against a group of immigrants” on Rua do Benformoso.
The iconic December 19 image, highlighting “not just a military force pressing a series of individuals against the wall without knowing what the reason is, but also those individuals against the wall having no face, no voice,” was noted.
Marco Martins highlighted “a total lack of awareness” about these communities: “What does an average Portuguese person know about Bangladesh, the politics of Bangladesh, the reasons these people come here? If you ask someone to point to Dhaka [the capital] on the map, probably 99% of the Portuguese population doesn’t know.”
However, it is “a community essential to our economy, one of the biggest contributors to Social Security […] and often treated in sub-human ways,” he pointed out.
In places where the Asian subcontinent community is now, could be other immigrant communities, because the chorus that will take the stage “is the voice of contemporary immigration.”
“An Enemy of the People” also addresses “the place they occupy within society, challenges of integration, legalization, discrimination, and how that lack of legalization ultimately leads to, in essence, exploitation, whether direct or indirect, conscious or unconscious.”
According to the director: “It’s a system where we are all guilty, there are no innocents.”
Sabera serves as proof, acknowledging her “very blessed” fortune: “Each person, each immigrant has a different life story and different visions. […] All the stories here are true, and each one is painful, full of challenges and [there is] the courage [of people] to think beyond their limits and achieve their dreams.”
An admitted optimist, she shares: “I am very hopeful in the new generation. When my daughter goes to school, she enters and, even being Asian, is embraced by all her friends, and they are all Portuguese. They kiss and talk. I don’t feel she’s being discriminated against. I think [the current situation] is just a chapter, just bad weather. The new generation will bring new thoughts, new happiness, a new progress.”
