Opponent active to the military regime installed in Bangladesh in the early 1980s, Rana Taslim Uddin was just over 20 years old when he saw death looming. He fled. Hong Kong, Macau, Thailand, Lisbon. He arrived in the Portuguese capital in 1991, listened to Fado in Bairro Alto, and felt at home. At that time, there were six or seven compatriots bangladeshi living here. Today, there are thousands. Many in Martim Moniz.
And Rana, leader of the Bangladeshi Community in Lisbon, does not understand why, almost twenty years after the last major manifestation of hatred towards immigrants – promoted by the National Front, a neo-Nazi group, in 2005, and supported by the then PNR, now Ergue-te – between Martim Moniz and Rossio, returns as a threat to the peace that he ensures reigns among the 89 nationalities living and working in that area of Lisbon.
“There are 89 nationalities living together there, and there have never been conflicts among them or with the Portuguese people, who are supportive and welcoming of those who come from outside. Portugal is a country of peace, and it is very shameful that some people want to spoil peace, democracy, and freedom”, says Rana.
In recent weeks, he has been busy in dialogue, with the community he represents and the authorities, after the announcement of a demonstration against immigrants scheduled for February 3 in Martim Moniz by the nationalist and neo-Nazi group 1143.
The fact that it has not been authorized due to its illegality (Portuguese laws prohibit racist and xenophobic demonstrations) does not reassure the leader of the Bangladeshi community in Lisbon.
“I have already talked to our people and also from the Mosque [Baitul Mukarram, on Rua do Benformoso] not to respond to provocations. If it is necessary to close the shops for a few hours, we will close. We are in our place, as it should be. We will not get into confrontations”, says Rana Taslim Uddin, 56 years old, round glasses, black beret.
“After all, Portugal was in Europe; it was worth going to Portugal”
It probably hasn’t changed much since the time he graduated in Political Science from the University of Dhaka in the late 1980s. From that time, he brought political activism. In Lisbon, became the leader of the Bangladeshi community, one of the first to settle in Martim Moniz and Intendente, transforming that area of the city – now the center of much controversy.
As one of the driving forces behind the Mouraria Mosque, formalized in 2013 with the then Mayor of Lisbon, António Costa, which until today has not gone beyond the paper, Rana has been a key figure in the integration of Bangladeshi immigrants in the Portuguese capital. That’s why we got to know his story, the story of someone who came to Portugal almost by chance and stayed, loving this place.
On a terrace in Largo do Intendente, Rana tells it chronologically, unwavering, with emotion only revealing itself when he recalls his father, whom he describes as calm and hardworking, “a sophist”, and above all, his mother.
When he was forced to flee Bangladesh, he chose Hong Kong, “because no visa was needed to enter”. He left alone, he says, “with 500 dollars in his pocket” and no plan, no one waiting for him. “No one knew, only my mother. Not even my father knew. I told my mother I would be back in a week, but I knew I wasn’t coming back. My mother was crying, and now I am too. I’m sorry for getting emotional, but this is a part of my life that I never tell anyone”.
Crossing the border of the territory still under British administration, he hailed a taxi. To the Hilton Hotel. That’s what occurred to him. Upon arrival, he realized that the money in his pocket was enough for three nights. The hotel manager, he says, directed him to the YMCA (an international youth Christian organization with hostels around the world).
According to him, proficiency in English and natural ease contributed to his success in that metropolis, which was so different from Dhaka. He found a neighbourhood where many compatriots lived and found a job in the export sector of a factory. Every three months, he had to leave the territory. To China, to Macau, to Thailand, until the maximum stay time in Hong Kong expired: a year and a half. It was time to choose another destination.
“Africa is a land of opportunities”, his boss told him. He declined.
“He said he would send merchandise for me to sell there, but I refused, saying I was afraid, that Africa was a land where even trees ate people. He laughed, really laughed, and then said: go to Portugal, we’ll say it’s North Africa. I didn’t know Portugal, didn’t know anything about the country. It was 1990, and there was no internet. How was I supposed to learn more about Portugal? But that idea kept lingering in my mind”.
And it lingered so much that Rana went to the Portuguese consulate in Hong Kong, requested magazines and newspapers, gathered information, and discovered that Portugal belonged to the EEC (European Economic Community, now the European Union). “After all, Portugal was in Europe, and my boss was just joking with me. So, I thought, it was worth going to Portugal. From there, I could go to any other country in Europe or to Canada.”
He didn’t go.
From Hong Kong to Martim Moniz
When he landed in Lisbon and stepped off the plane from Hong Kong, Humberto Delgado Airport seemed to him like a train station. They asked him where he was going. He said to Marquês de Pombal, he recalls. That’s what came to his mind.
Staying in a hotel in the area, he remembers spending a week exploring the city. Avenida da Liberdade, Bairro Alto, Praça da Figueira, Martim Moniz, and he discovered the Central Mosque of Lisbon, in Praça de Espanha. The money he brought with him was enough to sustain him for a few months. Months that he used to explore Lisbon, Portuguese food, especially codfish, which he says he loves, and Fado.
“I used to spend a lot of time in Bairro Alto, listening to Fado. That melancholic music impressed me a lot; I didn’t understand what they were saying, but I thought it was something really deep, from the heart. It reminded me of the songs of Rabindranath Tagore [Bengali writer and composer, Nobel Prize winner in Literature in 1913], songs that we call Rabindra Sangeet. I would stay very calm listening to it”.
Finding work and a place to live was necessary. The language barrier was the first obstacle. He spoke English, Hindi, and Bengali. At that time, it was of little use if he didn’t also speak Portuguese. In six months, the money ran out, and it was in the mosque, he says, that they helped him find work. He started working with a Pakistani, painting houses.
Lisbon welcomed him well, he says. The calmness, the warmth, the Fado, and the friendliness made him forget about the plans to go to Canada or any other country in Europe.
“I really liked the tranquillity of Lisbon, and I stayed. After a while, I started a painting and remodelling company, but that wasn’t the right job for me, and three years later I closed it. In 1995, I rented a shop in Costa da Caparica, which was a tourist area, and it was going very well, but the next year, my mother got sick, and I dropped everything and went to Bangladesh”, Rana recounts.
When he returned from Bangladesh, he was married. His mother understood that it was time for her son to settle down. Coming and going, Rana returned definitively, now with his wife, pregnant with their first child. The shop in Costa da Caparica was lost. “Everything was lost. Life began again.”
With a home on Calçada de Santana, where he still lives today, Rana dedicated himself to commerce. First at the Feira Popular, where he and his wife sold gifts from three in the afternoon until midnight, always keeping an eye on their baby son. Then at the Babilónia Shopping Center in Amadora and also in Almada. He didn’t stay there long: the store sold alcoholic beverages, and being a Muslim, that didn’t align with his religion.
Finally, he arrived at Martim Moniz, where he says he had six shops. However, the economic crisis of 2010-2013 led him to close everything and focus solely on the work he had already been accumulating in his spare time: translating Bengali for the Ministry of Justice, the police forces (PSP, GNR, and PJ), and the Public Prosecutor’s Office (DIAP). That’s what he exclusively dedicates himself to today, alongside his associative and political activities.
“My children are Lisboetas; Lisbon is their land”: how Martim Moniz connected him with the rest of the world
A year after arriving in Lisbon, Rana Taslim Uddin was already mobilizing the few – at that time – compatriots living in the Portuguese capital and founded the Bangladesh Community of Lisbon, in 1992. Today, he is the acknowledged leader of a community that numbers in the thousands, with 9,000 legalized individuals, according to the Portuguese National Institute of Statistics (INE). He is also the president of the Islamic Center of Bangladesh (which he founded at the turn of the century), the Baitul Mukarram Mosque (operating since 2006), the Portugal-Bangladesh Friendship Association, and vice-president of the All European Bangladesh Association.
Praça do Martim Moniz, a melting pot of cultures where Lisbon meets the rest of the world, has been the focal point of the growth of the Bangladeshi community in Lisbon, extending to Intendente with a strong presence in Rua do Benformoso – a sort of Little Bangladesh in Lisbon.
The street where the mosque is yet to be built.
“We made an agreement 11 years ago, and the progress is still minimal. I can say that this is bureaucracy, a lack of interest in people, immigrants, religious freedom, which isn’t just about being written down; it needs to be practised”, says Rana, emphasizing dialogue and good relations with all religions. “When Pope Francis came here for the World Youth Day, I made a point to be in the front row to greet him. We share his message of peace and harmony among everyone”.
Returning to recent controversies, he points out that the thousands of Muslims living and working in this area pay for water, electricity, rent, taxes, municipal fees, and contribute to the Portuguese economy.
For Rana, who has witnessed the Bangladeshi community grow from a handful of people to tens of thousands in Greater Lisbon over thirty years, this is a positive development.
“The Bangladeshi community brought light to this area, to Rua do Benformoso, to Mouraria, to Martim Moniz. People were afraid to come here; there was drug abuse, violence, prostitution. We paved the way for it to become a commercial area, with restaurants and cuisine from other countries. It’s a multicultural area now and attracts tourists and Lisbon residents”, says Rana, who doesn’t understand voices that tell him to go back to his homeland.
His homeland is now here.
“I have two loves: Lisbon and Dhaka, but this is where I want to be buried. My son and daughter are Lisboetas. They were born here and can’t imagine living anywhere else. This is their land. Once, in a meeting, I said: when Vasco da Gama went to Bengal, my land, in 1498, I said, ‘Welcome, Mr. Vasco da Gama,’ not ‘Look, the door is closed, you can leave’. Portugal has had an open door; it doesn’t send anyone away. 500 years later, is it going to close the door?”
Catarina Pires
É jornalista e mãe do João e da Rita. Nasceu há 50 anos, no Chiado, no Hospital Ordem Terceira, e considera uma injustiça que os pais a tenham arrancado daquele que, tem a certeza, é o seu território, para a criarem em Paço de Arcos, terra que, a bem da verdade, adora, sobretudo por causa do rio a chegar ao mar mesmo à porta de casa. Aos 30, a injustiça foi temporariamente corrigida – viveu no Bairro Alto –, mas a vida – e os preços das casas – levaram-na de novo, desta vez para a outra margem. De Almada, sempre uma nesga de Lisboa, o vértice central (se é que tal coisa existe) do seu triângulo afetivo-geográfico.
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