Lusophobia oranti-Portuguese sentiment is hostility, racism, hatred, and/or discrimination towardPortugal, thePortuguese people or thePortuguese language andculture.
Like "Lusitanic", the word "Lusophobia" (Portuguese:lusofobia) derives from "Lusitania", theAncient Romanprovince that comprised what is nowCentral and Southern Portugal andExtremadura, and "phobia", which means "fear of". The opposite concept is "Lusophilia".
In the 19th century, the termlusofobia was often used to describe nationalist sentiments inBrazil, a formercolony of thePortuguese Empire, with liberal politicians inRio de Janeiro andPernambuco advocating the reduction of Portuguese immigration and involvement in the Brazilian economy, although almost all of themwere of Portuguese descent.[1]
InRio de Janeiro, the "Jacobinos", a small national radical group, were the strongest opponents of thegalegos, the Portuguese immigrants, who have always been the biggest ethnocultural community in Brazil.[2]
In the immediate aftermath ofPedro I of Brazil downfall in 1831, the poor mixed-race and black people, including slaves, staged anti-Portuguese riots in Salvador.[3]
In 2007, after the three-year-oldMadeleine McCann disappeared fromPraia da Luz, in theAlgarve region, in southern Portugal, many British media outlets wrote articles highly critical of Portugal and Portuguese police that portrayed Portugal as a "backwards banana republic".[4] Others in the media promoted anti-Portuguese sentiment with ideas such as boycotting Portugal[5] as a holiday destination, but that was not reflected in general public opinion, which saw record numbers of British tourists visit Portugal.[6][7] Estimates were that a record 2 million British tourists holidayed in Portugal in 2007.[8] Notable anti-Portuguese articles byTony Parsons[9] received a record number of complaints to thePress Complaints Commission for that year.[10][11]