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[+]Note on the cover
© Pedro Calapez. 2023. (Pormenor) Díptico B; Técnica e Suporte: Acrílico sobre tela colada em MDF e estrutura em madeira. Dimensões: 192 x 120 x 4 cm. Imagem gentilmente cedidas pelo autor. Créditos fotográficos: MPPC / Pedro
[+]This section has a profile similar to that of a blog, which can include independent and original posts, but also short reflections by authors of texts published in the journal, providing a more "popular" version, in blog format, of the respective article.
“See? Special lunches for Muslims in Portuguese schools. That's what we're doing now.” [1] (Ventura 2025)
This is how André Ventura addresses Halal food offerings in Portugal in his video published on May 2, 2025, on his official Instagram page.
The Halal Project, launched in the 2021/2022 school year by the Odivelas City Council (OCC) and later expanded to the municipality of Amadora in 2023/2024, has brought "special lunches" – as Ventura calls them – to more than 250 Muslim children in more than 60 schools (Alves 2024).
The party leader's emphasis on preserving "our culture" – in its most irrational, nationalist sense – operates on the premise that: "Now we are the ones who adapt to others.". The catalyst for the population's division: the creation of an antagonist, a common "enemy" – Muslims – is evident and embedded in the chegana narrative, but the misinformation it contains is also perceptible.
What Ventura doesn't know – or doesn't want to say – is that the Halal Project was only possible thanks to intense collaboration between the Muslim community of Odivelas, the OCC, and the Halal Institute of Portugal (HIP), which, for over 10 years, developed and implemented the public policy (Alves 2023). Far from disregarding "our rules", the project follows meticulous protocols to ensure the food safety of students, training those involved in Islamic values and demonstrating how good relations between local communities, regardless of their ethno-religious background, enable intercultural synergy for all parties for a common good: community.
“(…) our schools have to have meals for Muslims because they don’t want these meals.” [2] (Ventura 2025)
Contrary to what Ventura claims, Muslim children don't eat meals because they don't want to, but because they can't.
The Islamic religion is governed by a "halal lifestyle" (Alves 2023): in this, Halal food symbolizes what is permissible – according to the holy book of the Quran – such as meat slaughtered according to specific rituals, without blood and without pork; Haram – its inverse – means illicit, including pork, alcohol, and any food that doesn't follow Islamic precepts. Therefore, Muslim students reject haram food because it is contrary to their faith, not out of disrespect for Portuguese values – as Ventura instigates in his video – but out of respect for their own religious beliefs.
Words have power, no one denies that and Ventura's words echo a racist legacy of colonialism, only now with a modern perversion: the total exclusion of the Other.
“This is Portugal and as the people say: “Beyond Marão, those who are their rule.” [3] (Ventura 2025)
This is how Ventura's video ends – with his declaration of identity – but this is how the testimony of I – a member of the Muslim community in Odivelas who I recently interviewed for my doctoral research on the Halal Project – begins, reflecting on the practicality of CHEGA's selective exclusion:
“Last week I was at a bar in Laranjeiras with my cousins (...) when two ladies with dogs came... Now, the kids were scared because they were off leash and barking a lot, and they were really bothering us, and you know what I did? Nothing. I did nothing. I know, as a Muslim, that if I did anything, someone would immediately grab the phone and record it and that sort of thing... and I was scared. We Muslims feel the weight of CHEGA, the bullying that is perpetrated and exercised against us, we feel it in our daily lives more and more. The ladies, you ask? They did nothing, they ignored our discomfort and carried on as if nothing had happened... This didn't happen two or three years ago, it was unthinkable, and if I had to, I could have foreseen it... This is likely to get worse; these episodes are becoming common.”
The intentional model of one group and the vulnerability of another are exacerbated by the party's populist policies, which are based on Portugal's (moral) crisis and paint a picture of a country that, fortunately, only exists in Ventura's head: a fiction constructed to distort and manipulate reality. In the words of former Minister of Education João Costa (2025):
“The Ventura/Chega model is exactly about this when it comes to human beings: how to disregard the most vulnerable in society, making them the enemy to be discarded and slaughtered.” [4]
The present video analyzed about the Halal Project demonstrates this well:
“They want to mold the minds of the young with simplicity, so that the divisionism that destroys communities prevails. This is what they want from schools, this is what they want for education. To alienate in order to hate.”[5] (Costa 2025)
CHEGA's message is clear: divide and conquer. If you don't believe in this potential, just look at the party's political growth over the past three years and see its predictions for the upcoming local elections on October 12, 2025.
The feeling of insecurity and fear felt in Portugal, fueled by CHEGA's disinformation and not confirmed by official sources, has created false perceptions about those around us. Luís Neves, director of the Judicial Police (JP), stated earlier this year:
“We are witnessing a period of disinformation, fake news, and hybrid threats, and this is what underpins the perception of violence.”[6] (Lusa 2025)
Where André Ventura finds the availability of halal diets in Portuguese schools a political weapon in his “Christian mission” to combat the “Islamization of Portugal” – to divide and conquer – hundreds of Muslim children in the municipalities of Odivelas and Amadora find comfort, security and a sense that they are not alone in a Portugal that is increasingly closed in on itself.
Pedro Alves (CRIA - Centre for Research in Anthropology)
Pedro Alves (2000) is a PhD student in Anthropology (ISCTE/FCSH), a researcher of CRIA and member of ICAF motivated to contribute to the world, deconstructing social and cultural spheres, presenting a perspective on the (in)visible. His interests are Islamic and food issues in the contemporary world and public policies. ORCID: 0009-0006-5379-4803
References
Alves, Pedro da Silva. 2024. "Projeto Halal em Odivelas: Políticas públicas de inclusão social e integração educativa através da alimentação para a comunidade muçulmana local". Working Papers (CRIA) 25 (1): 1-25.
Alves, Pedro da Silva. 2023. Halal na comunidade muçulmana odivelense: A importância sociocultural da alimentação. Dissertação de mestrado com vista a obtenção de mestre. Instituto Universitário de Lisboa, Lisboa.
Costa, João. 2025. O “pride” de André Ventura e o mal que o Chega faz às crianças. Expresso. https://expresso.pt/opiniao/2025-06-10-o-pride-de-andre-ventura-e-o-mal-que-o-chega-faz-as-criancas-6dd70f79.
Lusa. 2025. Director da PJ diz que sentimento de insegurança é gerado pela desinformação e não é confirmado pelos números. Público. https://www.publico.pt/2025/01/17/sociedade/noticia/director-pj-sentimento-inseguranca-gerado-desinformacao-nao-confirmado-numeros-2119178
Ventura, André. (@andre_ventura_oficial). (2025, 2 de Maio). Temos de acabar com esta mania de nos adaptarmos a tudo e a todos. Ou respeitam a nossa cultura ou então podem comprar o bilhete de regresso a casa! #SalvarPortugal (Vídeo).Instagram. https://www.instagram.com/reel/DJJTjFPvb3I/.
