Lisbon, 28 May 2024 (Lusa) - Former Minister of Education João Costa has launched a book that aims to be a "manifesto in defence of freedom, diversity and fundamental rights", against "conservative movements that have re-emerged in Portugal".

Entitled "Manifesto for Identities and Families - Plural Portugal", João Costa's book warns, on the back cover, that "conservative movements have re-emerged in Portugal to defend, explicitly or implicitly, civilisational setbacks in matters such as women's rights and the constitution of families".

"This book is a manifesto in defence of freedom, diversity and fundamental rights, against such movements. Here, the fallacies of the supposed attack on the `traditional family, supported by fear of difference, by the misuse of Christian values and by the return to a silencing that oppresses those who have fought most for their rights", it also reads.

The former Secretary of State for Education (between 2015 and 2022) and former Minister of Education (between 2022 and 2024) proposes the "discovery and valorisation of all citizens through education and art, with a view to creating a culture of defence of all lives", considering this to be the "only way to build a truly plural Portugal and, consequently, more evolved, richer and stronger".

João Costa, who dedicates the book "to those who fear freedom and adversity", states in the first chapter: "We will not go back" and that "celebrating the 50th anniversary of 25 April is celebrating the disquiet in the face of exclusion", adding: "It is knowing that I live in a better country, much better, but that it is not yet for everyone and for all".

In his view, "Portuguese identity is the arrangement, like a `bouquet' of different flowers, that we compose from the identities of all those who live here", emphasising that he wants "Portuguese identity to transform itself into the identities of all those who make us a community".

In the book, the former government official criticises the heralds of the "traditional family", observing that they "know nothing about love" and ignore the "naturalness of feeling".

"They think that sexual orientation is a conscious choice, despite never having discovered the moment of choosing their heterosexuality", he states.

"The definitions, the labels that they invent only serve to increase the gap between those who want to include and those who want to hate, telling them that they do not have the right to be. But they are doomed to failure, Love always triumphs!", counters the former minister.

"The tyranny of silencing", "the healing power of empathy" and "the neutral school that does not exist and never has existed" are some of the remaining chapters of this 120-page book published by Ideias de ler.

João Costa, born in 1972, is a full professor of Linguistics at the Faculty of Social and Human Sciences of the Universidade Nova de Lisboa, and is the author and editor of several hundred articles and several books in the field.

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