Remigration Summit 25 and the New Reconquista

“We Were Born Just in Time to Save European Civilization” – A Conversation with Lead Organizer Afonso Gonçalves

Assistant editor Chris of Arktos Journal had the pleasure of interviewing Afonso Gonçalves, the driving force behind the resounding success of the recent Remigration Summit 25, which has sent ripple effects throughout Europe and the world.

Please support Afonso Gonçalves and his continued work here.

Chris: The Remigration Summit in Milan, an international gathering of identitarians from Europe and guests from the United States has sparked controversy. It drew global attention and mobilized voices from across the continent and beyond. And I’m sitting here with its main organizer, Afonso Gonçalves from Portugal, welcome.

Afonso: Hi Chris, thank you for inviting me. It’s a pleasure to be here with you. I really appreciate your work also with Arktos. So it’s really a pleasure to be with you today.

Chris: Oh, thank you for taking the time. I’m sure you are quite busy and literally on the move as we speak as well.

Afonso: Yes, exactly. I have always time for a project like this. It’s a project I deeply appreciate, so it’s no problem.

Chris: Thank you so much. And I wanted to focus a bit more about you as a person, because I’m sure there’s people who are curious who you are, where you’re coming from, your visions and what’s going on in the future. I think most people who listen to this have heard about the summit and we’ve written an article or published an article about it as well.

So I’m just gonna ask you: what did organizing this summit meant to you personally?

Afonso: Thanks for the question; it’s a really important question. Sometimes I don’t really stop too much to think about what I’ve been through and what I’ve been doing and why it all started and where I’m going. So it’s always good to take a couple moments to reflect and analyze what I’ve been doing and where I would like to move towards in the future.

So it’s a really important exercise and thank you for the opportunity to do that. So I would say that preparing this summit was a really important moment for me, for our team and also for everyone else who was involved, from Andrea Ballarati to Dries van Langenhove and Martin Sellner. These are three great guys and from which I have also learned a lot; especially Martin and Dries have great experience and they’re two of my role models, I would say, in political activism. And this summit was really well organized. It’s really a testament to what Europeans and young idealistic Europeans can achieve when they work together towards a certain vision. Our idea was to do a great political event in the political calendar, let’s say, capable of rivaling in terms of media attention and importance and influence with the likes of CPAC and their conferences or the conferences related to them.

But at the same time, we wanted it to not be only a spectacle and a show and an entertainment, but also a remigration lobby or the start thereof, a remigration lobby and an effort to really connect people and network people around the idea of remigration. And I think these two main goals were very adequately achieved. We managed to do a great event that was fully praised by everyone who attended and we also managed to create or start creating a network of remigrationists and people who network around the idea and the concept of remigration.

There were activists, and this was also our initial idea, there were activists, journalists, intellectuals, academics, politicians, members of parliament, et cetera. So it was really a full summit that ticked every box that we had envisioned beforehand. So it was a pleasure for me to organize it.

It’s also, let’s say, the highest moment in my short political activism career. I started about two years ago and this was a really good moment because also my team at Reconquista, our movement in Portugal, helped in a lot of, let’s say, departments of the event to put the event together. So now we only move forward and we do bigger and better things, but this was really great, also with the help of all the teams and all the people that coordinated and helped to prepare this event.

Chris: How did you first get involved in political activism?

Afonso: Yeah, that’s a really interesting question again, because I do look back at when I started and when I did start, it wasn’t out of any specific methodology or any specific plan or any specific, very well-thought-out and thorough planning process. It was out of sheer will and sheer, I would say, desperation in a way, not in a very negative way, but desperation nonetheless with the state that the country was in. I could see my country changing for the worse around me every day.

I could see this arrogance of our technocratic, liberal, Marxist, globalist elites pretending that everything was according to plan and that it was just going smooth sailing and the youth were not supposed to get up and start reclaiming a future of their own. And I didn’t really agree with this plan.

I could see the arrogance of these elites looking at us, looking down at us as if the youth of Portugal was not supposed to rise and question this Machiavellian plan that they have for us and for our future. And so the start of our movement was born out of this spirit of refusal to accept a mediocre future of kneeling down and kicking the feet of the elites, and the invaders who want to explore our country.

So I started doing some posts and some videos on social media, also some minor actions and protests against the LGBTQ movement, against the mass immigration movement. And out of those protests arose an organic group that supported me in my efforts and that appreciated my work and they maybe saw some qualities in me and they started also to introduce me to some topics, to have interesting conversations with me. And that’s when I started to grow this movement out of this organic group of people that then moved into something bigger and bigger and here we are.

Chris: So Reconquista, what does it mean to you on a cultural, territorial and spiritual level?

Afonso: Great question. Reconquista really means a lot to us. I normally say, and it’s true, that Portugal has already had two Reconquistas.

One that was finished in 1249, full reconquest of our territorial integrity when we conquered the Algarve, which is the south of Portugal. This was in 1249 and then 411 years later, in 1640, we also became independent again after 60 years of Spanish rule. So there have been two Reconquistas and now, 400 years after the first, there’s a need for a third one, a third Reconquista.

And this is the one we are currently in right now. And as you rightly pointed, it’s a cultural, social and spiritual Reconquista that we need to do again in our country if we are to be a country in Portugal and to keep on being our own country, our own nation. So this Reconquista needs to take multiple forms.

We should, of course, from a cultural level, refine and reinvent the values of our ancestors for the future. And from a social level, we should also find again the formulas of old that work in the new times, the family, the values of God and country. And then also from a spiritual level, by taking this courageous approach, leading with the enemies of our country, looking at them in the eyes and standing up for what is right. Even if the probability of winning is low, we will still win because also the probability of winning was very low when we were besieged in the Asturias a thousand years ago in a mountain in Covadonga with no hopes, no expectations, nothing to really fight for. And yet from there, we managed through sheer efforts and dedication and with God’s help to reconquer our lands. And this is also what we need to do now.

There’s a lot of technicalities to it, but spiritually that’s the main point.

Chris: About remigration, it has been described, and I think correctly, as a generational struggle. What’s your ideas about remigration and how do you respond to critics who say it’s politically unfeasible, morally indefensible, not practical?

Afonso: Well, I would say that politically everything is feasible. If our enemies have managed to destroy the fabric of our European, Greco-Roman and Christian societies in a couple of generations, maybe less, then it is surely possible to implement the political reforms necessary to undo that damage. So it’s clearly politically possible that it’s all the resources at our disposal to peacefully, moderately and adequately remigrate people in the millions, in the tens of millions, if you consider the whole of Europe.

There’s every logistical condition to do that. It has been done in the past, in the 60s by the USA, in the 90s by the Fiji Islands, which are not a technological superpower as far as I know, and they managed to do it. There have been a lot of technological, scientific developments in the last decades.

So we have every condition and every resource available to us to do it. The only thing that’s lacking is the political will, because these elites don’t have the political will to defend the interests of their nation because they are incompetent and the traitorous political elites. Regarding the moral aspect, it’s totally moral.

In fact, what is immoral is legitimizing the demographic replacement, legitimizing the destruction of the specificity of a national cultural way of living, way of expressing of a certain group of people, rejecting that actively, undermining that through biological experiments, social experiments and through mass immigration. That is what is not morally defensible. Destroying the culture of the European peoples is not morally defensible.

Promoting immigration from countries that are net negative to the economy whilst at the same time contributing to the unsafety, the criminality, the lack of social cohesion in our streets, that is not morally defensible. The solution to those problems is morally defensible and is moral it’s adequate, and it’s also very moderate. It’s very moderate and it’s very peaceful.

And it is our main message and that is why our message is so heavily censored because they know people will resonate with this message. Regarding the concept of remigration, it’s, let’s say, a set of policies aimed at removing, peacefully removing from a certain country people according to different criteria back to their own nations.

Chris: I noticed you had speakers from the U.S. So I’m curious, do you feel that we share some sort of common destiny or do you feel that we are cooperating and sharing different interests but same goals?

Afonso: That’s a very interesting question. And I would probably, I think a lot of people will say, probably a bit idealistically, I would say that the European space, and I include Russia in the European space, and the United States, we all share a common destiny based on the fact that we are, in a way, a common people with a common set of basic cultural values and cultural norms. So in that way, I would say that the whole European space, the big Europe, let’s say, also includes the United States, even if they nowadays represent totally different interests.

I think these interests are circumstantial and not deep, conjectural interests. I think these are the circumstances of our age that make it so and dictate that the United States nowadays is, in a way, opposing to European interests. But deep down, spiritually and culturally, we are a common people in a lot of ways and we share a common destiny in a lot of ways as well.

So I would also include the United States in that defense of the European spirit and the European people.

Chris: Dries van Langehove was one of the speakers as well, and his case has become pretty infamous. Basically, he’s been jailed for sharing memes, not even his memes. But he has been facing some pretty heavy persecution in Belgium. How have you been treated in Portugal?

Afonso: Yes, Dries has been facing unprecedented persecution and we really stand with him. He’s representative of this European Faustian spirit and also the European spirit of fighting, even when a lot, I won’t say all, because there’s always that will and that hope, but when a lot is lost. So we all stand with Dries and the persecution he’s facing is representative of the justice of our fight, the justice and the righteousness of our fight.

I have also faced a lot of persecution, maybe not so much as Dries yet. I’m sure I will face in the future. I haven’t been a member of parliament like Dries has, and I think when I eventually achieve that level of political status, which I will in the future, I will also be very heavily persecuted.

However, I have faced really also unprecedented persecution for the Portuguese scenario and context. I can give you three simple examples. In March, I was aggressively dragged by police with handcuffs to the police station because I dared to protest for remigration in the most heavily invaded area of Lisbon, where there’s hordes and hordes of immigrants from Muslim countries and not only from Muslim countries.

And I dared to protest for remigration there, and I was aggressively dragged by police into the police station. These police kept me there for around an hour before they said I was, of course, free to go because I had committed no crime. I have also been heavily joked at and pointed fingers at for publicly standing in a council hall meeting, in the council hall of Lisbon meeting, and taking use of my three minutes as a citizen of the city legally and constitutionally, taking use of these three minutes that I’m granted as a citizen to protest, of course, peacefully about something I don’t agree with, which is immigration and the insecurity caused by the criminality caused by immigration. I protested in these three minutes, and I was joked at, I was shouted at, I was mocked by elected officials, by elected politicians of the council hall of Lisbon, who pointed their fingers at me, joked at me, shouted at me, behaved very poorly. And I simply said, it is very ironic that the citizen needs to come to the council hall to institute some good manners and some democratic respect.

And they requested that police drag me out of the council hall, even when I was granted the right to speak there. So I was then dragged out again by the police for this. The same police that then praised me and said they loved my work, and even their kids watched my work.

So this really shows how degraded and how much lack of credibility the system has. I will give you another example. I went to an immigration conference, where again a government official from a sociology department in a university was saying that the Portuguese can stay in their parents’ houses until they’re 35, because we need to house immigrants. And if that’s what we need to do in order to have immigrants, then that’s what we need to do. And I got up, I protested against it, I asked a couple of questions, and four police that were not in police clothes dragged me very aggressively again with extra use of force out of this public conference room that was open to questions from the public. Now, this is simply ludicrous behavior, just like Dries, you mentioned, also Martin Sellner have been subjected to.

And it’s really a show that the system is wrong and we are right. We can’t force the system to say the truth, but we can force them to say lies and to tell lies, obviously, in a way that’s too obvious. We are forcing the system to overreact.

We are forcing the system to overstep. We are creating this questioning and this inquisition in people’s minds, which is in turn allowing for more interest in our ideas, more critical thinking, which in turn will make sure that in the end we will win, because people will understand that we are right, and that’s why we are being censored and oppressed by the state. That is wrong.

Chris: So, finally, what is your call to action for those who are listening now? And I’m especially thinking about young Europeans who feel that something is deeply wrong.

Afonso: That’s a great point. We should always have a call to action. Too many times we have these beautiful speeches and these empty words and these meaningless phrases without appealing to any set of actions that could be taken.

So my call to action starts in the end of your question. You mentioned that young Europeans feel that something is wrong, and I would say to these young Europeans, maybe some of them are listening in, I would simply say that something is totally wrong, and that makes it totally right for us to be opposed to this system. If they are thinking for themselves and reflecting in these internal debates why is this system so heavily against the interests of its own people, then they should recognize that, okay, something is wrong, but that also means that something is right in this age.

That is an age for heroes, an age for idealistic young people, an age for fighters, an age that maybe, this is, let’s say, a cliché, but it’s a really beautiful one. Maybe we weren’t born in time to complete the discoveries; we weren’t born in time to reinvent some great empires, but we were born just in time, we were born just in time to save European civilization. That’s not a cliché, that’s not an empty sentence, that is a call to action for every single young man listening in, or woman, that this continent of ours deserves to be fought for.

So what you should do practically is you should share this message far and wide, spread it, send it to at least ten people that you know, or send it to as many groups as you can. Join your local activism group; it does make a difference; it does impact people; it does make people think. Start delivering leaflets, or putting out stickers, or speaking to people.

Donate if you can donate; it really does make a world of difference to projects like Arktos, like RE-SUM, like our own movement, Reconquista. Donating really does make a difference. So donate, share the message, or join your local activism group.

If you feel as a fourth call to action, if you feel you have a certain gift, a certain talent, use that talent at the service of your people. I have always recognized, and I say this humbly, that I had a talent for speaking, for articulating ideas, articulating concepts, reaching people through communicating. So I put that talent at the service, not of my own interest, but at the service of my people.

So maybe you are an artist, maybe you are a great designer, or a great video editor, or a great communicator, or a writer, or a thinker. Put those talents at the service of our people. If you haven’t found the talent yet, then pray to God, and reflect, and you will find your talent that you can then help our people with.

Chris: Powerful words from Afonso Gonçalves. You’re out somewhere on the road, heading to your next adventure, and I want to wish you the best of luck, and thank you so much for organizing the event, and sparing some time to talk to me.

Afonso: Thank you. Thank you, Chris. I really appreciate your guys’ work.

You’re also doing great things. Thank you for the interview. It was my pleasure.

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