"From The Heart", hosted by Lena Lampert;
broadcast on  RADIO X, from the heart of Europe ;
Belgium


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Among our distinguished guests :

Guest :
Ana Maria Gomes ; European Parliament Member

Broadcast date/time : Monday, 7 May, 2018
19h Central European Time/18h UK Time/13h Eastern Time/10h Pacific Time

Ana Maria Rosa Martins Gomes GCC GOIH ComM (born 9 February 1954), better known as Ana Gomes, is a Portuguese former diplomat[1] and politician of the Socialist Party (PS).

She earned wide recognition for her role in negotiating independence for East Timor, a former Portuguese colony, and in the reestablishment of diplomatic relations between Portugal and Indonesia. She later suspended her career as a diplomat to enter party politics, and served as a Member of the European Parliament from 2004 until 2019,[2] where she was an outspoken campaigner on corruption and human rights.

On 10 September 2020, she officially announced her candidacy for the 2021 Portuguese presidential election,[3] without official support from the Socialist Party.[4] She finished second, with 13% of the votes, the best result ever achieved by a woman in a presidential election in Portugal.[5]

Education and early political career

Ana Gomes was born in 1954 in Alfredo da Costa Maternity Hospital,[6] in the Lisbon parish of São Sebastião da Pedreira, and she grew up during the authoritarian Estado Novo regime.

Her father, Jorge Pedro Martins Gomes,[7] was an officer of the merchant marine and her mother, Maria Alice Rosa Gomes,[7] a homemaker. Both were politically minded and opposed the authoritarian regime.[8] In her teenage years, she accompanied her father to the rallies of the opposition movements Democratic Unity Electoral Commission (CEUD, Comissão Eleitoral de Unidade Democrática) and the Portuguese Democratic Movement/Democratic Electoral Commissions (MDP/CDE, Movimento Democrático Português/Comissões Democráticas Eleitorais) that unsuccessfully ran in the fraudulent 1969 legislative election,[9] amid extensive harassment of opposition candidates and voter manipulation. Her parents allowed her and her sister a liberal education, initially at Colégio da Baforeira, a boarding school in Parede, and then the lyceum in São João do Estoril,[9] and later still the Maria Amália Vaz de Carvalho Lyceum in Lisbon,[8] where she became an activist of the Associative Movement of the Lisbon Secondary Education Students (MAEESL, Movimento Associativo de Estudantes do Ensino Secundário de Lisboa), at the time led by Nuno Crato.[8] In what she considered a "political act", Gomes formally requested to be released from religious education classes at school.[8]

She began attending the Faculty of Law of the University of Lisbon in 1972, a period marked by the regime's increasing academic repression climate in the aftermath of the student opposition resistance movement of the Academic Crisis in 1962, later revived by the international revolutionary movements of 1968; notably, 1972 was the year of the assassination of fellow law student Ribeiro dos Santos by agents of the political police, and early in the year that followed, the Minister of Education Veiga Simão had "surveillers" (vigilantes; commonly referred to as the "gorillas") placed at the Faculty to enforce police control over students. Ana Gomes soon became active in student political activism against the regime as part of the underground Anti-Colonial Struggle Committees (CLAC; Comités de Luta Anti-Colonial), groups with links to the Re-Organized Movement of the Party of the Proletariat (MRPP; Movimento Reorganizativo do Partido do Proletariado), a clandestine communist party.[10] As an initiation, she was recruited to paint large murals against the Colonial War.[9]

By the time of the Carnation Revolution that overthrew the dictatorial regime in 1974, Ana Gomes had been suspended from the Faculty of Law for "subversive activities"; she had been briefly arrested as an agitator, along with a group of fellow students, in December 1973 and was suspended the following month.[9] At around this time, she was first employed part-time as a waitress at the restaurant Caldeiro owned by a popular actress of the time, Maria José Curado Ribeiro (she worked there alongside Rita Ribeiro and Guida Maria), and then as a translator for the exports department of the Companhia Portuguesa de Congelação(Portuguese Frozen Foods Company).[9] She was present at the Largo do Carmo in the afternoon of the day of the revolution, 25 April 1974, when the forces of the Armed Forces Movement led by Salgueiro Maia and a crowd of civilian supporters besieged the headquarters of the National Republican Guard, where Prime Minister Marcelo Caetano had sought refuge, demanding he cede power. She later went to the Fort of Caxias to witness the release of the political prisoners.[10][9][8] She was preparing to marry a fellow law student and political activist, António Monteiro Cardoso, just as the revolution took place, but the marriage had to be postponed to the following month.[9]

She was elected to the Faculty's student council in the electoral list supported by MRPP in November 1974 (alongside Durão Barroso and Garcia Pereira)[8] as well as to the Faculty governing board. After the birth of her daughter in August 1975, she dropped out of law school and quit her job, and focused on working as a translator and interpreter for the press division of the Central Committee of MRPP.[9]

During the political tensions of the "Hot Summer" in 1975, during which the country was on the brink of civil war, culminating with the attempted Communist coup of 25 November, Ana Gomes was on the side of the democratic forces, supporting General Ramalho Eanes and the Socialist Party against the Portuguese Communist Party. Shortly after, however, in January 1976, disillusioned with the party's disbelief in the Portuguese transition to democracy,[8]she abandoned MRPP and active politics. She returned to work as a secretary for an import/export company and resumed her law degree after working hours, finally completing it in 1979.[9] She was working as a teaching assistant at the Faculty of Law and training to become a lawyer under Manuel Figueira, a specialist in public international law and maritime law,[9] when she was challenged by friends João Ramos Pinto and José de Freitas Ferraz to apply for the diplomatic service.[8] She came out on top of all applicants in the concours to gain access to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.[9][8]

Guest:
Paul Dujardin; Artistic Director & CEO of BOZAR

Broadcast date/time: Thursday, June 22, 2017—19h Central European Time/18h UK Time/13h Eastern Time/10h Pacific Time
RADIO X-BELGIUM 

Under the leadership of Paul Dujardin, BOZAR has continued to flourish in the 21st century as one of the world's premier frontiers for The Fine Arts. Under the single roof of BOZAR in Brussels, the Visual Arts, Music, Cinema, Literature, Dance, and Presentations/Debates have formed a synthesis for the artistic expression of our planet. Indeed, here, one witnesses humanity in action.
BOZAR was one of the 20th century's most central pivot points of international artistic activity in Europe—it continues to bear this torch to this day.

Mr. Dujardin studied art history and archeology at the Free University of Brussels, and became Director General of BOZAR in 2002. In January 2014 he was appointed by the Belgian Federal Cabinet for a third term lasting until the end of 2019. Since 2002 Mr. Dujardin has been the General Director and Artistic Director of the Centre for Fine Arts, Brussels (BOZAR).

1992-2002
Director of the Philharmonic Society of Brussels (Société philharmonique de Bruxelles), also Co-Artistic Director and Director of Programming at the National Orchestra of Belgium (l’Orchestre national de Belgique)

1987-1993
Assistant to the Secretary General at JMI (the Fédération internationale des Jeunesses musicales)

1988
Founder and Coordinator of Ars Music, a contemporary music festival; Later Administrator and Counselor

Co-founder:
Musical Foundation dedicated to supporting young musicians
The Queen Elisabeth Foundation, which is dedicated to uniting Musical Foundations in a single     
      education initiative for advanced students
Festival Jubilate
The non-profit “ Cultuur en Democratie (a.s.b.l.)
Ictus Ensemble
The Youth Philharmonic (La Jeune Philharmonie)
The Trente Foundation (Fondation de Trente)
The non-profit “Mont des Arts (a.s.b.l.)

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