Alexandre Vidal Porto: Brazil’s consul-general in Amsterdam championing dignity for the diaspora

Diplomats should neither affirm nor dispel stereotypes, but they do have to embody their nation. In this respect, Alexandre Vidal Porto is a fitting emissary for Brazil. The country’s consul-general in Amsterdam is a career diplomat and an acclaimed novelist – trust Brazil to send a poet to deal with passport renewals. He is also a tireless servant of his compatriots abroad. “I love to think that I may make a difference in the life of my people,” he tells Monocle at his Amsterdam apartment.

The Brazilian consulate, 10 minutes’ walk from Vidal Porto’s home, is not a chandeliered space. In the World Trade Center in Amsterdam-Zuid, away from the city’s canals and 17th-century townhouses, it is a place for the Dutch capital’s burgeoning Brazilian population to solve their bureaucratic problems. The Brazilian diaspora has grown rapidly here in recent years, fuelled in part by post-Brexit displacement from the UK. An estimated 80,000 now live in the Netherlands, with a significant proportion of them thought to be working in informal employment, such as domestic or sex work. Beyond the stamps and forms necessary for expatriate life, the consul-general understands that diplomacy is a human endeavour. “I want the dignity of my fellow nationals to remain intact,” he says. In the corner of the consulate’s reception is a children’s play area that was added to the space by Vidal Porto.

Consul-general is an interesting diplomatic role – its holder has less of a profile than an ambassador but they are also freed from the ceremonial decorum required of a head of mission. This means they can push harder to get things done. Before arriving in the Netherlands, Vidal Porto served as consul-general in Frankfurt, where he helped secure the release of two Brazilian women wrongly imprisoned on drug charges. When President Lula returned to power in 2023, Vidal Porto was dispatched to Amsterdam. The practical reason for the posting was unglamorous: it meant that Vidal Porto’s dog could travel between missions by car. But the motivation ran deep.

Many Brazilians in Amsterdam live in precarious conditions, and it is these people whom Vidal Porto is most keen to help. Everyone who walks through the consulate doors is met with patience. “Diplomacy should move towards the human,” the consul explains. He spends his days assisting those in domestic-violence cases, custody disputes and wrongful arrests, speaking with Dutch authorities about, for example, the difference between Portuguese and Brazilian Portuguese. Literature and diplomacy, for him, share the same impulse – both focus on the individual. “These are my people,” he says. “They didn’t find space to fully bloom where they were born but they will now.”