THE LAND THAT LIVES IN THE PAST
Gersh, Gabriel
Portugal The Land That Lives In the Past by GABRIEL GERSH Portugal at this time of year is always an enchanting scene. The sun still shines defiantly and the countryside is tinged with the same...
...1961's coffee crop in northern Angola, where many plantations have been ravaged or abandoned, has been badly damaged...
...Factory workers have been further penalized by the new economic decrees...
...However, the opposition candidates who offered themselves had been so harassed, not by violence but by the subtler weapons of bureaucracy so well understood by the Portuguese, that they all withdrew from the election...
...The recall of reservists has also had a direct effect on the living standards of thousands of families who find themselves deprived of the major wage-earner...
...Despite the outburst of protest in 1958, the policy of the regime was hardened, not relaxed...
...The great question at present is just how Portugal can sustain a war of repression for an indefinite period...
...Heavy taxes, imposed last summer on many items, including cigarettes, have increased the cost of living steeply...
...In many ways Portugal resembles the rural Ireland and Wales of a generation ago...
...However much bitterness and frustration Salazar's policies have bred, the Portuguese have not despaired of their nation's mission in Africa...
...The war in Angola with its death toll and casualties is real enough, but the Portuguese attitude toward it is curiously timeless...
...An important part of the government's fund-raising activities since the war started has been its appeal for "gifts" from the public, including wage deductions and "workdays" virtually imposed by employers at the government's request (somewhat reminiscent of pre-1789 France...
...Destiny has finally caught up with Portugal, swooping out of Africa and Asia and threatening to deprive her of a valuable overseas empire...
...eternal quality, as though cribbed from Thucydides...
...His enemies concede his honesty, his dedication, his scorn for the trappings of power...
...On the other hand, we see a member of NATO and a potential member of the Common Market saddled with a regime totally unsuited to the needs of a new Europe...
...Portugal, scarcely touched by World War I, profitably neutral in World War II, must now fight the worst kind of war...
...Neither Portugal's coolness toward the United Nations and its allies nor the outbreak of violence on the mainland has had any marked effect on the country's appearance of social stability...
...The result, of course, was a "triumphant victory" for Salazar's Uniao National...
...The few who became wealthy returned to build villas at Estoril, the Portuguese Monte Carlo...
...Today the mystique of Salazar is under severe challenge...
...He is what he has always been—a professor of law and economics who has taken up politics and combines a scholarly cast of mind with asceticism and intense patriotism...
...The Portuguese regime has accused Britain of reneging on a centuries-old military pact by not aiding it against the Indian attack on Goa...
...Had it not been for the Angolan revolt, it is unlikely that Salazar would have survived in power as long as this...
...Despite the impact of the crisis in Africa, Salazar refuses to listen to the advice of the opposition at home or to ease the harshness of his personal rule...
...There seems to have been a storm blowing in which the British and French empires have disappeared and the United Nations has turned itself into a hotbed of "Afro-Asian Communism...
...wages are low (the annual per capita income is about $275...
...Portuguese ships and planes have been diverted from their profit-making schedules to carry troops to Africa...
...Portugal's present mood of bitterness and despair has been reflected in the regime's announced intention of withdrawing from the United Nations...
...At least $1,500,000 extra is spent every month to quell the Angolan revolt...
...This acute phase of Portugal's dissatisfaction with the United Nations began in the spring of 1961 when the General Assembly called for reforms in Angola and appointed a committee to investigate conditions there...
...On the one^hand, we see a genuinely non-racist European country condemned at the United Nations as a tyrannical colonial power...
...From the windows of this musty museum of old-time values and ways of life the onrush of world history looks like someone else's nightmare...
...An illness in a working-class family can disrupt its budget, and few Portuguese can afford to give their children anything more than four years of education...
...I do not know whether we shall be the first country to abandon the United Nations," Salazar said, "but surely we will be among the first...
...Except for its Iberian neighbor, Spain, Portugal is the only country in Western Europe where many low-paid workers must work ten hours a day, sometimes seven days a week and at more than one job, to support their families...
...in southern Portugal there are the traditional vast estates owned by aristocrats who live in surroundings worthy of their ancestors...
...The empire represents not the legacy of a Nineteenth Century conquest, but the heritage of the pioneer-navigators of Portugal's great period, the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries...
...the release of all political prisoners (currently estimated to number 3,000...
...To visit Portugal is still a fascinating but disturbing excursion into the past...
...the authorization of political parties other than the Uniao National...
...There was always much arrival and departure of sons and daughters, and Overseas Portugal always seemed within easy reach...
...This has been colonization without too much self-sacrifice or heroism— the exploitation of a legacy rather than the acceptance of a challenge...
...Salazarist speeches, manifestoes, and declarations have an GABRIEL GERSH is a free lance writer who specializes in Mediterranean affairs...
...What kind of man is this dictator who has fashioned the government in his image and who has had a greater impact on Portugal's history than any ruler since Prince Henry the Navigator...
...What is worrying the opposition at present is the reported existence of a secret treaty known to have been signed in 1941 between Salazar and Franco in which the latter agreed to come to the rescue of the former if at any time he were forcibly removed from office...
...The cost of Salazar's overseas policy is now beginning to undermine his economic policy, which has been the greatest claim to success for his paternalistic dictatorship...
...Although Portugal will continue to defy the U.N.'s recommendations on Angola, it is unlikely that she will withdraw from the world body in the near future...
...he is even well-intentioned and thoughtful...
...Only in the towns has Twentieth Century progress made some slight impression, for the poor now wear shoes, the rich are not so impossibly elegant, and the middle class is buying the latest "American" gadgets...
...His regime has virtually outlawed politics as a subject of conversation above a whisper...
...As for the Communist Party, it is small but presumably well-organized and publishes two monthly magazines, which are widely read...
...Out of Don Quixote fantasies of past grandeur, a bugle has sounded, and the Portuguese have mobilized to defend an empire doomed to extinction...
...This was implied both by the scale of the arrests which followed and by the severe security measures the regime invoked—roadblocks, inspected traffic, and reinforced surveillance of airports and coastal waters...
...Nearly all the priests of the Oporto diocese have supported their Biihop's position and throughout the country, particularly in Lisbon, many young priests are dissatisfied with the regime...
...the lifting of the press censorship...
...Plans have been set in motion to build up reinforcements for Mozambique from the annual conscription of 40,000...
...Thousands of Portuguese from the mainland have settled in Africa, where they have lived in humble circumstances...
...Another source of friction with the United Nations has been Portugal's refusal to submit yearly reports to the General Assembly on its overseas empire...
...many of the supporters of General Delgado were jailed or exiled and accused of the worst crimes...
...Undaunted by the regime's attacks, the opposition has continued to agitate for these reforms throughout the country...
...As for the administration of the African empire, that was the concern of the administrators whose policies were beyond the limits of public discussion...
...Portuguese nationalists have talked somewhat glibly of mobilizing thousands more men if the situation warrants it—a staggering military burden for a country which normally can barely afford to maintain an army of 60,000...
...Because he has remained a traditional imperialist, an orthodox economist, and an old-fashioned dictator, it is doubtful whether he can impart to the Portuguese what they really need—dynamism and a fresh sense of direction...
...But Premier Antonio de Oliveira Salazar himself took the attack quite seriously...
...The tales one is told about police brutality and the disappearance of political suspects may be exaggerated, but it is depressing to hear a hush fall across a cafe when members of the PIDE enter...
...To them the symbol and reminder of greatness is the Empire—a word which may have been erased from their dictionaries but not from their feelings...
...Happily free of race prejudice because of their Moorish ancestry, the Portuguese accepted Africa on its own terms without asking too many questions about the standards of justice for the natives or the morality of "contract" labor...
...Salazar's greatest asset, according to those closest to him, is a supreme confidence that he knows what is best for his people...
...To meet the crisis in Africa, the term of military service, which was previously eighteen months, has been extended to two years...
...The embarkation of a colonial expeditionary force, the most heart-rending of national scenes, has come at last to the Tagus...
...Military experts calculate that at a conservative estimate Portugal has more than 80,-000 armed forces and police abroad...
...Today in the little cafes where the sad fados are sung, a familiar theme is heard—the soldier off to the war saying farewell to his loved ones, and the dreaded telegram announcing he will never return...
...The tragedy of this national gesture is that many more people—African and Portuguese—may die, Angola may turn into another Congo, the Communists may penetrate more deeply into Africa, and Portugal may be plunged into a civil war that would permanently retard her entry into the modern Europe of which she yearns so much to be a part...
...But now the challenge has come, and self-sacrifice, heroism, and endurance are needed...
...the country's gold and foreign currency reserves fell in 1961 by $112,000,000, a drop of 7.6 per cent...
...The liberal wing of the church is led by the Bishop of Oporto who expressed his discontent with conditions in 1958 and is now in exile...
...To insure the success and momentum of their colonization, the Portuguese have engaged in a certain amount of flag-waving, of a backward-looking kind more in honor of their pioneer-explorers than Salazar...
...His major fault, however, is that his policies are incompatible with the modern world...
...A major center of opposition to the regime is the Catholic Action group, whose supporters are for the first time defying their bishops by insisting that the church should abandon its traditional support of Salazar...
...Thirty-five years of power appear to have had no corrupting influence on this austere, retiring figure whose natural habitat is the ivory tower rather than the political marketplace...
...For some mysterious reason, Salazar allowed the National Assembly to be elected in November, 1961...
...The army, though increasingly hostile to the regime, is not at the stage where it is willing to act as the arbiter of the country's destiny (most of its officers were not implicated in the Beja uprising...
...The government's tendency to blame the Communists for all the opposition to the regime enhances and publicizes the Party's activities...
...On the far Right are the conservatives and monarchists who support the pretender to the crown, Dom Duarte Nuno...
...transportation is not always adequate for the worker, who may have to cover miles on foot to reach his work...
...But there is a possibility that she may do so if the United Nations severely and repeatedly condemns her role in Africa or if it invokes the threat of economic sanctions...
...Radio Moscow broadcasts two short programs each day to Portugal, and there is every reason to believe that, bored by the banality and conformity of their own radio and press, many Portuguese lfsten...
...The eclipse of Portugal's military power in Goa was followed by an attack of anti-Salazar rebels on an army base in Beja on New Year's Day...
...But nobody, least of all the authorities, rules out the possibility of a coup, especially if the economic situation continues to deteriorate and if there is no prospect of success in conciliating the overseas territories...
...Yet for Portugal, politically and economically, the turn of the year has brought many omens of misfortune...
...The first signs of despair and humiliation are beginning to appear...
...Lisbon in the fading sunshine, scrubbed and tidy as usual, with the quaint, multi-colored appearance of its houses, seems undisturbed by the "winds of change" which have disrupted so much of the world...
...the dismissal of Salazar...
...He is hardly aware that the times and needs of his people have changed since he made it his task, more than thirty years ago, to give them stable government and orderly finances...
...The question that faces Portugal now is: If Salazar cannot be removed by constitutional processes, what is the future of the country...
...These mild and respectable aspirations, which in most of Europe are taken for granted, were denounced by the government as Communist-inspired and unworthy of "God, the Nation, and the Family...
...the granting of some form of self-determination to the African territories...
...His work has appeared in the New York Times, Commonweal, The Christian Century, and many other publications at home and abroad...
...Housing is insufficient...
...The sun still shines defiantly and the countryside is tinged with the same green as that of New England in early summer...
...It has been a time of celebration...
...Nothing seems to have changed during Salazar's thirty-five years of personal rule (a longer period in office than that of any other dictator in this century...
...The Liberals have the backing of many businessmen, teachers, lawyers, and journalists who, though prosperous by Portuguese standards, chafe at the restrictions imposed on them by the regime...
...However, the tragic sequence of events—the Angolan war, the stirrings of rebellion in Mozambique, the censure of the United Nations, the seizure of Goa and the other enclaves by India—has neither jolted the Portuguese out of their lethargy nor awakened them to the full fury of Afro-Asian nationalism...
...Political order has been maintained through police repression and economic atrophy...
...But despite the charade of this election, the opposition has been able to achieve some impressive results...
...Portugal today presents a dilemma to the West...
...The 1950 census classified every second person as illiterate...
...of dancing in the streets, lighted, when the day fades, by flares and paper lanterns, to the whistle and thump of a village band...
...The Portuguese have always regarded their colonization as a family affair...
...It is still recovering from the ill-fated attempt to dispose of the regime in April, 1961, and many of its senior officers are more concerned to preserve their privileges, such as they are, than to risk another coup...
...the dissolution of all fascist and police organizations...
...Salazar's scorn for the United States, which he encourages in the state-controlled press, may endanger its strategic air and naval bases in the Azores at the end of 1962 when the agreements governing them expire...
...There is no hope of offsetting this by collective bargaining or strikes, since there are no trade unions in the accepted sense, and strikes are illegal (any infraction of the regime's severe labor laws is punished by dismissal...
...Portuguese eyes would always glisten at these songs, but now there are real tears, for everyone is involved...
...Salazar has assailed the United States and Britain in harsh terms for their failure to support Portugal against "Indian aggression," and he has refused to cooperate with the United Nations unless it is in Portugal's interest to do so...
...Yet he has been described with considerable justification as a soulless machine isolated from his people, a guileful politician, a dictator leading his country to disaster...
...Portugal has no Parliamentary opposition, no free press, no enforcement of civil rights, no safeguards from arbitrary arrest...
...The rift between Portugal and the United States and Britain may have serious implications for the Western alliance...
...Opponents have, for the first time, called for the restoration of democratic liberties...
...Of these, 50,000 are in Angola and 10,000 in Mozambique...
...Nor is the Salazar government pleased about the U.S...
...The Portuguese government has denied the alleged agreement, but it has not repudiated the Iberian Pact of 1939 or the 1940 protocol which commits both governments to the mutual defense of their own internal security...
...In the north the vintage is long since over, but the scent of must still lingers in the air...
...It was this confidence which prompted him to allow the 1958 Presidential election in which General Delgado, the symbol of protest, received an officially-admitted twenty-three per cent of the vote, which in all circumstances was a remarkable achievement...
...If a democratic rebellion occurs in Portugal," the reliable Weltwoche of Zurich reported, "Spanish troops would be allowed to intervene and help Salazar stay in power . . . The Iberian Pact authorizes the Spanish dictator to enter Portugal as a savior and to stay there . . . Salazar knows that the end is near and therefore wants the Spanish troops, even though international complications seem certain to follow...
...The plight of the Portuguese worker has worsened because of the sharp rise in prices caused by the government's military expenditures in Africa...
...The harsh censorship imposed in Lisbon and the misleading statements published by the official press make it impossible to determine the extent and consequences of the attack...
...In northern Portugal there are the traditional charming but servile peasants who continue to live in Levantine squalor...
...strategy of wooing the Afro-Asian bloc in the United Nations and its failure to match "fine words" with "firm, unwavering policies...
...He is not evil, though he can be vicious when he is attacked...
...The secret police, the highly efficient PIDE (Policia International de Defcsa do Estato), is feared by most Portuguese...
...Led from afar by Alvaro Cunhal, who escaped from prison and managed to reach Moscow, the Communists have some following among the youth...
...Alarmed by the outcome, Salazar abolished future Presidential elections and decreed that the President—the theoretical head of the state—would be chosen by the hand-picked National Assembly...
...But they charge that these qualities have been offset by his contempt for freedom and his failure to come to terms with the modern world...
...But Angola is different "because it is part of Portugal...
...Although Portugal is not a Fascist state on the Mussolini or Franco pattern, it does not hesitate to use violence if it feels threatened...
...Yet to the mass of the people this anachronistic regime seems to be divinely right because, for sentimental and economic reasons, Portuguese are determined to stay in Africa...
...The center is represented by the Liberals, who consist of the old liberal remnants of the Republican government overthrown by the military coup of 1926...
Vol. 26 • March 1962 • No. 3
