Unarchiving Democracy: Youth, Post-Colonial Memory and the Portuguese Democratic Path

was a phrase painted on the walls of the United Democratic Electoral Commission, a coalition of non-communist movements led by Mário Soares that stood for the 1969 elections under the dictatorship.

This simple sentence powerfully captures what it meant to live under the Estado Novo: a regime in which fear was institutionalised and shaped the exercise of citizenship in all spheres of life.

At that time, 

one could not say in the street what was said at home.

one could not do in the street what was done at home.

one could not even think in the street what was thought at home.

This period began with a military coup in 1926 and culminated in the establishment of the Estado Novo [New State]  in 1933 under António de Oliveira Salazar.

A desenvolver

The regime relied heavily on ideological narratives.

“God, Nation and Family”

the regime’s central motto embodied the ideal of a disciplined, obedient and patriarchal society, reflected in the notion of the idealised Portuguese home. Salazar himself described Portugal as “a country of gentle manners.”

“Portugal is not a small country”

this doctrine promoted the myth of a pluricontinental and indivisible empire, stretching “from Minho to Timor.”

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Until the early 1950s, the Estado Novo promoted an openly racist colonial policy rooted in:

• The myth of the “Age of Discoveries” as a heroic national epic
• Ideas of white superiority and social Darwinism
• The belief in a “civilising mission”
• The legitimisation of forced labour and the indigenato system, which denied African populations full citizenship rights

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