Portugal: The Colonized Decolonizer – Folha de S. Paulo, January 26, 1975
by Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira
This week’s international news allows us to measure the contemporary spiritual crisis to its very depths. The spiritual evil is so profound that it has reached the very roots of the masses’ mental agility, which is manipulated by the so-called media.
Let’s take a look.
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Since the end of World War II, I cannot recall a single instance when the world has been so close to another conflict.
Some may argue against my statement, citing the October 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. Assuming it was authentic and not merely a political show deliberately inserted into the Kennedy-Khrushchev “détente,” it seriously jeopardized peace in a limited area over a limited problem. Thus, once the acute situation was resolved, peace had indefinite possibilities of lasting, so much so that it did. The Cuban crisis was something like a very serious case of appendicitis in a normal organism. Once that crisis is resolved, the chances of survival are indefinite.
On the contrary, today the entire body of international relations appears exhausted, worn out, and seriously ill. The crisis between oil consumers and producers clearly has a scope that cannot be compared with the 1962 Cuban crisis. It involves the entire Western economy and has profound repercussions worldwide. The Arab-Israeli crisis, which is very widespread, extends far beyond its geographical sphere, as it affects the Jewish and Arab diasporas throughout the world. Above all, however, there is a noticeable deterioration in relations between the two superpowers, the authentic one (the United States) and the mythical one (Russia). More precisely, opponents of détente on both sides of the Iron Curtain are showing clear repulsion for Kissinger and Brezhnev’s attempts at peace. There is such a breakdown between “doves” and “hawks” at the supranational level that war could break out at any moment. Several figures on the international stage have explicitly recognized this danger of war. As a result, the very survival of the world as we know it will be discussed and perhaps decided in the coming weeks. All of this surpasses the Kennedy-Khrushchev standoff in gravity and scope.
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Judging by newspaper reports, at this terrible crossroads, the fate of the world may hinge on concessions or on hardening positions on issues that seem secondary from this perspective. War may break out around a price limit on oil or in the Golan Heights or the Sinai.
So, the whole world watches, caught between indifference and good-naturedness, between engagement and terror, a tremendously serious game that may be reaching its decisive moment. Isn’t it terrible, poignant, and dramatic? Yes, but it also has aspects of an atrocious farce.
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In fact, while Western diplomats prepare to discuss inches of land or handfuls of dollars with Arabs, Jews, and Russians, and are playing this game with all the appearances of absolute seriousness, Russia is simply taking over Portugal.
In Lisbon, each passing day confirms further progress in the communists’ march toward complete control of power. On the international stage, no one is concerned about this or discussing it.
The nonsense is so great that one wonders where the political lucidity of those who lead the West is. But the question needs to be broadened. The masses also see this aberration, yet they do not seem bothered by it. Lulled by the enjoyment of an increasingly precarious comfort, focused only on their most immediate interests, and dominated by an unprecedented spiritual crisis, they tolerate everything as long as their daily lives are not disturbed.
So, colonized by the worst of imperialisms, the glorious little Portugal gradually disappears at the very moment—another paradox—when it liberates its own colonies.
No one protests against this arbitrary and absurd separation between the Portuguese case and the international situation.
