Peter Karibe Mendy, “Portugal’s Civilizing Mission in Colonial Guinea-Bissau: Rhetoric and Reality” International Journal of African Historical Studies Vol. 36, No. 1, Special Issue: Colonial Encounters between Africa and Portugal (2003), pp. 35-58<\/p>\n
Abstract:<\/p>\n
This article explores Portugal\u2019s \u201ccivilizing mission\u201d in Guinea-Bissau (former Portuguese Guinea) during a colonial presence that was firmly established in the early years of the twentieth century, and which ended abruptly in 1974, following a decade-long bloody war of independence.\u2019 According to Marcelo Caetano, former Portuguese minister for the colonies and prime minister of the New State from 1968 until 1974, Portugal\u2019s colonial presence in Africa was \u201cnot imperialistic in the sense of constituting a process of racial domination and economic exploitation.\u201d Instead, he explained, \u201cwhen we talk about Empire, we just mean \u201ccommunity of peoples.\u201d We live together, we do not subjugate. We practice, it is certain, with regards to the native populations of Africa, a paternalistic process of government and administration, but in this paternalism are implicit loving care, human solidarity, Christian communion.\u201d\u00a0 While this perspective was promptly dismissed by the nationalist leaders in Portugal\u2019s African colonies as the mere propaganda of a fascist ideologue, and its hollowness was amply demonstrated in such cases as Angola and Mozambique by the critical studies of Gerald Bender and Allen and Barbara Isaacman\u00a0 among others, the nature of the Portuguese-African colonial encounter nevertheless needs to be re-examined in its specific historical and geographic contexts.<\/p>\n