Invasion of Goa - 50 years

December 18th 1961, the armed forces of the self described "pacifist" Nehru, attack Portuguese India, the first and last bastion of European civilization in the subcontinent.

Portuguese India - Coat of Arms

Map of Portuguese territories in India

A few lines by the poet M.Daedalus (www.mdaedalus.com), to honour the day:

Goa 1961

A taciturn rain envelops the morning,
Tears drop from the cross of a white basilica,
India wears a Mediterranean nostalgia.

Man-made thunders agitate the palm-trees
The birds ebb in the ungrateful firmament
Afonso de Albuquerque is invoked in Konkani
"Nehru is coming" a soldier shouts
"Bandit, not pundit!" somebody retorts.

Pathetically the radio plays patriotic songs
Gagged by jet aircraft gutting the clouds
Shiva avenges the kingdom of Cambay
Kalashnikovs echo the screams of Bijapur
Salazar flies away in yesterday's newspaper
The Queen of the Orient drowns in the Mandovi.

Elephants loose their composure
Austins and Peugeots lie abandoned on the harbour road
Oranges and panic are spread over the pier
A man in white suit wraps a fist full of earth
Panjim dies for the sake of a life to be invented.

The empire sheds European and Asian blood
Dadra and Nagar Aveli, were the first perfidious blows
Goa, Daman and Diu completed the five wounds.

M.Daedalus

Feb 3, 1509: the Indian Ocean becomes a Portuguese Lake

Portuguese fort of Diu

We celebrate 500 years of the battle of Diu (Gujarat, India). On February 3rd 1509, a Portuguese fleet under Dom Francisco de Almeida routs a large armada of Ottoman, Gujarati, Mamluk, Kozhikodi, Venitian and Ragusan forces.

This was a game changing event, the Ottomans were contained. For the next 100 years the Indian Ocean would becomes a Portuguese Lake and for 350 longer an European pond. Diu was eventually lost to the Indians in 1961.

World trade was transformed for ever: the old land routes controlled by the Turks and continuing into the Mediterranean became irrelevant, intercontinental sea trade was born, a true revolution in transportation.

Flor de la Mar - Portuguese Carrack - flagship of D. Francisco de Almeida in the battle of Diu

Dom Francisco de Almeida - Viceroy of India

120th anniversary of the birth of Fernando Pessoa

our small homage with one of his poems:



  "Autopsychography"The poet is an inventor.
He invents so completely
That he succeeds in inventing
That the pain he really feels is pain.
And those who read what he writes
Really feel in the pain they have read,
Not the two which he felt,
But only the one they do not have.
And thus in the wheel ruts
There goes round and round, diverting Reason
That clockwork toy train
Which is called heart.

Translated by F.E.G. Quintanilha

More on Pessoa at MDaedalus.com

portrait of Fernando Pessoa by Almada Negreiros (Orpheu #2 on the desk)

Salazar: elected the "Greatest Portuguese of all time"

Portuguese premier Antonio de Oliveira Salazar, close-up - 1960 - photo by Paul Schutzer for Life magazine

Portuguese television viewers have voted 20th century politician and professor of economics and political economy António de Oliveira Salazar as the greatest Portuguese of all time. It was a clear victory, Salazar received over twice the votes of the runner up.

It took Portugal 67 years to acknowledge the obvious, as already in its edition of July 29,1940, Life Magazine described premier Salazar as "By far the world's best dictator, he is the greatest Portuguese since Prince Henry the Navigator".

As early as 1962 Salazar applied for European Community membership for Portugal. A fervorous patriot, he was also a believer in Europe's values, shared mission in the world and in the inevitability of a united future.

Salazar with a signed Mussolini portrait on his desk - Life magazine 1940 - photo by Bernard Hoffman

Salazar receives US President Dwight D. Eisenhower - May 1960 - photo by Ed Clark for Life magazine

Salazar - cover of Time Magazine, July 22, 1946 - capa da revista Time

Salazar with Queen Elizabeth II (1957)

Salazar and the Galician leader of Spain, Francisco Franco

Salazar, the professor - statue in academic dress - replica of a 1937 work by the sculptor Francisco Franco - it used to stand in front of the Salazar high-school, in the capital of the province of Mozambique, Lourenço Marques  

Salazar with president Carmona - Roman / Fascist salute

Salazar looks at the Ocean - Portugal's only constant friend - Forte de Santo António do Estoril - photo by Rosa Casaco

Update (April 5, 2009):
According to a new book by Costa Pimenta the man was even a freemason! He was initiated in 1914 in Coimbra, by the lodge Revolta n.º 336, of the oldest Masonic Obedience in Portugal, the Grande Oriente Lusitano (GOL).

(see "Salazar, o maçon", Costa Pimenta, Bertrand Editora, Lisboa, 2009 - 972251914X, 9789722519144)

Not really a surprise: all the main pillars of the Estado Novo were freemasons. All the presidents of the Republic, all the presidents of the National Assembly, all military commanders, all the attorney generals, all the presidents of the Supreme Court, all the presidents of the Supreme Administrative Court, all the presidents of the Court of Appeal, all District Governors, all police chiefs, all directors of the public televison (RTP)... were Masons.

Salazar, the freemason (Salazar, o maçon) - book by Costa Pimenta, University of Lisbon researcher