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Dear Fred,
Further to your response to my column on the Portuguese Republic and Goa
(which I have so tiresomely pasted below) please have a look at the comments
a Portuguese friend sent to me.
regards,
J
Dear Jason,
I read Fred and the anonymous comments to your text. They are both
misinformed however. Portugal's First Republic was under fire since day one.
>From the Monarchists, from Monarchic Spain,from other sectors of the Right,
and the Catholic Church (no small enemy, this one). It is no wonder there
was little stability. And that the Republic fell. Some of the Republic's
more prominent leaders, Machado dos Santos and others were assassinated in
1921. There were many coups, military incursion from Spain. Sidónio was NOT
a republican leader. He was a proto-fascist dictator admired immensely by
Salazar and his lot. The Republican party and Afonso Costa were not
dictatorial - much, much less that any of the Indian contemporary parties by
the way. The achievements of the first Republic in the fields of education,
from primary schooling to the university, in the field of rural development
and industrialization, are remarkable. In many, many ways, the Estado Novo
did nothing but continued policies initiated by the republicans. And the
republicans formed the backbone of the resistance to Salazar during the
1930s and 1940s with countless failed military coups.
take care. keep fighting. boa sorte. viva goa.
------------------------------
>>
>> Message: 9
>> Date: Sat, 13 Feb 2010 01:47:48 +0530
>> From: Frederick Noronha <fredericknoro...@gmail.com>
>> To: "Goa's premiere mailing list, estb. 1994!"
>> <goanet@lists.goanet.org>
>> Subject: Re: [Goanet] The Portuguese Republic and Goa...
>> Message-ID:
>> <11a806d21002121217h48703660g54010ef21ed76...@mail.gmail.com>
>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>>
>>
>> Jason, I think the jury is still out in Portugal itself on the
>> benefits and role of the First Portuguese Republic. Was the 1910-1926
>> phase really progressive and democratic? Was it a continuation of the
>> earlier elitist and liberal regimes? Or was it revolutionary and
>> dictatorial at the same time?
>>
>> While there were obvious impact in the colonies (including Goa), how
>> much of this was incidental and how much of it due to the very nature
>> of this regime, which saw a total of eight Presidents, one Provisional
>> Government, 38 Prime Ministers and 1 Constitutional Junta?
>>
>> Incidentally, it will remain one of the ironies of colonial politics
>> (and the responses to the metropole) that a conservative President
>> elected in August 1919 has his name accepted and continued as the name
>> of a prominent school in Ponda, Goa.
>>
>> What was the nature of the Portuguese Republican Party (PRP) --
>> republican or, in actuality, a dictatorship? What about politicians
>> like Sid?nio Pais, and the politics of Sidonismo or Dezembrismo? Not
>> excluding "traditional values" and P?tria? Why the need to clamp down
>>
>> on working-class movements and leftist republicans?
>>
>> It would be interesting to see which side diverse sections of Goans
>> decide to dwell on, as the season for anniversaries approaches -- 2010
>> (500 years of Vasco and a century of the Portuguese First Republic) or
>> 2011 (50 years of the end of Portuguese rule, and the many loaded
>> terms used to describe this... ranging from "invasion" to "Liberation"
>> and "India's use of force"... the last being part of the name of
>> Rubinoff's book).
>>
>> I would not jump in to celebrate 1910, though undeniably, these are
>> events which affected us sharply, 5000 kms away, one way or another!
>> FN
>>
>> PS: Useful background material:
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portuguese_First_Republic
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sid?nio_Pais
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ant?nio_Jos?_de_Almeida
>>
>> PPS: Is there any truth in this statement about Sid?nio Pais: "He
>> escaped a first assassination attempt, but was shot on December 14,
>> 1918 by Jos? J?lio da Costa (great-grandfather of the present Mayor of
>> Lisbon Ant?nio Costa[citation needed]), at Rossio railway station, in
>>
>> Lisbon, when he was preparing to board a train to Porto, to hold
>> discussions with the monarchist leaders of the Northern Military
>> Juntas." (From the second-last link above.)
>>
>>
>> ------------------------------
>>
>
> -----------------------------------------------------
> Read my thoughts at www.dervishnotes.blogspot.com
> ----------------------------------------------------
> For a successful revolution it is not enough that there is discontent. What
> is required is a profound and thorough conviction of the justice, necessity
> and importance of political and social rights.
> (B R Ambedkar)
>
--
-----------------------------------------------------
Read my thoughts at www.dervishnotes.blogspot.com
----------------------------------------------------
For a successful revolution it is not enough that there is discontent. What
is required is a profound and thorough conviction of the justice, necessity
and importance of political and social rights.
(B R Ambedkar)
