Portugal holds on to its colonies

[archaeogeek]

I mentioned South African assistance because this would have eased the burden on the Portuguese military. If a quicker military victory could have been achieved then it would have allowed the Portuguese government to focus exclusively on developing the territories. Also, I'm not sure how much effect the South Africans would have had on the racial policies if they were exclusively aiding Portugal militarily. The central government from Lisbon still made the rules and they were constantly making laws that at least gave the appearance of racial equality. This included promoting non-whites to political positions so that they could constantly show the outside world how Portugal was a land of racial harmony. For instance, by 1973 over half of the members of the legislative assembly of Mozambique were non-white. This was the doing of Lisbon, not the settlers. However, if the settlers with South African assistance become strong enough as a group to gain autonomy, I could see them not caring as much about window dressing (especially in Mozambique).

No window dressing + South Africa propping up the colonial regime = when Apartheid falls, the colonies become independent and no you don't even get to fight their rebellion tyvm or the United Nations brings out the sanctionhammer. Especially as one million immigrants, assuming all the portuguese emigration of the decade moves there, just means 10% of the colonies are white.

 

[TheMann]

As you mentioned the Europeans in most colonies enjoyed a higher standard of living that their European peers and this was certainly true. However, in Portuguese Africa a settler earned nearly 5 times as someone in Portugal. In Rhodesia the average Rhodesian earned 25% more than the average Englishman. So the gap was much larger, thus making Angola or Mozambique very attractive.

The Portuguese government did try to win the hearts and minds of the African population after 1961 by building schools, hospitals and clinics in more remote areas. One of the biggest successes was in encouraging independent African coffee farmers in Northern Angola. By 1974 they were growing over half of the coffee crop in the region and had average incomes that were quite high.

But why did they wait until 1961? Portugal knew these territories would be ungovernable if the black Africans did not see their lifestyle rise dramatically. Yes, the situation was getting better, but that wasn't getting over decades of racial unrest, and the settlers weren't getting any better. What they needed to do IMO was to use the colonies as their economic calling card, encouraging immigration and substantially raising the living standards of the native population. If Portugal had put a million whites in Angola and Mozambique while at the same time raising the per capita incomes of the black population by 50% or more between 1945 and 1960, the result would have been much more peaceful. South Africa shows this quite clearly - guerilla activity there died off in the 1960s and 1970s as the country's economy boomed. Apartheid had been an economic success for South Africa's black population and had improved their standard of living, which is why things were more peaceful in that time. If Angolan and Mozambican blacks had seen their lives improve measurably, the draw of the MPLA and FNLA would have been massively reduced.

The side benefit here would be NATO. If Angola and Mozambique are prospering and their standards of living are improving with Portugal working within NATO, this could well put a vice on apartheid. Part of the reason the United States, United Kingdom and others tolerated apartheid was because the option was widely seen as a government aligned with the Soviet Union, which did not serve the interests of the Western powers. But if Angola and Mozambique are prospering and Angolan and Mozambican black Africans are becoming wealthy and the racial laws are dying away, how does South Africa justify apartheid?

 

[Viriato]

No window dressing + South Africa propping up the colonial regime = when Apartheid falls, the colonies become independent and no you don't even get to fight their rebellion tyvm or the United Nations brings out the sanctionhammer. Especially as one million immigrants, assuming all the portuguese emigration of the decade moves there, just means 10% of the colonies are white.

Without Angola and Mozambique falling, Rhodesia will not fall as easily. Rhodesia really only began to suffer after Portugal pulled out of Mozambique in 1975 and they lost their main outlets for trade. Despite sanctions, Rhodesia's economy grew from 1966-1974 and the country managed to attract a net gain of white immigrants until 1975. Also, with Mozambique still under Portuguese rule, ZANU and ZAPU cannot use Mozambique as a base to launch raids into the country. This gives Rhodesia a much longer lifespan.

South Africa too will not have to suffer a border war in Southwest Africa, so they are much better off by being able to avoid conscription and a costly border war in Angola. Also, they could avoid many of the initial military sanctions by not invading Angola. On the other hand they may not be as self sufficient in the production of military hardware as they were by the 1980s.

Under what pretense would sanctions be launched against Portugal? Unlike South Africa and Rhodesia the country did not practice racial discrimination. Even Kenya's foreign minister criticised Portugal for being a colonial power in 1973 its government was not racist and Portuguese Africa was probably the most racially harmonious part of the continent.

Also, one has to remember that even the sanctions against South Africa were launched mainly because of its aggressiveness towards neighbouring countries. I cannot see Portugal launching attacks on any other country. Finally, sanctions would have to pass the security council.

Portugal, unlike South Africa was a NATO ally. The UK, US and France consistently voted against resolutions condemning Portugal in the security council. Other countries that were non-permanent members that generally voted in favour of Portugal were Latin American countries and Pakistan. Unlike South Africa, Portugal did enjoy cordial relations with much of the world including many non-European nations.

Finally, I believe you may need a math lesson. By 1974 Angola and Mozambique had around 800,000 European settlers combined out of a total of 15 million people. In addition there were another quarter of a million mixed race individuals and perhaps 35,000 Asians. If you added another million individuals you'd have 1.8 million Europeans not 1 million. This also assumes that these people would have no children, considering the rate of natural growth of the European population was around 1% per annum, its rather implausible. Below is a chart showing Portuguese emigration between 1900 and 1996. Please note that the figures are only for emigration abroad, since Angola and Mozambique were integral parts of Portugal they are not counted in the totals prior to 1975.

http://imigrantes.no.sapo.pt/page6Estatist.html

In fact, it is plausible that the European population could have grown something like this had the government been more open to it early on. Although Mozambique's European population would still only be 7% of the total, Angola's would have been 17% by 1970, the same as South Africa's.

ANG MOZ (figures in thousands)
1940 80 50
1950 175 100
1960 550 330
1970 1085 680
1980 1400 835

 

[Viriato]

But why did they wait until 1961? Portugal knew these territories would be ungovernable if the black Africans did not see their lifestyle rise dramatically.

Actually they didn't. Salazar never set foot in the colonies, the only time he ever left Portugal was to visit Franco in Spain. People who worked with Salazar have reiterated that he truly believed the Africans were loyal Portuguese. The events of 1961 came as a shock to him. Why else were there less than 5,000 Portuguese troops in all of Angola in 1961?

Salazar truly believed his own propaganda. It was only after 1961 that the government really saw that they needed to improve the situation of the African majority. The overseas minister Adriano Moreira was a younger technocrat who saw to it that economic reforms were made and many were successful, but at the same time Salazar was afraid of too much change and he was dismissed.

 

[archaeogeek]

snip

Oh yes, I see, much difference. So basically it's between a 10% and a 13% minority.

 

[TheMann]

Actually they didn't. Salazar never set foot in the colonies, the only time he ever left Portugal was to visit Franco in Spain. People who worked with Salazar have reiterated that he truly believed the Africans were loyal Portuguese. The events of 1961 came as a shock to him. Why else were there less than 5,000 Portuguese troops in all of Angola in 1961?

Salazar truly believed his own propaganda. It was only after 1961 that the government really saw that they needed to improve the situation of the African majority. The overseas minister Adriano Moreira was a younger technocrat who saw to it that economic reforms were made and many were successful, but at the same time Salazar was afraid of too much change and he was dismissed.

Considering the problems in much of sub-Saharan Africa began long before 1961, he would have had to have been blind to not notice the potential (likely) problems. The first political parties and organizations dedicated to Angolan independence sprouted in 1948. Maybe hindsight is 20/20, but it should have been obvious long before 1961. If one wants to keep Angola and/or Mozambique, the latest possible time to begin changing things in the time immediately after WWII.

 

[Doug M.]

Actually, much of Angola is fairly temperate since its on a plateau. Much of the Niassa, Manica and Tete provinces of Mozambique are as well. I'm not sure what you mean by to go die in the tropics, by the 1960s most settlers lived modern lives and many had air conditioning.

The Congo is tropical -- it sits on the equator, and most of it is rainforest.

But by the 1950s, Europeans there could live perfectly comfortably. Sanitation campaigns plus widespread availability of modern antimalarials and other drugs had almost eliminated tropical disease. Public buildings and offices all had air conditioning; houses that didn't, at least had electricity and fans. Most settlers lived in towns, in houses and apartments with flush toilets and drinkable water. (And servants, of course. Even the poorest Europeans could afford servants.)

The larger towns had telephone exchanges and movie theaters; even the smaller ones at least had steady, reliable postal service. All the major cities were connected by rail lines, with clean, safe, fast and reliable trains. Roads, too. A colonist could live in Elizabethville -- 2000 km inland -- get in his Volkswagen, and drive to the ocean in three days, staying along the way at nice hotels with linen tablecloths and cool beer.

So, I have no trouble believing that Angola in 1970 was a delightful place to be a white settler.


Doug M.

 

[Doug M.]

Actually they didn't. Salazar never set foot in the colonies, the only time he ever left Portugal was to visit Franco in Spain. People who worked with Salazar have reiterated that he truly believed the Africans were loyal Portuguese.

My impression of Salazar is that he was a very strange sort of leader: a strongman who began his career, not as a soldier or a professional politician, but as an accountant.

He was good with numbers and (by the standards of the time) a competent economist. But he largely lacked charisma, had no grasp of military strategy, and didn't get out much.

Or such is my impression from a distance. I'd be interested to hear a Portuguese take on it.

Doug M.

 

[abc123]

My impression of Salazar is that he was a very strange sort of leader: a strongman who began his career, not as a soldier or a professional politician, but as an accountant.

He was good with numbers and (by the standards of the time) a competent economist. But he largely lacked charisma, had no grasp of military strategy, and didn't get out much.

Or such is my impression from a distance. I'd be interested to hear a Portuguese take on it.

Doug M.

Something like that is my opinon too. But I'm not a Portuguese.

 

[Viriato]

He was good with numbers and (by the standards of the time) a competent economist. But he largely lacked charisma, had no grasp of military strategy, and didn't get out much.

Or such is my impression from a distance. I'd be interested to hear a Portuguese take on it.

Doug M.

Your analysis is basically correct. Salazar was a trained economist who came to power in the 1928 as finance minister when Portugal was bankrupt and inflation was out of control. The country had run a deficit in 68 out of the previous 78 years. Within a few short years he was able to balance the budget and made sure that Portugal and every single one of its colonies would ever run a deficit. In 1926 Portugal's external debt stood at 44% of its GDP, it was reduced to 19% by 1935 and by 1945 Portugal was a creditor nation. According to the Time magazine article about him in 1946, Britain owed Portugal £80,000,000 that year.

Salazar was also known for making sure that Portugal accumulated large gold reserves, he was a pre-Keynesian economist who believed in gold as the ultimate sign of wealth. Throughout World War II he sold raw materials from Portugal and its colonies to both allied and axis powers for payments in gold. Below is a recent article about his gold reserves (take into account that around half of it has been sold since 1974 and they are still substantial).

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-...r-top-investor-without-gains-to-prove-it.html

As for charisma, he was a deeply private man who shunned the limelight, and did not like rallies or lived a fairly simple life and was buried in a normal cemetery plot. He never married and was originally studied to enter the priesthood though he did have a few mistresses including a French actress named Christine Garnier.

Salazar was not military commander and he did not want or care for war. Although he admired Mussolini for his rapprochement with the Catholic Church he was not an expansionist. His goal was to ensure that Portugal was able to keep what he believed was rightfully Portuguese, territories that had been under Portuguese rule for centuries. Despite what people may think he distrusted Hitler and tried to keep the country neutral at all costs.

After 1974 he was generally vilified for not spending enough on education and keeping the country poor and backwards. He did build schools, but in his mind it was more important to balance the budget. When he came to power a mere 34% of the population was literate, by 1968 that figure had improved to 65%, and was still only 70% by 1974.

However, one has to remember that when he came to power Portugal was in much worse shape especially when one considers that per capita income by 1926 was almost 11% lower than it had been in 1900. By the end of his rule in 1968 it had grown 400% in real terms. His successor Marcello Caetano had an even more impressive record as the per capita income nearly doubled during his 6 year tenure.

As of late Salazar's image has reemerged in the psyche of the Portuguese populace. As in 1926, the country is now teetering on the edge of bankruptcy and the political parties seem to be unwilling or unable to solve the problem. Since 2001, the Portuguese economy has been stagnant growing at a sluggish pace of less than 2% per year. To pump the economy the government has relied on deficit spending. Unemployment is now at 10% and despite austerity measures economic growth seems to be elusive. And for the first time since the 1970s the Portuguese are beginning to emigrate again. Angola is the new "El Dorado" for many Portuguese as the article below shows.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125409630023845069.html

The nearly 4% average annual growth enjoyed 1986-2001 seems like a distant memory. People are now accusing the two main parties that ruled Portugal between that period of allocating EU convergence funds on white elephant projects that often served to line the pockets of their cronies. People are beginning to openly say that Portugal needs another Salazar to balance the books. A few days ago a Socialist candidate for the presidency was told this by a group of highschool students. In 2007 he was voted by television audiences on Portuguese state television as the "Greatest Portuguese Person of All Time".