The slogan of "Africa for Africans" is a philosophical lie in defiance
of Christian civilization and the events of today prove that it is
communism and Islam who are seeking in this way to impose their
civilizations."
On the other hand, they have tried to add a little sociology and economics
and to reduce the religious content.  One such apologist, a Brazilian, Gilbertc
Freyre, was extremely influential 10 years ago with his theory of "Luso-tropicaJ
ism", in which he accounted for the supposed success of the Portuguese Empire b}
certain cultural characteristics of the Portuguese peoples
The most essential, however, of these cultural characteristics turns out to be i
kind of Catholic universality which, he claims, causes them to play down race ai
nationality:
"Portuguese success in the tropics .... is largely due to the fact that .,
their expansion in the tropics has been less ethnocentric, less that of
a people whose activities are centred in their race and their deliberately
ethnic culture system - than christocentric - that is a people who
consider themselves more Christian than European.!t
This contention, that the Portuguese are less conscious of their race thar
other Europeans, and thus less inclined towards racial discrimination both in
the administration of their colonies and in their personal dealings with the
peoples of the tropical world, has become the backbone of the official Portuguee
version of the moral role of Portuguese colonialism? Salazal, in a statement tt
Life in 1962, put it -
"These contacts have never involved the slightest idea of superiority
or racial discrimination .... I think I can say that the distinguishing
feature of Portuguese Africa .... is the primacy which we have always
attached and will continue to attach to the enhancement of the value
and dignity of man without distinction of colour or creed, in the light
of the principles of the civilization we carried to the populations who
were in every way distinct from ourselves."
Prof. Jorge Dias, the leading Portuguese ethonographer, backs this up with
an elaborate explanation couched in more ethnocentric terms than Freyre1s:
"I believe that the great success in the relations of the Portuguese
with the populations of other continents, some of which still prevail
with the same stability and vigour, whilst others have given place to
new and entirely original sociaties in the history of mankind, like
Brazil, are the consequence of a sui-qeneris form of etxhnocentricism.
In fact, the Portuguese do not need to affirm themselves by denying ...