The portuguese colonial strategy in action

["João Paulo Monteiro" <jpmonteiro@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Following a report of the Student Association of the University of
Lourenço Marques (now Maputo), this was the ethnic composition of high
school and University pupils in 1972:

White: 74,3% at high school and 83,5% at University
Indians: 8,3% at high school and 9,8% at University
Mixed race: 7,9% at high school and 4,9% at University
Black: 8,3% at high school and 1,1% at University
Chinese: 1,4% at high school and 0,8% at University.

In Angola, between 1967 and 1970, only 4,4% of the inscribed have
completed elementary school. The content of teaching was basically the
language, history and geography of Portugal, with absolutely no regard
for the culture and personality of african children. The "Courrier de
l'UNESCO" of November 1973 considered that the results of the programs
of education in Angola "don't give credit to the system" and that "the
big majority of the school population (and almost the totality in rural
areas) doesn't go further than second or third year of elementary
school. The knowledge transmitted is so rudimentary and superficial that
they fall back into illiteracy almost immediately".

In Guinea-Bissau the first high-school was created in 1958. Two years
after, "civilized" blacks constituted only 0,3% of the population. White
settlers were 0,5%. In the 60's there were officially 15% of
alphabetized people in Guinea-Bissau, but only 2% had reached high
school and 0,5% completed it.

The irony of the situation is that Portugal was also almost 50%
illiterate and for the very same reasons. Salazar thought that the poor,
given some education, had a marked tendency to become insolent. The
portuguese settlers in Africa were mainly rurals and urban poor. Not the
ideal stuff to enforce white intellectual supremacy. In 1971, Amilcar
Cabral considered that Portugal "not having strong and valid economic
infrastructures" was "unable to conceive a process of decolonization in
which the interests of the portuguese ruling class would be safeguarded
in a neo-colonial situation, with effective competition coming from
other capitalist powers".

Indeed, this is one of the secrets of portuguese colonialist obstinacy
against the winds of History.


João Paulo Monteiro