Having served in the Portuguese army in Angola from 1966 to 1968 I might be suspect of sympathizing with Portuguese colonialism, particularly as I never witnessed Angolan people being abused or mistreated by either the Portuguese administration or by any Portuguese settlers in Angola. But in fact I - and most Portuguese people - consider that colonialism is on principle a bad thing, and we should have never tried to occupy those countries and try to impose our way of life on them. But having said that I believe that most peoples colonized by us, in the end benefitted more from our presence than were harmed by it. For instance, if we take Angola, what we see there is a strong feeling of national identity, a lack of tribalism or religious conflict, which is mostly due to their now having a common language which unites them, and a common cultural matrix which has helped them overcome any original differences among tribes, which would have prevented them being a coese people. Without us there would now be at least some four or five different countries on what is Angola, or some of the local tribes would have been exploited and dominated by stronger tribes. Yes, historically we have comitted some crimes, but which country - no matter how sovereign - has not often comitted crimes against their own people? Can we forget that most African slaves were delivered to slavers by their own people? For money. And historically, weren't we all colonized? The Celts and Iberian natives in Iberia were colonized by Fenicians and by Romans, as well as by Muslim Berber tribes from North Africa. Without them we woukldn't speak the languages we speak, and our values and judicial system might have been very different. Did we lose anything with it? Nothing essential, I'm sure, and we gained a lot from those dominant powers. Time to look to the future, and not to the past.
Cumprimentos
Nuno Cardoso da Silva
Sent: Sunday, January 11, 2026 at 7:24 PM
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [GRN] Vasco da Gama
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [GRN] Vasco da Gama
To conclude this debate about foreign invasions from distant lands, whether by capitalists or communists, just a few lines:
The partition of Africa in Berlin, formalized at the Berlin Conference (1884-1885), was the process by which European powers, without African presence, drew arbitrary borders to colonize the continent, regulating the division and territorial occupation, establishing principles such as "effective occupation," and consolidating colonial exploitation with lasting consequences for African nations.
The communist Stalin colonized parts of Eastern Europe. Portuguese communists never contested this.
Those defeated and expelled from the colonies will always defend the theses advocated by the dictator Salazar or Stalin.
To understand better, it is good to read the book by the Angolan writer Nito Alves Vandunas, "The Prominence of Mercenaries in Mass Graves, ( Proeminência dos mercenários nas valas comuns" published in Luanda by Elivulu house (1977) . It tells the story of foreign assassins who came from Lisbon to kill Angolan leaders.
Alberto
Cumprimentos
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