“Portugal Amordaçado is not only the most important book by Mário Soares, but it is also, indisputably, one of the most, if not the most important, book that commemorates the history of the struggle against the dictatorship waged by a fighter “explains João Soares, son of the author, to DN, emphasizing the autobiographical nature of this work that first came to the public’s attention in France in 1972, before April 25.
With a subtitle that leaves no doubt – Testimony on the years of fascism – Portugal Amordaçado -, first published in Portugal in October 1974, already in democracy, it added some details to the memoirs that were in France published by the opponent of the dictatorship, a fighter exiled by the Estado Novo who never conformed.
“He started writing the book and the idea was born for him after he was deported to São Tomé”remembers João Soares, who must have been 19 or 20 years old at the time, in 1971. “My sister and I went there to visit him with my mother and this idea started there”in São Tomé, summarizes João Soares, on a journey to the origins of this testimony. ‘There, the logistical and safety conditions for writing something were relatively low. He also paid attention to these aspects. When he returned, after Marcello Caetano’s election fraud in 1969, he went to Brazil and to the United States. a major campaign began against him for denouncing the colonial war, and he ended up living in Italy with a good friend, Mário Ruivo, an international technician from the FAO [Organização para a Alimentação e Agricultura, das Nações Unidas]who was arrested here together with him and given him a house he had on the outskirts of Rome”to be continued.
“Then he came to my grandfather’s funeral, and they let him stay for two or three days and then they called him in and told him to leave or arrest him. So he decided to leave. My sister, me and my mother took him in the car. And he decided to leave for two reasons, many of which were fundamental: he wanted to create the PS and he wanted to put an end to Portugal Amordaçado. And that’s what he did. The years that followed he spent among other things, with two major goals: establishing the PS, [que ] Founded; and writing Portugal Amordaçado, which came out in 72,” recalls João Soares.
As for the reflection on current events that the work imposes, João Soares transports the essence to contemporary times. “I still think it is a very interesting book. There are many reflections in it and many stories that are also current to some extent, although things will never be repeated exactly as they were. And I don’t think there is any risk of another dictatorship similar to the one we lived in for 48 years.”
Tomorrow, on the day that celebrates Mário Soares’ 99th birthday, Imprensa Nacional launches a revised, expanded and necessarily updated edition of Portugal Amordaçado. To DN, José Manuel dos Santos, coordinator of the work and member of the General Council of the Mário Soares and Maria Barroso Foundation, reveals what remains to be discovered in this statement. Regarding the French edition, José Manuel dos Santos reveals that “at that time the French editor, Alain Oulman, also known as the composer of Amália Rodrigues, urged Mário Soares not to publish such a big book – it was more interesting , in France a more abbreviated version, in which events did not have to take place that only the Portuguese knew well. In France it was about the essence of the message, it was the indictment of the dictatorship,” he emphasizes.
According to the coordinator’s explanation, the work in this new approach will be divided into two parts. In the first part, next to the Portuguese and French versions and an editorial by José Manuel dos Santos, he says: “There is a text by Fernando Rosas [historiador e fundador do Bloco de Esquerda]an essay that contextualizes and draws attention to the importance of Portugal Amordaçado, which he considers as a preface to the democratic Portugal, for which the author fought so hard”.
In the second part “are the texts, prefaces and other documents that the different editions of the book had, in Portugal and abroad”, adds the coordinator, explaining: “The book was published in eight languages, it has some dedications, which Mário Soares dedicated it to some people in the French edition. Then we have more than a hundred unpublished letters, which are in the archives”.
What this edition does is conform to a revision never before made by the author. Mario Soares “He thought to the end of his life about re-editing it with update notes and saying some things he couldn’t have said at the time, but in the end he was asked for thousands of things and never did”reveals José Manuel dos Santos.
When asked whether Mário Soares, who died in 2017, would feel that the democracy he idealized would be achieved today, the project coordinator says he has doubts. “I think he was deeply disillusioned in recent years, not particularly in democracy, not in Portuguese, but in democracies. He thought that they had been captured by a political-economic system called neoliberalism, and that in recent years he has written many articles, especially in DN, drawing attention to this system that, by excluding people, operates on the basis of inequality, causes terrible things, such as the growth of the far right.”
Source: DN
