Banned for being Inconvenient – Censorship materials form the Ephemera Archive

At this exhibition, curators Júlia Leitão de Barros and Carlos Simões Nuno use the contents of the ARQUIVO EPHEMERA (the library and archive of historian José Pacheco Pereira) to show us examples of the various forms of censorship used by the Estado Novo, a highly effective weapon in the dictatorship’s arsenal. On the days around 25 April 2022,  the exhibition will also take on a pedagogical role so as, in Pacheco Pereira’s words, "to show what Freedom is, through its negation".

CENSORSHIP AND THE SAFEGUARDING OF RESPECT

“All that exists is what the public knows to exist” (Salazar)

The greatest accomplishment of the Censorship that persisted in the country for 48 years was to leave as a legacy, to this day, the nostalgic notion of a Portugal where everyone got along, where there was “consensus”, where everyone worked towards the “common good”, with no acts of corruption other than the odd pilfering of bread by the neediest, where “respect” and good manners abounded. In other words, a perverse nostalgia for Portugal under dictatorship.

I am well acquainted with the Censorship that lasted for 48 years, not least through my own personal experience. The country that could not be made public, the “real” country, as people say, was very different from what was allowed to be published in the papers and in books, even in the underground press. One of the Censorship's greatest achievements was to establish an image of Portugal as a country that was pacified, inert, conflict- and violence-averse, with good rather than bad morals – an image that was efficiently conveyed even among those who fought against the dictatorship. And which remains efficient when one reads what is written today about the evils of democracy, particularly corruption, suggesting – and sometimes explicitly stating – that none of it existed on this scale before the 25th of April. One of the recurring tactics used by those who criticize the “system” is to emphasize the level of corruption within democracy, inevitably implying that it is inherently attached to the regime; therefore, fighting corruption means fighting against the “system” of corrupt parties and politicians.

Don't people question why, throughout the 48 years of dictatorship, nothing like the “Marquês operation” [a major corruption scandal involving former prime minister of Portugal José Sócrates] ever took place? Were there no corrupt politicians among the highest government ranks? Were there no corrupt politicians in the União Nacional (National Union)? Did no general, ambassador, deputy of the National Assembly, minister or secretary of state, Legion commander or leader of Mocidade Portuguesa, colonial governor or bishop ever pocket funds? Or, instead, were there corruption cases that the Censorship did not want us to be aware of? No doubt there were, judging by the Censorship redactions, in the same way that there was paedophilia, violence against women, rape, theft and suicide.

But the real answer is even grimmer: there was no corruption because there was no justice for most powerful within the regime, and what little there was remained reserved for the intermediate-to-low ranks. Therefore, whenever there were cases of corruption among the most powerful men in the regime – whether they were politicians, with the extremely frequent interchangeability between politics and business, nearly always decided by Salazar himself, or the regime’s bankers and entrepreneurs –, they were evidently protected because no one would even dare to open an investigation. The exception observed with the “ballet roses” case was a matter of morals, and even then it was strongly covered up by the Censorship.

In this regard, the Censorship was perhaps the most effective among the dictatorship’s weapons, and its consequences remain imbued in our daily lives to this day. Much more than subverting the “political”, the Censorship protected power and all the hierarchies that stemmed from it, by demanding not just respect, but deferential respect. Throughout the 48 years during which there was not a single day without censorship, this was its legacy.

This exhibition about Censorship, which the EPHEMERA ARCHIVE is organizing together with Lisbon Municipal Council as part of the commemorations of 25 April 2022, therefore contains what we might call a pedagogical intention: to show what Freedom is by showing what its denial looks like.

José Pacheco Pereira, April 2022