O Professor e as suas profecias...

Excertos de um longo e muito interessante artigo, publicado na revista Time em 22 de Julho de 1946, com o sugestivo titulo "How Bad Is the Best?", sobre Portugal, e o então Presidente do Conselho, António de Oliveira Salazar.

"Soon little boys, well-shod and sporting Balilla-like uniforms, were marching in the wake of Salazar's blackshirt-type Legido (Legion), which gave the stiff-arm salute and chanted: "Who leads? SALAZAR!"
The Quiet Life. It is doubtful if Salazar likes either the salute or the slogan. Unlike all other modern dictators, he hates parades, pomp or cheers. When he rides to ceremonies with President Carmona, the old soldier preens and beams; Salazar slinks back in the car, a scowl on his handsome face with the Savonarola-hard mouth. Asked why he refused to respond to cheers, Salazar gave a characteristic answer: "I could not flatter the people without being a traitor to my own conscience. Our regime is popular but it is not a government of the masses, being neither influenced nor directed by them. These good people who, moved by the excitement of the occasion, cheer me one day, may rise in rebellion the next day for equally passing reasons. . . ."

(…) but they have never been masters of this land, and Salazar seems to think they never will be. He has said they were "excessively sentimental . . . have a horror of all discipline . . . lack continuity of effort and tenacity [but with] proper discipline and control, there is nothing they cannot be taught."

Jul. 22, 1946

Pode ser lido integralmente aqui