Paper long abstract:

In this paper we will analyse and reassess the role the 'East' has played in the ideological reconfigurations of Empire constructed by the Estado Novo. The phantoms and fantasies of the colonial rhetoric of the Portuguese empire will be theoretically framed in this presentation, according to the groundbreaking works by Eduardo Lourenço and Margarida Calafate Ribeiro. Being the 'East' a foundational point of articulation in Portuguese colonial discourse, we will address Salazar's speeches on the liberation/annexation of Goa, in 1961, which materialize a culmination of a long ideological and mystifying tradition. As a counterpoint, we will also analyse the representation of the place of Goa in the Portuguese empire through the voices of two Goan authors, one of them, Ferreira Martins, supportive of colonial discourses, while the other, the famous activist Menezes Bragança confronted and exposed colonial discourses seeing through its self-legitimizing propaganda.