Why did Malcolm X frequently use Portugal as a specific example of a Racist Society?
In my early education in a Communist state, Portugal was singled out for its brutal colonialist behavior . . . we all learned about the Portuguese Colonial War and the general outline of its history was known to most educated people. It doesn’t seem to have made a dent in the consciousness of people in North America. Why that is, I can’t say, but I couldn’t find much information about it. This is what we were taught (overtly obvious Communist bias removed): 1) France and Britain, economically devastated after WWII, began to realize the cost of maintaining their colonies, just as independence movements started heating up. Within two decades of the end of the war, the vast majority of these colonies had become independent. 2) Portugal chose to hold on to their colonies (which were fewer than Britain’s and France’s, but proportionately more important to the relatively small and more impoverished Portugal. Portugal was also much less democratic than France or the UK, and was run by a fairl
