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Portugal: museum project on Salazar dictatorship controversial

In Portugal, a museum project dedicated to the period of the new state, which dictator Salazar imposed on Portugal until 1974, returns to the forefront in his hometown. The mayor sees nothing wrong, but the controversy rises.

of our correspondent in Lisbon,

Santa Comba Dão, the municipality on which depends Vimieiro, the village of Salazar, wants to open a museum on the Estado Novo ("new state" in French) by the end of the year. He would take place in a former primary school, which also bears his name. A granite building in the purest architectural style that prevailed from 1941 to 1969, wanted by the Centennial Plan of the new state.

In Santa Comba Dão, the socialist mayor who knows himself under a fire of critics defends himself to want to create a museum to the glory of the former dictator. It is a question, always according to the edile, to elaborate a cultural project inscribed in a network of centers of interpretation of the history and political memory of the 1st Portuguese Republic, but especially of the new State: this authoritarian, autocratic and corporatist political regime also called Salazarism was in place continuously from 1933 to 1974.

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Strong debate in society

A call for 204 former political prisoners or resistance to the dictatorship was launched to the Prime Minister, the Socialist Antonio Costa, so that it prevents the realization of this project. These former victims of the Salazarist regime see a new attempt to launder the recent past. They fear that such a museum, linked to this emblematic place of the dictator's life, will become a den of nostalgia.

Petitions against and petitions for circulate, and collect nearly 20,000 signatures which in Portugal and in August is rather significant. Those who believe that the museological approach entrusted to historians of the Faculty of Coimbra, not far from Santa Comba Dão, will provide sufficient didactic and educational guarantees. After all, Auschwitz has a holocaust museum.

Resurgence of the extreme right

We are at the heart of a debate on resilience, but several far-right events have recently been hotly debated. Mid-August, it was a meeting of fascist groups in a hotel in Lisbon. Last week, a secret congress of conservative Catholics at the Fátima Sanctuary was attended by among others Victor Órbán , Hungarian Prime Minister criticized for his radical positions against migrants and minorities.

The Portuguese government, far behind, suggests that these are private matters. But some question the permissiveness displayed, especially in the case of the meeting of groups of right-wing extremists, which the Portuguese Constitution prohibits.

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Portugal, very attached to the values ​​of its very young 45-year-old democracy, is seen as an island spared while extreme right-wing parties are progressing everywhere in Europe. Make Salazarism an object of cultural tourism worries. A trivialization that can be the door open to all kinds of meetings of nostalgic and extremist small groups. What guarantees are given to prevent drift? For now, we do not know, which contributes to tense the debate.

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