More than 25 after its first publication, the second edition of the book “O Olho de Deus no Discurso Salazarista” [“The Eye of God in the Salazarist Discourse”], by Moisés de Lemos Martins, was presented at the Biblioteca Lúcio Craveiro da Silva [Lúcio Craveiro da Silva Library] in Braga (April 5, 21:30). José Bragança de Miranda (Universidade Nova de Lisboa [New University of Lisbon]) and Bernardo Pinto de Almeida (Univeridade do Porto [University of Porto]), who talked about the work, agreed on the idea that this is a publication to undestand the presente which looks at discourse and power, at a time in which it is verified that the salazarism did not die. Hence the urgency of the book. Because it is for the analysis of the present that he summons us.
The need to publish the book stems from the fact that it was an editorial success, which had been sold out a long time ago. And, according to José Bragança de Miranda, with the advantage that Portugal, today, be more prepared for its reading than before, at a time when he says that Salazarism did not die: “When the book was published for the first time there was no framework to read it. In the 70’s, the country saw marrying abstract Marxists and positivists. That situation never left us till today”. Bernardo Pinto de Almeida pointed out that the book continues to be a necessity, “perhaps today it is more pertinent than before”, showing that “it has a premonitory character when it addresses the discursive practices and the relations of power”. He justifies with the idea that the Salazarism did not end, being “a little bit everywhere and it is necessary to disassemble it”, taking advantage of the fundamental opportunity of this book: “to update the debate”. As the author writes in the preface to the work, the destiny of the country resided in making the people ‘live habitually’, and what disturbs the reading of the book, according to Bernardo Pinto de Almeida, is the fact that it remains current: “The analysis of the book is the analysis of the present”.
The work, published by Afrontamento, reproduces the PhD thesis, defended by Moisés de Lemos Martins at the University of Humanities in Strasbourg (France) in 1984. It is a study of the dominant regime in Portugal during the Estado Novo, in the 30s and 40s of the 20th century, a study that questions the general meaning of salazarist policy, that is to say, its regime of truth. And it was because the salazarist regime truth question was posed that Moisés de Lemos Martins considered the discourse as a political disciplinary practice, that is exerted on a historical memory, on the look, on the desire and on a will.