1. Background

2. Postcolonial Criticism, Narratives, and Lusophone Relations

Regarding narrative studies, postcolonial narratology is interested in understanding how new and old power relations shape identities. Postcolonial narratology, seen as a strong example of ideological criticism, focuses on the incorporations and resistances of subjects to hegemonic social powers and the unveiling of the unspoken political words, both in the text and in the context in which it was produced. About this problem that arises from texts and their social importance, one of the canonical names of postcolonial studies, Edward W. ^{Said (1978/2021}), in Orientalismo (Orientalism), discusses how important this problematisation is since certain texts acquire greater authority and use than the very reality they present/describe. The author refers to a “textual attitude”, pointing to literary studies, a field that has a much stronger approach to postcolonial studies. However, the author’s reflection, which seeks to read literary textuality and its effects on truth, is used because it is consistent with the understanding that there is a claim of the effect of reality by journalism.

Postcolonial narrative studies aim to identify the strategies of othering and how imperial power and knowledge and its influence still impact the positions occupied by subordinated populations within narratives (^{Herman & Vervaeck, 2019}), whether those of former imperial centres or those of formerly colonised territories whose societies may have been colonially reconstructed after decolonisation, as ^{Spivak (1988/2021}) provocatively points out. Moreover, postcolonial narratology is itself an attempt to decolonise narrative studies. It transforms this field into an increasingly transdisciplinary space - as Carlos ^{Reis (2018}) highlights when addressing the importance of the study of discourses - but, above all, by proposing further development of the movements stemming from (post)classical studies through postcolonial lenses on narratives (^{Kim, 2012}; ^{Prince, 2005}).

The constant analysis of the narratives concerning identities constructed under power conflicts is necessary because identity is not something established but a product arising from a never-ending construction process through representations (^{Hall, 1994}; ^{Herman & Vervaeck, 2019}). From the influence of the thought of Homi K. ^{Bhabha (1994/1998}), another central theorist of postcolonial criticism, there is an important question in the context of the narrative construction of identities: how historically marginalised peoples self-govern and self-determine themselves, in this case within texts that narrate historical colonial conflicts.

Eventually establishing an intersection between narrative studies and postcolonial studies, Edward W. ^{Said (1984}) drew attention to the fact that it was up to hegemonic powers to decide on the legitimacy of subaltern narratives. Concomitantly, the author also alerted to the importance of investigating western discourse’s influences on the narratives of the rest of the world, mostly colonised by Europe.

Bringing this discussion to the Lusophone context, according to ^{Macedo (2016}), the Portuguese imaginary is guided by the idea of a past of glory, in which discovery, expansion, and colonisation are the main concepts that articulate it: this “emphasis on hegemonic narratives of national history and the colonial past limits individuals’ access to alternative versions of history, thus hindering the development of a critical perspective” (p. 271).

When it comes to the postcolonial Lusophone context, one must recognise a Portuguese claim for these relations’ central and articulating role (^{Cunha, 2007}), which may imply the continuity of a hegemonic force over historical narratives. Nevertheless, such multicultural grouping, through the common language, according to ^{Martins (2014}), should have a heterogeneous virtue instead of an impoverishing discursive - and, consequently, narrative - homogenisation and a single meaning, both fostered by tendencies that still refer to coloniality.

3. Methodology: Narrative Discourses Under Analysis and the (Re)Textualization of a Colonial Conflict, 60 Years Later

In Portugal, on March 15, 2021, among the main newspapers in the country⁴, only the daily newspaper Público gave attention to the event: the report entitled “‘Orgulhosamente Sós’ Começámos uma Guerra” (“Proudly Alone” We Started a War; ^{Lopes, 2021}) was allocated to a front-page and double-page space. In the daily edition of Correio da Manhã, no records were found, and in the Jornal de Notícias, in the section “Efemérides” (Ephemera), it was possible to read following the indication of the year ^{“1961” (2021}) the text: “UPA, Union of the Peoples of Angola, launches first attacks on farms and towns in the north of the country” (p. 37). This sentence, which only mentions the political organisation of Angolan citizens and puts them as the authors of the attacks on their own country, is the only mention of the fact. If we also consider the weeklies, only the magazine Sábado, owned by the same communication group that runs Correio da Manhã, has covered the issue in question, giving the colonial conflict the greatest prominence in its March 11-17 edition, with a 14-page report entitled ^{“As Milícias da Vingança Branca” (The Militias of White Revenge; 2021}).

Curiously enough, keeping due proportions, the repercussion of this landmark in Angolan newspapers was equivalent to that conferred by Portuguese newspapers. Here one must consider some limitations imposed on this research regarding the access to Angolan productions, being limited in scope to two main newspapers in the country (Jornal de Angola and O País), which also motivated the restriction of the analysis to the Portuguese dailies only, so that some equivalence could be applied to the corpus. The report “ Protagonistas Revivem a Revolta de Kitexi” (Protagonists Revive the Kitexi Uprising; ^{Fortunato & Gomes, 2021}) also deserved, in the daily edition of March 15, 2021, of the Jornal de Angola, a front-page headline and the same double-page space given by the Público. Like the Portuguese daily Jornal de Notícias, the second-largest Angolan newspaper, O País, only reported the date in the article: “Nacionalista Defende Revisão do Subsídio dos Antigos Combatentes e Veteranos da Pátria” (Nationalist Defends Revision of the Allowance for Former Combatants and Homeland Veterans; ^{Mujoco, 2021}). Nevertheless, it did not delve into the colonial conflict or mention colonialism.

That being said, to contemplate similar media narratives between Portugal and Angola about the 60 years after the Colonial War, the reports of the Público and the Jornal de Angola⁵ are adopted as the corpus of this research, as they both covered the theme extensively and thoroughly on the exact date at issue. According to ^{Simões (2016}), the Público, which is currently one of the brands of the multinational Sonae and has been in uninterrupted activity since its launch in 1990, fits into the tradition of quality journalism, being an exemplary case regarding the modernisation and professionalisation of the Portuguese media industry. The Jornal de Angola, on the other hand, is the “unofficial” edition of the People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola from its foundation in 1975 to the present day (^{Rocha, 2019}).

The journalistic narratives in question will be approached historically and discursively. It is of interest to know what discursive strategies were used in this (re)textualisation of the colonial conflict and the relation of these strategies to the colonial history that connects the two countries. For identifying discourse strategies, as ^{Reisigl (2018}) explains, some questions adopted as research questions must be answered: how are persons, objects, phenomena, events, processes, and actions discursively named and referred to in the narratives under consideration (nomination)? What characteristics or qualities are attributed to the social actors, objects, phenomena, events, processes, and actions mentioned (predication)? What arguments are employed in these media narratives to recount an episode from the colonial past (argumentation)? From what perspective are these nominations, attributions, and arguments expressed (perspectivisation)?

Thus, this is an exploratory analysis, given the limited analysis corpus. However, as said, omissions and silences are also full of meaning. That is, in fact, the first relevant observation: an anniversary of a decisive episode in the recent history of Portugal and Angola was not highlighted or paid attention to by a considerable part of the press in both countries. The proposed analysis will allow us to identify ideological differences between the approach of each of the journalistic productions - a claim that relates directly to postcolonial narratology -; to identify narrative matches and mismatches between the two productions; to understand the discursive strategies that have shaped contemporary media narratives. From this and the theoretical framework already presented, we hypothesise that narratives are no longer structured by colonial discursive strategies but are formatted in hybrid form by discursive strategies connected to colonialism and postcolonial rearrangements.

This study draws on the method of postcolonial critical discourse analysis as it is interested in both discursive strategies and the historical context and socio-political processes that influenced their formation and reproduction in media narratives. The postcolonial critical discourse analysis consists of “a theoretical and methodological framework that, drawing upon Postcolonial Theory and Critical Discourse Analysis, foregrounds the need to analyse media representations by placing postcolonial power relations at the centre of the enquiry” (^{Sabido, 2019}, p. 19). The choice of this method strengthens the postcolonial movement of extending and deconstructing narratology itself and its possibilities. This methodological strategy is supported by the concepts and tools of discourse analysis pointed out by ^{Richardson (2007}) in Analysing Newspapers: An Approach From Critical Discourse Analysis, especially regarding the study of journalistic narratives and the indications of ^{Machin and Mayr (2012}) for identifying strategies of representation of people and actions.

The analytical focus of this study is the narrative discourse through which narrative content is appropriated and re-signified. ^{Richardson (2007}) explains this differentiation, pointing to narrative content as a supposed sequencing of events as they happened in actual history, while narrative form concerns the sequence through which events are presented. However, in line with ^{Ricoeur (1983}), the narrative process is believed to be constructed in three distinct moments, which do not conform to the more formal binary logic. The triple mimesis of the French philosopher has been recovered in the scope of narrative media studies, especially by authors such as Marc ^{Lits (2008}, ²⁰¹⁵), Philippe ^{Marion (1997}), Gonzaga ^{Motta (2013}), and Fernando ^{Resende (2009}, ²⁰¹¹). Drawing from the Aristotelian conception of mimesis, ^{Ricoeur (1983}) defines narrativity as the product of the dynamic interaction of three distinct levels, which correspond to the pre-textual narrative potential (what ^{Said, 1978/2021}, calls “factuality” and corresponds to the real substratum), to textualisation (the mise en récit, which goes through the discursive and narrative organisation) and to the act of narrative reception. It is, therefore, a dialectical and dynamic process between a primordial “intelligence” that enables one to read history and the textual and discursive surface on which it manifests itself. In this way, as the various narratives textualise the world, they generate meanings that give it the status of a conceptual way of understanding the past (^{Babo, 2017}). Now, here lies the power of the “narrative machine” (^{Babo, 2017}, p. 74), which, resuming ^{Said (1978/2021}), has more force and authority than factuality itself.

The reports under analysis, more than the news and reports of everyday events, are a (new) view on factuality - discursively constructed - from which a critical maturation is expected, provided by the passage of time and the debates that, in the meantime, took place around the colonial conflicts.

4. The Analysis of Two Narratives about the Same Conflict

While the Público provides a narrative almost restricted to the movements of Salazar and his high military and political echelon - verifiable by checking the subjects mentioned, who are mostly military men - the Jornal de Angola builds a history based on the accounts of eight Angolans who actively participated in the insurgencies of March 15, 1961.

We will now reflect on the different strategies of representation used by both newspapers to understand which discourses contemporaneously guide these media narratives.

5. Conclusions: Discussion of Results

The end of the Público article features an interview with a political scientist who is asked two of the three questions, “how did the colonial war and the end of empire mark our collective identity?” and “will it take us as long to recognise the crimes of colonialism as it took the Catholic Church to recognise its own?” (p. 7). By reflecting on these questions in light of the theories that underpin this study, one understands what ^{Macedo (2016}) means when she states that Portuguese national narratives are centred on glories, which makes it impossible to take a critical stance towards the events of a not-too-distant past. In fact, the newspaper uses most of the space dedicated to the theme focusing on Salazar’s discourse: it resorts to artifices of suppression and denies or relativises the Angolan empowerment, while leaving completely out any critical discourse or alternative source that could counter or deepen the discussion that is proposed. Moreover, one can perceive the Portuguese daily’s admiration for the so-called duration of the colonial regime (“capacity to last”), when, in fact, what should be at issue in such coverage was the duration of a war that lasted more than a decade, in a context where, on the one hand, there was the desire for independence and the end of colonialism and, on the other, the insistence on maintaining exploitative relations. Such remarks can be important tonics for discussing the post-imperial relations between Portugal and its former colonies, especially regarding common history. It is believed that the denaturalisation of hegemonic narratives makes room for critical interventions and the legitimisation of independence struggles - in all their complexity, just as it is done with geopolitical redesigns in the postcolonial period.

Historians, such as those cited throughout this study (^{Pinto, 2019}; B. ^{Reis, 2020}; ^{Wheeler & Pélissier, 2016}), draw on media productions as discursive markers in their historical narratives, drawing attention to the importance of analysing these productions to understand changes, shifts, and alterations in different views of historical actualities. In these cases, analysed here, it is possible to see that these changes happen through a slow process since imperial and Salazar discourses still have uncritical space in Portuguese narratives that, again resorting to ^{Macedo (2016}), are still guided by colonial imaginaries of glorious past, expansion and discovery.

When thinking of postcolonialism as the transposition of colonialism by other relations of power and subalternity, as ^{Hall (2001}) suggests, from the conclusions that could be reached with this exploratory study, Portugal is perceived as an imperial power that began to lose its legitimacy under the questioning of colonial relations and whose territories under its domains become the target of the new global power, the United States. Therefore, Portuguese narratives seem to be driven by the concern with the place that the nation will occupy in the new order, almost completely forgetting the necessary critical positioning vis-à-vis a past that imposes itself over the present, both of the former “colonising power” and the former colonies. For this reason, the need to engage in critiques inscribed in postcolonial critical discourse studies is clear since the narratives keep perpetuating and reinforcing visions of favouritism, relativisations, and maintenance of certain relations (^{Sabido, 2019}).

Finally, it is important to insist on the different perspectives perceived in the construction of both narratives. On such an emblematic date, the 60th anniversary of one of the revolts that started the struggles against Portuguese colonialism, it was possible to perceive not a reliable memory of the facts but how both newspapers, within their respective contexts, look at the factuality, reconstruct and re-signify it. Strategically, both the newspapers recount the event and, with a strategic attitude, as ^{Bhabha (1994/1998}) warns, the relations of force are manipulated, in this case, from the discursive and narrative attitude.