A Laudatio for Francisco Borja da Costa (1946–1975)

The grand narrative constructed around the process of decolonisation from 1974 to 1975 was that “the vast majority of society of Timor-Leste are analphabets” (Pires 1981: 16; Pires 1991) and that, certainly “the people were not well prepared for independence” (Cruzeiro 2014: 233). Portugal was convinced that the Timorese's “capacity of doing revolution [to gain their independence] could not of course be great” (Pires 2013: 23). Again, the dominant idea in Portugal concerning decolonisation suggested that “the solution for ultramarine problem is political and not military” (Tíscar Santiago 2012: 378).

Since the independence of Timor-Leste, which was internationally recognised on May 20, 2002, there have been numerous articles and publications dealing with its socio-cultural, political and military resistance. However, researchers and writers have rarely dealt with intellectual resistance in Timor-Leste. A poet like Francisco Borja da Costa (1946–1975) is best known as our sumo poeta, and yet his poems are not often discussed or taught in the context of literary critique or philosophical interpretation. My purpose in this chapter is to interpret his poems in Canções Revolucionárias (Revolutionary Songs) as propaedeutic to understand the intellectual resistance at that time. Additionally, from 1972 to 1974, Borja da Costa worked at the Lisbon newspaper Diário de Notícias as a trainee journalist.