Ruy Cinatti and the representation of the "other": ambiguities and contradictions

Abstract

The Portuguese poet, essayist, and man of science Ruy Cinatti (1915-1986) developed professional activity as a high official of the colonial administration and, although integrated in the official structure of the regime and subscribing to the narrative about Portugal’s historical mission to civilize and educate the indigenous peoples from the colonized territories, he has developed, in parallel, a fascination for Timor and its people. Cinatti defended, albeit within the colonial framework, a territorial development able to favor the growth of the Timorese without offending their cultural traditions. In this essay, we reflect on whether Cinatti, by discursively inaugurating a new relationship of otherness, could be, from an epistemological point of view, anticipating the theses of Orientalism, a doctrine that, in the following decades, would affirm that the perception of the Orient constitutes a stereotyped image of the Western man, constructed to justify an alleged ethical and civilizational superiority of Europeans and to legitimize colonial domination.