April 25th was celebrated at Entroncamento and it was the youngest voice to receive the biggest ovation | EOL

The ceremony to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the 25th of April took place this morning, in front of the Town Hall and was witnessed by many dozens of people who heard speeches from municipal deputies and leaders of the municipality and municipal assembly there.

As is normal on this day, the speeches praised the achievements of the carnation revolution, but also the poems of three young students from the municipality, winners of the poetry competition alluding to the revolution organized by the School Group.

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Between the speeches, which covered the various political forces represented in the municipal assembly, the difference in the message was very clear. From the warnings and warnings from the left (PS, Bloco de Esquerda and CDU) against populism and the need to defend freedom, to the protest from the right represented by Chega, CDS and the independent deputy who, even celebrating the 25th of April, did not They failed to remember the importance of November 25th, an old dispute over which date was most important for the birth of democracy. The PSD focused its speech on justice, as one of the most important areas in the country and for which the revolution was fundamental.

The President of the municipality, Jorge Faria, urged young people to defend freedom and listed many of April’s achievements in the form of statistics, comparing times of dictatorship with times of democracy.

In a ceremony that featured April songs sung by the city’s orpheon, it was the speech by the representative of the young municipal assembly, Sofia Catarina Almeida, that garnered the biggest applause of the morning. In a city marked by population diversity, Sofia Almeida stated that “we are young people who have repeatedly heard many commonplaces about the 25th of April (…) but we wish much more, for Grândola Vila Morena to be Creole, mulatto, black and generously welcome everyone emigrants who enter our country. We have more and more colleagues of Angolan, Cape Verdean, Brazilian origin, among other nationalities, who sit next to us in the classrooms and have extraordinarily enriched our classes. May the people be truly united, vigorous and inclusive in accepting different identities: gender, sexual orientation, political ideology, religion, aesthetics or morals”.

“May After Goodbye be a true farewell to inequalities and injustices, to great economic contrasts, to social and technological exclusion, thus allowing each young person to freely choose their path. May the expected dawn be a ray of hope and equity responding to anyone’s needs and expectations.”

“May the doors that April opened continue to be wide open and without fear, with an attitude of joy and gratitude for those who arrive, knowing that we are greatly missed and that we live in an irreversibly globalized world”.

Finally, the young deputy stated that “we, like many young people around the world, undoubtedly share the same ambitions. Don’t young people from Ukraine, Israel, Russia, Palestine or even Iran have the same ideals of peace, security and happiness that we pursue? Definitely yes”.

Sofia Almeida also urged national and world leaders to “listen more to young people and to drink more of this youthful spirit of fraternity and unity that leads us to change”.

The ceremony ended with a song by Pedro Dyonisio specially written by the musician from Entroncamente to celebrate the freedom of the 25th of April.

Text and Photos: Ricardo Alves

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