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Families fill Carmo to reaffirm the legacy of freedom

Hundreds of families passed through Largo do Carmo this afternoon to mark the 50th anniversary of the 25th of April, pose next to military vehicles from the Revolution and reaffirm the legacy of freedom and democracy.

Just like 50 years ago, the armored vehicles arrived at the Carmo Quartel, in the center of Lisbon, full of people, after completing the route that brought them from Terreiro do Paço. In the place where the fall of the previous regime and the victory of the military took place, the people took to the streets again, with red carnations in their hands and chests.

“It’s a day of freedom, a day in which we have to value what we have today. The younger generations didn’t go through what my parents went through and passed on to me, and what I want to pass on to them is that it’s a day that It has to be celebrated, a day of freedom and unity. We always get together here in Largo do Carmo to celebrate”, Nuno Silveira tells Lusa, accompanied by his daughter taking photos inside a military transport truck.

At the age of 56, he remembers that April 25, 1974, of not having had classes at school and of the surprise it represented for the family, when his mother went to call his uncle, who was in the army and was still sleeping when he left. gave rise to the revolution. The day 50 years ago is part of the past, but also of the future and Nuno Silveira highlights the need to preserve the legacy of freedom and democracy.

“I would like to say that it is safe, but at this moment I am no longer sure and because I am not sure, I instill this spirit of freedom. We have to maintain this spirit of freedom and democracy, we cannot lose. Through voting, I do not force them, but I make it clear to those who want to vote that not everyone was free to do so”, he highlights.

In another armored car, Sílvia Ribeiro poses for a photo of her husband next to her dog Mel, imitating so many other people throughout the day. It is a very important day for Portugal and for all of us. It’s the freedom to be able to say and do what we want”, she says.

At 43 years old, Sílvia Ribeiro was born seven years after the Carnation Revolution, but explains that her husband was already born and that the families’ stories intersect with that of the 25th of April, with a father who fought overseas and a daughter about to turning 18 and learning political science, after growing up hearing at home “since I was little” about the importance of this date.

Graça Vaz, who came in the company of her husband, daughter and grandchildren, still remembers well that April 25, 1974, when she was preparing for another day of work at the Angola bar (then in the Anjos area) and had 25 years old, a baby who was not yet three months old and a husband on board in the Azores.

“I went out to catch the metro in Alvalade, I got there and it was closed. A man was there and said, ‘Where are you going?’, and I replied ‘I’m going to work’. The man said, ‘Go but it’s I went home quickly, because there is a coup d’état’, and I said, ‘What is a coup d’état?’… So, it was time to walk home. I was alone and full of fear”, she recalls.

He assumes that he didn’t want to go to the 50th anniversary celebrations of the 25th of April and that he only left at his daughter’s insistence. Now, he does not regret having changed his plans and highlights people’s joy in evoking the “whole and clean initial day”, as described by the poet Sophia de Mello Breyner: “It must remain alive and continue, we must always live it with joy, as we are living now”.

If the celebrations are a revisiting of that past day, the future was present through the many children and young people who wanted to climb the chaimites to take photographs and learn a little more about the 25th of April.

Among these young people is Daniel Ferreira, 13 years old, who highlights the smell of gasoline in the vehicle and the change that took place in Portugal 50 years ago. “[O 25 de Abril] It’s been 50 years and it’s an important date for the beginning of freedom. We stopped having a dictatorship and started having democracy. People can vote, they have more rights and they can have their opinion. It’s an important date”, he summarizes.

The revolution that took place 50 years ago had a huge impact internationally and even today it has not gone unnoticed by the many foreigners who stroll through the historic center of Lisbon. And if some are just visiting, others, like Stepan Franchak, have made Portugal their country to live in and have already grasped the meaning of the date.

“It meant the end of the dictatorship, the end of the Salazar regime and the beginning of democracy in Portugal”, says the Ukrainian citizen, who has lived here for 20 years and who, in unblemished Portuguese, leaves a message about the 25th of April: “Freedom has to be deserved. The people have to manage it and see if everything is in accordance with democracy and freedom.”

Lusa