And so 50 years of our lives passed. We were boys and girls who saw their parents dream everything, all the truths kept and repressed, explode like sparkling wine that finally freed itself from the cork compressed in a castrating bottleneck.
In the solemn session taking place today at Teatro Valadares, as in the one taking place at the Assembly of the Republic, both adorned with red carnations, the dignitaries, elected and non-elected, appointed, co-opted and the like, also appear formally, in uniform and decorated.
The shadow of the old regime weighs heavily on the ceremony and even the name of the President of the Republic seems to be a sordid and ironic memory of the President of the Council 50 years ago. But is it just the web of coincidences or, in the depths of the regime, have the flies just moved?
Yesterday, at SIC I saw commentator José Miguel Júdice refrain from commenting on the chaos of Justice because now his daughter is the Minister of the Ministry. Marques Mendes is careful because his daughter is a deputy. Like the daughter of Adriano Moreira, the son of Carlos César, the ex-wife of Paulo Pedroso or the great-niece of one of Salazar’s ministers.
In Caminha, as in Lisbon, the incumbents and some other thinkers will speak, to give the event a democratic air. Those who will not have a voice will be the PEOPLE, or Público as the musty president of the Municipal Assembly of Caminha calls it.
Public, it’s well said: our role is just to watch and just cyclically, put a little cross on a paper to legitimize some change in the flies, so that everything remains the same and is fine like that, as boots said.
The democracy that the 25th of April brought as popular and participatory, ended on the 25th of April 1976, this is what in fact celebrates all those who surround the manger of powers, elected national, appointed regional and local, elected with limitations or inherited , as is the case of Dr. Rui Lages, who only wins votes among peers.
The PEOPLE are not given a say in these ceremonies that they pay for, just as they are not given entry to the drinks that they also pay for, as they pay for the commemorative books that they offer themselves, wrapped in exhibitions that only serve to give themselves an air of cultured and intellectual, and take photos with the artists to post on Facebook.
And this is the democracy that the 25th of April brought us, paying taxes like never before to feed Castes and Cuckoos, which have never been so many.
Some will say, but you can write what you think and get published. A sad compensation, if only the 25th of April had brought a taste and desire for reading to the millions of Portuguese who today are digitally illiterate as they were analogue illiterate 50 years ago.
50 years ago they didn’t know how to read, today they know how to read but they don’t know how to think, they were formatted for inaction, for passivity, for disinterest. Here he walks, with his head between his ears, Sérgio Godinho, as he did 50 years ago.
Camposancos, April 25, 2024
