Portugal’s carnation revolution

This video from Portugal says about itself:

Carnation Revolution Makeup Inspired Tutorial

A make-up tutorial inspired by the Carnation Revolution aka 25 de Abril. This is just a dedication to those who were brave enough to oppose their government and grant others freedom. Obrigado.

By Tom Gill in Britain:

Viva la revolution

Tuesday 24 April 2012

Thirty-eight years ago tomorrow army officers ended Portugal‘s 40-year dictatorship and kicked off a bloodless “carnation revolution” that for 19 months saw this small and impoverished country experience a revolutionary process not seen in western Europe for a generation.

The carnation revolution overthrew the longest-lived authoritarian regime in western Europe and ended the Portuguese empire.

A military coup that started in Lisbon, it was rapidly joined by an unexpected mass civil uprising.

DL Raby writes in Democracy and Revolution that Portugal witnessed “a nationwide whirlwind of demonstrations, factory occupations, land invasions, takeovers of empty buildings by slum-dwellers, and projects of popular power and socialism.

“Yet on November 25 1975 a carefully controlled coup restored state authority and put an end to the revolutionary process, ensuring that Portugal would remain a member of Nato and become a conventional liberal parliamentary regime, joining the European Union a few years later.”

The dominant narrative was that this outcome was a logical conclusion of the revolutionary process.

But it was only so because a mass workers’ and peasants movement aspiring to more than “bourgeois normality” was neutralised.

The events started when war-weary low-ranking Portuguese officers organised in the Armed Forces Movement (MFA) rose up on April 25.

They were inspired by the pro-independence guerillas they had been fighting in Portugal’s African colonies.

The MFA’s programme was democracy at home, self-determination for the colonies and economic and social policy to serve the poor and the working class.

But a provisional government headed by General Antonio de Spinola, one of a group of senior officers who had sided with the MFA, gave way as it became clear power was in the streets. …

Today Portugal faces mass unemployment and poverty, debt default, possible exit from the euro and attacks on its sovereignty.

And interest in the carnation revolution is on the increase again.

As the neoliberal European dream turns into nightmare its lessons will be invaluable for helping trace an alternative future that revives the hopes and aspirations of April 25 1974.

Thousands turned out in Lisbon today to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Carnation Revolution which toppled Portugal’s fascist Salazar dictatorship: here.

15 thoughts on “Portugal’s carnation revolution

  1. Government axes public holidays

    PORTUGAL: The government scrapped four of the country’s 14 public holidays today to convince international lenders of its austerity credentials.

    Two religious festivals and two other holidays will be halted for five years.

    Portugal has already slashed public-sector wages and raised taxes to reduce its budget deficit and meet the terms of a €78 billion (£62bn) bail-out deal with the EU, European Central Bank and IMF.



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  13. Monday 9th January 2017

    posted by John Haylett in World

    He fought fascism but as president backed neoliberal policies














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