On the morning of April 25, 1974, as I sat in one of my 5th grade classrooms in Caldas da Rainha, Portugal, my teacher’s nervous look out the window called my attention to a long chain of military vehicles driving down a nearby road. Our provincial town had a large military base, so I made nothing of it. But within a few hours my country and people’s forbidden secret would be revealed to hundreds of thousands of children like me: we had been living under something called “a fascist dictatorship” for nearly 50 years.
A bloodless military coup put an end to it that day, with what came to be known as the Carnation Revolution of April 25. The endless military parade around the city’s square–”Praca da Fruta”–that afternoon, the cheers and cries of the people, the carnations flying in the air and adorning gun barrels remain vivid memories—and I have relived them often since the unfolding of the Jasmine Revolution in Tunisia.
A 1970's image of the city square--Praca da Fruta (Fruit Plaza), where a large farmers' market takes place everyday--shared by a blogger who retells events of his adolescence in Caldas around that time.
The excitement of those early weeks, months—with political prisoners being freed, ex-patriots returning home, the songs of the revolution, political parties organizing for free elections, colonies being handed back to the African people—was followed by tumultuous, at times violent years. At the age of 12, I joined a demonstration of the social democratic party at Commerce Square–Praca do Comercio–in Lisbon to protest a relentless wave of government takeovers, and I had my first taste of tear gas–a precocious “coming-of-age,” “run-of-the-country” event!
The economic situation would worsen for years to come, but all through my teens, living in Lisbon, I would sit at cafés after school to discuss politics, ideology, philosophy–the past and future of the country. That personal awakening and investment alone was life-changing. The glory of the revolution was about having a voice. Throughout my adult life in the United States, I have often been labeled “opinionated” (mostly by men), and “challenging” (mostly by women). I smile, knowing where it all comes from: when you wake up one morning to realize your parents and grandparents lived the better part of their lives without a voice, how can you ever let go? For one, unlike too many of my American acquaintances, I could never pass on my right to vote.
In early 2011 when the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions were all the news, my passion for writing notwithstanding, the idea of blogging was the furthest from my mind. But the Arab uprisings and America’s sudden fascination with foreign affairs stirred old, favorite subjects of mine: revolutions, the Middle East, and American’s seeming lack of interest in world news. [Read more here or see a modified version at The Huffington Post.]
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