Imprisoned in Curitiba between 2018 and 2019, Lula da Silva celebrated the anniversary of the Portuguese revolution of April 25, 1974 to the sound of the song by José Afonso Grândola vila morena, which served as the password for the coup that ended 48 years of dictatorship. He gave the sonorous steps in the Alentejo style that serve as percussion for the theme and sang the O povo é o que máis ordena (The people are the ones who rule the most). His official biographer, Fernando Morais, recounts that “behind him, singing and stamping his feet on the ground, in single file, jailers, guards, lawyers and visiting friends followed him.” Before Afonso sang the last stanza “they were all cryingâ€.
The Brazilian president began an official visit to Portugal yesterday and for him, who likes to present himself as an old revolutionary, it must have been an honor to receive the invitation from the Portuguese Foreign Minister, João Gomes Cravinho, in Brasilia in February, to be the first foreign president to speak in the solemn session that is held every year in a Lisbon parliament packed with carnations, the symbol of the so-called most beautiful revolution, as utopian as it is bloodless.
The flowers of Lisbon “had given the Brazilian opposition the right to dream of a revolt in the barracks that would overthrow the dictatorship,” says historian Elio Gaspari, in his monumental pentalogy on Brazilian autocracy.
Everything came to nothing, since the South American military regime, much less long-lived since it was born in 1964, would last until 1985. Nor has the historic moment of the most solemn expression possible by the Brazilian president of joy for the Portuguese revolution come true. the opposition of the former colony, in which Lula was active as a metallurgical union leader. Minister Cravinho’s invitation was one more example of the camaraderie of the government of the socialist António Costa with the new Brazilian Administration, increased by the relief of the end of the one led by the far-right Jair Bolsonaro.
The protests in Lisbon were immediate, especially from the opposition parties, while discomfort floated in the environment due to a certain invasion of powers between powers, since it is a parliamentary, non-governmental act.
Known as “April†without further ado, the 1974 revolution constitutes one of the greatest hallmarks of modern Portugal, much more present in the collective imagination, despite the attempts of the right, than the counterrevolution of November 1975. Even more Beyond the geopolitical significance of the moment, when a left-wing movement took power in a NATO country, the revolution in this small country was a planetary event.
The symbolism of putting the carnation in the rifles contributed to this, an initiative attributed to the waitress, daughter of a Galician, Celeste Caeiro, after the owner of the restaurant where she worked distributed among the staff the flowers with which she wanted to entertain their clients on the first anniversary of the opening of the establishment. But that day everything closed.
The American political scientist Samuel P. Huntington places in April the beginning of the third world democratizing wave, which would lead to the generalization of the regime of freedoms, rights and elections from Greece to South Korea and from Argentina to the entire former bloc of the This, although it is a process that is currently in crisis. If there were two countries in which the shock wave was especially intense, they were, as surely it could not be otherwise, the autocratic Spain, where it exerted a great influence on the transition process, and the former Portuguese colony par excellence, Brazil.
In the Brazilian case, beyond the not inconsiderable injection of morale for an opposition more than defeated in its guerrilla version, the exchange of exiles is very striking. The autocrat Marcello Cateano, Oliveira de Salazar’s successor, as well as other politicians and plutocrats of the dictatorship, went to Brazil. In Portugal, on the other hand, with the socialist Mario Soares, a former exile, as Minister of Foreign Affairs, there was a certain grouping of the Brazilian political diaspora, led by former Governor Lionel Brizzola.
That intertwined history should not be missing from Lula’s speech, but it will be in an atypical special plenary session, prior to the solemn session on April 25. It was the solution agreed by the main parties, although the discrepancies remain. The leader of the Liberal Initiative, Rui Rocha, is opposed to receiving a president whom he calls “an ally of Putin.” In fact, Lula’s recent statements critical of NATO and of Europe’s position in the war in Ukraine cause discomfort in Lisbon.
But the opposition to Lula in Portugal is led by the extreme right of Chega, an ally of Bolsonaro. Its leader, André Ventura, has been reprimanded for calling him a “bandit” in Parliament. The largest demonstration against a foreign president in Portugal is announced. Lula will have her carnations, but in a cropped version.
Yesterday, in any case, the visit started on the right foot. Accompanied by President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, Lula reviewed the honor guard formed at the Jerónimos Monastery in Lisbon and laid a wreath at the tomb of the poet Camões.
