Lusophera: Remembering the Carnation Revolution

by Paula Góes, Global Voices

It was a beautiful party

I was very pleased

I've still kept stubbornly

an old carnation for me

They have wilted your party

But they must have forgotten a seed

in some corner of the garden

(Song by Chico Buarque, to whom I beg forgiveness for my translation)

In April 25 1974, 34 years today, Portugal's 40-year fascist dictatorship, the longest in the history of Western Europe, came to an end with the Carnation Revolution, a leftist, military-led coup d'état. On that morning people went out to the streets despite the advice to stay at home, but instead of blood shed, bullets were swapped for flowers. There was a surprisingly peaceful overthrow of the dictatorship of Antônio de Oliveira Salazar and his successor, Marcelo Caetano, in which the population held red carnations and tucked them into the soldiers' rifle barrel. The second aim of the revolution was the cessation of the war in Africa.

With the too rapid independence for its African colonies, a violent civil wars shook Angola, Mozambique was made independent the year after but only found peace in 1992 and East Timor was seized by force by the Indonesia a year later. Other colonies, like Cape Verde, were left poor to despair. Despite the decolonization process being considered a shambles, the revolution enjoys popular support today and many Portuguese speaking bloggers, from these countries and around the world, dedicated a post to it.