Yesterday was the 25th of April, celebrated in Portugal as Freedom Day. It celebrates a revolution that took place 46 years ago today and marks a watershed in modern Portuguese history. It is also the anniversary of my viva (a.k.a. Ph.D. defence), which made it seem like a good excuse to kick things off around here by going over these two momentous events!
Proudly alone
From 1933 to 1974 Portugal was under a dictatorial regime known as Estado Novo (literally “New State”). It developed naturally out of the military dictatorship (1926-1933) that ended our democratic1 First Republic (1910-1926). The defining figure of the period was António de Oliveira Salazar2, the head of government from the regime’s inception until he was literally toppled by a chair (or possibly a bath tub) in 1968. His austere economic policies were successful in restoring stability to an economy which was in shambles since the days of the First Republic, although not in alleviating the poverty in which much of the population lived. After the Second World War (and a successful policy of active neutrality), this poverty had been much exacerbated — which in the 1960s fuelled a phenomenon of mass illegal migration, mostly to other European countries experiencing post-war prosperity. Still this state of affairs was presented as a victory for Salazar’s choice to “rid us of war, but not famine”. Despite persistent resistance from a few groups (most notably the clandestine Portuguese Communist Party), this stability allowed the regime to maintain an aura of inevitability and an illusion of consensus for most of Salazar’s rule.
The undoing of Estado Novo, it turns out, was to be brought about not by reactions to oppression at home, but by the growing unsustainability of the Portuguese Overseas Empire — brought about by a draining war of independence in Angola, Guinea-Bissau, and Mozambique. In 1965, attempting to justify what he saw as an existential struggle3 for the nation in the face of growing international hostility towards European imperialism, Salazar defined Portugal’s position in the world as “proudly alone”. Even as the war dragged on with no end in sight, even as discontent was growing among poor families whose young were being shipped away to fight for their country’s claim on land they had never seen, the “saviour of the fatherland” would not — could not — relent. The war in Africa had to be won, no matter the cost.
A Captain’s Movement
Salazar’s literal fall did nothing to stop the war overseas. His replacement, Marcelo Caetano, did push forward timid hints of reform in a period that became known as the “Marcelist Spring”, but ultimately failed to steer the country towards democracy or otherwise challenge the essence of Salazar’s legacy. Initial hope gave way to disillusionment among a growing number of supporters of change, and the increasing death toll in Africa was not helping.
In August of 1973, a group of dissatisfied low-level military officials formed the “Captain’s Movement”, initially aiming to fight for better pay and work conditions. Soon the movement’s goal shifted towards political change and open revolt.
A bloodless coup
At 22:55 on the 24th of April 1974, this song was broadcast by a Lisbon radio station. Innocent as it may have seemed (it was that year’s Portuguese entry in the Eurovision song contest), it was actually a signal from a group of military men who had stealthily taken over the station. Its meaning was clear: everyone take your positions, we are going ahead with this! At 00:20 the following day, a less innocuous song was broadcast:
«Grândola Vila Morena» had not been banned by the regime’s censors, but it was one of very few songs in that category4 by Zeca Afonso, a disgraced former teacher and a communist as red as they come. This time the signal put everyone in motion.
Across the country, strategic positions were taken in coordinated succession. The regime’s forces proved unable (and, at a few crucial junctures, unwilling) to resist the revolutionaries’ advance. That afternoon, Marcelo Caetano surrendered control of the country and himself, without the coup having directly5 cost any lives. The streets of Lisbon were filled with what has become a trademark image of the revolution: jubilant populace surrounding soldiers whose (mostly) unused rifles were adorned with the red carnations that gave the revolution its symbol and its popular name.
A new dawn
"This is the dawn I yearned for The initial day whole and clean Where we emerge from night and silence And free inhabit the substance of time"
Thus the poet Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen described the national feeling in her poem 25 de Abril6. 48 years of dictatorship were over. The Colonial War, which had mobilised one tenth of the working population, became moot overnight. Portugal was changed forever.
The year that followed the revolution was not a peaceful one. At times, a civil war was imminent — and, even today, more or less bitter divisions remain in Portuguese society around the most significant clashes of that period. Nevertheless, peace did return, and so did democracy. A hurried decolonisation process took place, with less than welcome consequences for both white people in former colonies and those same colonies’ stability — particularly for certain former colonies which hadn’t taken part in the war. But it did end fighting and it did leave Portugal with only the (mostly white) archipelagos of Madeira and Azores outside of our mainland territory. Freedom became a pillar of Portuguese national identity. “This is not what the 25th of April was done for” became a common trope in national political discourse.
A Doctorate’s Conclusion
Fast-forward 44 years. Most people in Portugal are not working because of the holiday, but I am not in Portugal — and I have a long day ahead of me. It’s the day of my viva, when I have to defend four years’ worth of work before a pair of specialist examiners.
In theory, at a viva one is supposed to convince the examiners of the validity and relevance of one’s work. However, the thesis I was presenting was made up of an Introduction and Conclusions attempting to stitch together a collection of three independent publications. In this situation, everyone told me, the fact that the work had already been published in respected journals meant that its validity and relevance would be accepted as a given — and thus I should prepare for an in-depth discussion of the Introduction and the Conclusions and no more than a few passing questions about what’s in between (just to confirm I had done the work myself).
Being a good follower of advice, in the weeks leading up to the viva I made sure to carefully review every word in the Introduction. I showed up on the day with a printed thesis filled with scribbles answering imagined questions all over the Introduction. And then, right at the beginning of the viva, the external examiner started by telling me the Introduction was very well written and he had no questions about it. Almost everything I was asked was about the content of the published work. Which was fine; it just made me extra nervous7.
I did pass my viva with minor corrections. We had a little celebration at the Department, complete with dinner out in Brighton in the evening. It felt great. I was surrounded by friends, I had fulfilled a major goal of mine, and, perhaps more importantly at the time, it seemed I could rest completely guilt-free for the first time in nearly four years. Even though I technically worked, that day was to me more of a Freedom Day than perhaps any other.
Footnotes
1. The First Republic was democratic in the sense that most men had the right to vote. However, it was not democratically installed, having resulted from a coup d’état against a (usually democratic) constitutional monarchy which did allow republican parties — and it did not allow monarchists a constitutional path to restoring the king. One consequence of this was that a significant section of the country, which supported the previous regime, was effectively disenfranchised. The architects of Estado Novo took advantage of this and drew significant support from monarchist factions (especially during its early days). This partly explains why the regime was always loath to refer to itself as a republic — despite maintaining most republican institutions, including the office of President of the Republic.
2. Yes, that is where Harry Potter‘s Salazar Slytherin’s name comes from.
3. Estado Novo’s propaganda machine espoused an intensely nationalistic brand of propaganda centred on the greatness of the “Portuguese World”. To give up an “integral part of the Portuguese nation” would have threatened its very raison d’être. It should also be noted that a major factor in the fall of the Portuguese monarchy was what was perceived as the king’s inability to defend Portugal’s colonial interests in Africa, which might also have weighed on the feeling that keeping these colonies was essential for the survival of the regime.
4. Why it wasn’t censored, I’ll never understand. It openly sings of equality and fraternity and “the People ruling most of all”. Keep in mind this is the regime that reportedly inspired the foundation of Amnesty International by imprisoning a pair of students for toasting to freedom in a bar in Lisbon in 1961.
5. Four people did die in the aftermath, when members of the political police shot a group of protesters.
6. I take full responsibility for this translation.
7. Granted, I was less nervous because I knew failing at a viva is extremely rare. Then again, I was a bit more nervous because I knew failing at a viva is extremely rare. In any case, as a matter of principle, I think it was logical of the examiner to approach things the way he did.
Aetherial Porosity 
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