From the Carnation Revolution to the last Presidential Ballot Box: A Portuguese Woman’s Reflection on Democracy at a Crossroads
Ik ben nog in Portugal geboren onder het dictatoriale bewind van António de Oliveira Salazar. Ik was zes maanden oud toen op 25 april 1974 de Anjerrevolutie plaatsvond, die op vreedzame wijze een einde maakte aan bijna vijf decennia fascistische dictatuur. Ik heb geen herinneringen aan de censuur, de politieke politie of de angst die het leven van de generatie van mijn ouders kenmerkte. Wat ik me wel herinner, is dat mijn ouders me vertelden over de gruwelen van het leven in dat Portugal en dat ik opgroeide in een land dat bedwelmd was door de vrijheid die de Aprilrevolutie ons had gebracht.
‘Democratie’ was in mijn jeugd geen neutraal woord. Het was beladen met hoop. Het betekende rechten voor arbeiders, openbaar onderwijs, universele gezondheidszorg, dekolonisatie, het recht om te spreken zonder te fluisteren. Het betekende ook dat de geschiedenis een bladzijde had omgeslagen, definitief en onomkeerbaar. Net als velen van mijn generatie groeide ik op met de stille zekerheid dat de mensheid onomkeerbaar vooruitgaat. Dat rechten zich uitbreiden. Dat gerechtigheid, hoewel langzaam, altijd vooruitgaat.
That belief shaped my life. As a human rights activist, I have worked from the conviction that dignity is indivisible. As a mother, I raised my two sons, now adults, to respect what the Carnation Revolution made possible.
I taught them that freedom is never a gift from above but a conquest from below. I taught them to look at those who are less privileged than we are not with charity, but with solidarity.
And I taught them to recognize and resist oppressive ideologies, especially those that disguise exclusion and resentment as ‘common sense’ or ‘inevitable’.
This is why the recent elections in Portugal feel like a rupture
For the first time in our democratic history, a far-right force has consolidated itself as a central actor in parliament. The rise of Chega, led by André Ventura, marks a turning point for us.
Portugal, long considered an exception in a Europe where far-right movements have gained traction, is no longer immune. For decades, we told ourselves that the memory of dictatorship protected us.
The Carnation Revolution was peaceful, almost poetic — soldiers placing carnations in their rifles, crowds filling the streets without bloodshed. It became a symbol of democratic grace. Perhaps we believed that such an origin story gave us a permanent safeguard against regression.
And yet, there are also reasons for hope
The results of the most recent presidential elections showed that a clear majority of Portuguese voters still reject the politics of resentment and division. Despite the visibility and noise of the far right, it did not capture the country’s highest office.
That outcome reminded me that democratic culture in Portugal remains stronger than the headlines sometimes suggest. It gave me hope that the far right can be kept at bay — not through complacency, but through participation, coalition-building, and civic vigilance.
It also strengthened my conviction that the left, in all its diversity, must find ways to cooperate strategically when democratic fundamentals are at stake. Unity does not mean uniformity; it means recognizing that safeguarding constitutional democracy, social rights, and pluralism is a shared responsibility.
For someone born under dictatorship, the mere possibility of democratic backsliding is never abstract. The presidential results suggested that Portugal is not ready to turn its back on April. But democracy is not inherited like property. It must be practiced, renewed, and defended.
The emergence of a far-right party is not simply the result of charismatic leadership or media provocation. It is rooted in deeper fractures. Portugal remains one of the most unequal countries in Western Europe.
Young people struggle with precarious work and unaffordable housing. Public services, though cherished, are strained. Many feel that economic growth has not translated into personal security. Distrust toward political institutions has quietly accumulated.
Populism feeds on this soil. It offers simple explanations for complex problems. It identifies scapegoats — migrants, minorities, corrupt elites, welfare recipients, emancipated women, ‘wokism’, left-wing activism, etc. — and promises moral clarity in a confusing world. It reframes frustration as righteous anger. And it presents authoritarian postures as strength.
As a left-wing voter, I believe that progressive politics must respond not only with moral condemnation of the far right, but with credible answers to material insecurity. We cannot defend democracy solely by invoking the past. We must make it work more effectively in the present.
At the same time, we must not normalize rhetoric that undermines the very foundations of pluralism. When political discourse begins to treat certain groups as less deserving of rights, when it reduces citizenship to identity and belonging to exclusion, we are not witnessing “just another political opinion.” We are confronting a challenge to the democratic consensus we established in 1974 and going against the egalitarian Constitution that was born out of that utopian moment.
There is a generational dimension to this moment. My sons grew up in freedom. They never experienced censorship or fear of political police. For them, democracy is ordinary. Its fragility is not self-evident. And perhaps that is both a success and a vulnerability. When rights feel permanent, they can seem less urgent to defend.
I sometimes reflect on how my parents must have felt during the final years of dictatorship — whether they sensed its exhaustion, whether they imagined change was possible.
Today, I still do not believe we are on the brink of authoritarian collapse
Portugal remains to a certain extent a democratic country with strong institutions, vibrant civil society, and a deeply rooted commitment to social rights. But the hope that once accompanied that confidence is fading.
We are part of a broader European and global trend in which democratic fatigue coexists with democratic longing. Citizens demand fairness, accountability, and dignity. When mainstream politics fails to deliver these convincingly, space opens for those who promise order without complexity, identity without diversity, certainty without dialogue.
The challenge before us is not to romanticize the past, nor to surrender to alarmism. It is to rediscover the civic energy that animated April, not as nostalgia, but as responsibility.
The Carnation Revolution was not only about ending dictatorship; it was about expanding the horizon of what was possible. That horizon must be widened again. Defending democracy today means strengthening public institutions while reforming them. It means addressing inequality not as an afterthought, but as a central democratic imperative. It means resisting dehumanizing narratives, even when they are electorally convenient. And it means engaging those who feel abandoned, not dismissing them.
I no longer hold the naïve certainty of my youth that progress is automatic
History does not move in a straight line. Rights can stagnate. Freedoms can erode. But neither is regression inevitable. Democracy survives when citizens insist on it. Portugal stands at a crossroads that many other societies recognize.
We are not uniquely virtuous, nor uniquely endangered. We are simply human, capable of solidarity and susceptible to fear.
I remain committed to the belief that the values born on April 25 — freedom, equality, justice, and participation — are not relics of a revolutionary moment, but living principles.
The task now is not to assume their permanence, but to practice them daily. The carnations of 1974 symbolized a peaceful rupture with authoritarianism. Today, the symbols may be less poetic. But the work is the same: to ensure that democracy remains not only a system of government, but a shared commitment to human dignity for all.
Elsa Childs
I am an Accredited Playback Theatre Trainer from Portugal. I was born and raised in a small city (20 000 inhabitants) in the interior of the country, but have lived in Lisbon since I was 17 (I am 52 now), when I came to Lisbon to study Languages and Literature in college.
I mainly use Playback as a tool for social justice and for human rights advocacy. My focus has been working with vulnerable groups, especially teenagers, and with those who work with them, while trying to bring poetry, dance and a deep aesthetic and ethical awareness to my practice.
I founded my own Playback Theatre Company in 2018 – InVerso Teatro Playback – made up of professional performers who share my social activist stance and my ethical and aesthetic concerns. My group, InVerso, has performed regularly in the Portuguese public school system and in cooperation with the non-profit Graal Portugal with teenagers and social workers/technicians/volunteers who work with vulnerable groups, on the themes of mental health, discrimination, gender equality, human rights and the prevention of violence in relationships.
I am also one of the founding members of a non-profit cultural association that creates multi-disciplinary works crossing Theatre, Music and Literature, A Corda, and one of the founders of the intersectional feminist group Eufémias, which created the biennial Eufémia Festival, a performing arts festival on questions of gender, identity and resistance.
https://www.facebook.com/ProjectoInVerso
https://www.instagram.com/inverso_teatro_playback/?hl=en
Lees ook:
– Portugal strijdt tegen de extremen: extreemrechts in de politiek en ‘extreem’ weer https://cimic-npo.org/2026/02/22/70-006/
– Stop alsjeblieft met het verkwisten van soep (en verf) https://cimic-npo.org/2024/02/29/50-014/
– Playback Theatre: waar verhalen tot leven komen https://cimic-npo.org/2025/10/24/66-011/
MUSEU DO ALJUBE – RESISTÊNCIA E LIBERDADE
Rua de Augusto Rosa 42
1100-059 Lisboa
+351 215 818 535
