How did the decision to write this come about? book?
It is essentially a chain of the previous one (The five men who changed Portugal). I did research for this book, which is about the transition to democracy. And the month of November was of course very important because of November 25th. But not alone. There is not a day when there is nothing. Back then, there were headlines with new topics every day. Politics was clearly the most important topic. In this research I wanted to delve deeper into the issue of the Constituent Assembly, because it was the Assembly. But on the other hand, we also delve deeper into the issue of the siege. I was already curious about this when I wrote the biography of Sophia de Mello Breyner. Of course it wasn’t thought that way, but this particular book is almost an epilogue. Obviously we can say that Sophia has nothing to do with these two, but at the end of the day she does. While I was researching Sophia’s political role in our democracy and the importance she had, I researched it and discovered that she had been one of the hostages during the siege. And I found that absolutely fascinating. I dedicated a chapter of Sophia’s book to this episode. Of course the book was about her and there was no point in her being there to develop it. Then the same thing kind of happened to me with The Five Men. The subject was important, but it was also not central. And during this research, as I started writing this book, the person who piloted the helicopter finally appears to me [escolhido para levar comida aos deputados da Constituinte]. It was something that was not mentioned anywhere, in any newspaper. Diário de Lisboa has images of the helicopter, but never says who was piloting it. This aspect had not been addressed by either journalists or historians. That’s interesting, because it’s not easy to deliver news after all this time. In short: it started The five men When I came across the story, the editor and I felt the subject deserved a separate book. Precisely because we had news here from a journalistic perspective, but also from a historical perspective. There are testimonials here that were never collected. It’s worth highlighting this, as we believe it’s worth going into in more detail.
Can we then say, with some differences, that this episode was our invasion of the Capitol?
It’s a similar situation when it comes to the idea of hijacking power, as happened in both the United States and Brazil. The reasons are different, but the basics, the method, It’s similar. If what happened in Portugal was now, the parallel would be clear. Then there are all the specific reasons and contexts, and even the consequences are very different. In short, the scenario and the idea of contesting power in an almost totalitarian way – it is not the power that is almost totalitarian, it is the contestation – because it prevents movements, exits and entries, delegates and a chairman of the Assembly, ministers kidnapped In this respect it is even more shocking than the Capitol or the Planalto in Brazil. Obviously it has its symbolism because essentially we are talking about building power. But in the Portuguese case, it was the protagonists themselves who were held hostage. There is indeed a parallel.
During the siege there was almost no entry or exit of people or food, correct? So how does the ceasefire come about at the end of the 36 hours?
There are some details that need to be addressed, to be precise. PCP, UDP and MDP delegates could come and go. Those who could not were those who formed the majority, i.e. PS, PSD and CDS. This act of taking deputies hostage actually had several wings, if we want to simplify it, although it was difficult to do so. And journalists could do that too, so that communication is assured. In essence, there is not really a truce, but rather a total concession on the part of the government, which accepts that construction workers will receive unprecedented salary increases.. And it’s important to say that there are other things. Everything that appeared in the newspapers was a bit extreme: [escrevia-se que] the workers are absolutely right and that the invasion of Parliament was justified because they were right from the point of view of their labor demands. What is of course unacceptable is that they use this to express such an extreme protest. Not many of those who supported the demand later supported this stance. What lies behind this is a very fair demand for labour. At the time, the idea was that workers were being manipulated by the parties. The demonstration clearly starts with the unions. There is no doubt that they organized themselves and decided to come to the General Assembly. Also an important detail: they besieged the Minister of Labor [Tomás Rosa] haven’t received them. That was the starting point. There has been an escalation because at a certain point the government no longer knew how to respond to the problem. And it’s also important to say that these workers had raised this issue before, they had already been promised that it would be resolved. In short, they were a little tense. The rope was pulled, it was a breaking situation. This does not mean that it is justified to invade the Assembly. But the basis is an employment claim. What happens then is an almost momentary pleasure. It does not seem to me that there was a plan to take advantage of the movement to kidnap the Assembly. Things happen. There are very high spirits. They were workers who lived absolutely miserable, there were people in tents. Most of them came from the north and other areas. This social part is understandable. What it is not is the escalation of tension. In addition to the kidnapping, which is unimaginable, there is also an attempt to rescue the President of the Constituent Assembly. [Henrique de Barros]. He gets into the helicopter, but is removed. In fact, this moment is very crucial because some workers try to grab the feet of the helicopter so that it does not take off. So he essentially doesn’t perform the rescue and fulfill his mission of bringing food, sandwiches and wine to the kidnapped deputies. And without the pilot’s agility, the helicopter would have crashed. The helicopter was surrounded by people. If it had fallen or fallen, it could have been fatal. Especially because there would have to be a response. In short, despite the extreme situation, there was a lot of restraint on the part of the President of the Republic [Costa Gomes], always very sensible and trying to negotiate with all parties. Henrique de Barros himself was not concerned about what had happened, he returned to the Assembly alone, waiting to leave. And in a few hours he’ll take a taxi home. This is all very caricatured. There’s this idea that you’re on a knife’s edge, and that if you make one wrong move, things can actually go sideways. You can see in every title and in every person you talk to the fear of civil war. It was on everyone’s lips. A situation like this should of course lead to something much more belligerent and conflictual. I think this episode is more relevant than the importance given to it in the antechamber of November 25.
That’s what I wanted to ask. Is this case the fuse that ignites November 25?
In my interpretation that is so. I’m not a historian, but I interpret what I’ve researched and what people told me, and many also have this perspective: There was definitely a need for clarification. Whether it would have happened on November 25 if it hadn’t been this episode, or if it would have happened later, we don’t know. We can leave it up in the air. What is very clear is that the Assembly, that is to say the main parliamentary groups, is moving to Porto. They do not feel that there are conditions to continue working in the Assembly. We are clearly in a pre-civil war situation that is intolerable. And Mário Soares, who was observant and understood things well, was at the Assembly and left before the doors were closed. In other words, he realized it was going to be complicated. The PS was always at the forefront of trying to clarify the situation. What seems to me is that this episode of the Constituent Assembly makes it very clear that it cannot continue this way. If anyone still has doubts… It has been there since March 11 [dia em que há uma tentativa de golpe de Estado dirigida por António de Spínola] seeing things heat up. There are more and more bombs, attacks on party headquarters, etc. There is a whole list of events that I think are growing. And the hijacking of the Assembly is a kind of Foucault’s pendulum. Then something needed to be clarified. Obviously it cannot be accepted that the democratically elected political system is subject to this and is prevented from functioning. It is very important to remember that there were far-left parties that did not want that, did not agree with the Constitution and wanted to boycott the work of the Assembly. And they succeeded. This doesn’t mean they were the ones who planned the kidnapping. Considering the entire event, seen at that moment, I completely understand that there were people who thought there was manipulation.
First, there were the presidents. The siege of 1975 followed. Just a few months before the 50th anniversary of April 25, what’s the next step in your political research?
I’m not currently working on anything on that subject. I find it very interesting, very rich. I think I’ve already made my contribution. That doesn’t mean I won’t think about him in the future. In short, the answer is what I’ve already done: these two books (The five men who changed Portugal It is The Siege of Parliament) took into account the context of the 50th anniversary of April 25. The five men was released much earlier (2022), this one will be released a few months before 2024. These are books with an already distant view of 50 years.
Source: DN
