The final program promoted by the Commemoration Commission for the 50th anniversary of April 25 is not yet known, subject to a final approval of the President of the Republic, but some ideas have already been put forward and the DN is reporting on them.
Maria Inácia Rezola, Executive Commissioner of the Commission, states that 2024 will be a “pivoting year” in the celebrations, which started in March 2022 and will continue until 2026. After the first period was dedicated to social and political movements that created the conditions for April 25, 1974, 2024 will focus on the Captains Movement/Armed Forces Movement and decolonization. 2025 will be the year that celebrates the democratization of the regime – potentially the most controversial year, given the fifty years since November 25, 1975, an increasingly divisive date. In 2026, celebrations will focus on development issues. In other words: the three D’s of April 25 – Decolonize, Democratize, Develop – spread over three years: 2024, 2025 and 2026.
“The aim of the Commission is to promote greater knowledge of the recent past, so as to increase our mastery and understanding of the present, and to equip us with tools to discuss and advance the future of the country and democracy in an informed manner set. “
Maria Inácia Rezola says: “Our expectation is that next year [2024] be a year of celebration, of celebrating 50 years of democracy, and the starting point for a reflection on the next 50 years. I believe that this will happen either through the initiatives designed and developed by the Commemoration Commission on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of April 25, or through the initiatives implemented by all other entities that, from the North to the South of the country, are enthusiastically involved in preparing the celebrations.”
The idea is actually to celebrate the past in order to save the future: “The purpose of the Commission is to promote greater knowledge of the recent past, so that it increases our mastery and understanding of the present, and equips us with tools to, in an enlightened, we discuss and foresee the future of the country and democracy.”
And for this purpose, the intention is to “take advantage of these data to promote among young people the importance of appreciating April’s achievements and calling on them to participate in building a better, fairer, freer, more participatory and more democratic”.
The competition is organized in collaboration with the ICA (Institute for Film and Audiovisual). “Film for Democracy”which will allocate EUR 790,000 to “film and audiovisual production projects of fiction, documentary or animation; organization of seminars, conferences, workshops or similar activities; training actions; holding of exhibitions/cycles of the Portuguese film and audiovisual sector” that are part of the commemorations of the 50th anniversary of the revolution of April 25, 1974 and which contribute to the reflection on its relevance today”.
Continue the match “April 25 and Portuguese Democracy” allocates 500,000 euros for “research projects in the social sciences and humanities on this period in the country’s history”.
At the same time, the competition is organized in collaboration with the Directorate General of Arts “Art for democracy” which finances artistic projects around April 25 with a total amount of one million euros. “The 2023 edition selected a total of 45 projects, 19 in the interdisciplinary artistic field; nine in the theater field; and six in the field of music. In the artistic field of creation, 27 initiatives will be supported; in programming, seven; in national distribution, four. Six projects were also selected in the field of publishing and one in the field of strategic mediation actions,” the Commission said.
There is also a collaboration with Tinta da China, titled “April 25 seen from outside”, for the publication of ten books on the revolution, most of them by foreign authors, in a collection led by political scientist António Costa Pinto. And also a “campaign aimed at schools on human rights as enshrined in the Constitution of the Portuguese Republic, which includes the distribution of a series of posters developed by 16 renowned Portuguese illustrators”.
Several other entities took action to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the revolution. Parliament will have a program culminating in the solemn session on April 25, to which all Portuguese-speaking heads of state are invited (and Lula’s eventual presence promises to spark renewed controversy on the right).
Yesterday, the President of the Republic issued the decree that “determines the conditions for the creation of the April 25 Interpretation Center”, which will be built in Parliament.
The parliamentary program will include a “tribute to the democratically elected deputies who were victims of political imprisonment during the dictatorship”, another tribute to the National Commission for the Assistance of Politicians, public debates “April 25, Today”, to be organized by the Assembly of the Republic in all constituencies, with the participation of deputies. The exhibition “Vieira da Silva and Freedom” can be seen in the Salão Nobre between April and June
Source: DN
