“How was it possible to open a debate on April 25 on the presence of a representative of a people and a state that was a forerunner, that pioneered the phases of Portuguese decolonization, as if this were not an obvious reality used to be?” , natural as breathing?asked the President of the Republic, speaking at the Baldaya Palace in Lisbon, at the opening of an exhibition on Amílcar Cabral, hero of the independence of Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde, promoted by the Commemorative Commission of the 50th Anniversary of April 25.
“Our democracy is still very imperfect,” concluded Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, regarding the episode about the intervention of the President of Brazil during the April 25th this year’s solemn session in parliament, against which PSD, Iniciativa Liberal and Chega , ultimately not approved.
Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa complained that there are “sectors of Portuguese social and political life that do not realize that decolonization is inseparable from April 25” and that “raise doubts about its presence and intervention in the context of April 25”. .
“There is something strange if only one hemisphere of Portuguese political life takes this as natural. It should be the two hemispheres of Portuguese political life,” he defended in a critique of right-wing parties in parliament.
“I am at ease, for I come on my journey from the other hemisphere, I come from that other hemisphere which I now find is struggling to comprehend the fullness of April 25, the connection of April 25 to decolonization and the connection of April 25 to those who are the legitimate representatives of peoples and states born of the different moments of decolonization. I am surprised by this,” added the former PSD chairman, receiving applause.
The head of state stressed that in the commemorations of April 25, 1974 “the aspect of decolonization is crucial” and that it is necessary “to affirm this once, twice, three, four times and always”.
“If not, people forget. Some because they were born much later, because they don’t know this reality. Others because they rebuilt history, and every day they rebuild history, and they want to confirm as the neo-official history” , considered.
The President of the Republic said that “one of the requirements of democracy is to continue its building process every day”, that “there are no perfect or completed democracies” and that “a democracy that falls asleep in terms of affirming civic culture a democracy that is losing”.
“And we cannot lose, because if we don’t, we will one day discover something highly improbable and unthinkable, which is that there are spaces that democracy does not occupy and that others do,” he warned.
Instead of an intervention by the President of Brazil during the solemn annual commemoration session on April 25, the parliament decided to hold a separate welcome session during Lula da Silva’s state visit to Portugal, also with the opposition of the He arrives.
Source: DN
