“1968 was a very important year in the last phase of the regime. Much of what defined April 25 happened during that period. It was the Vietnam War, the Cultural Revolution in China, the invasion of Czechoslovakia, the student movements… “
This introduction by Pacheco Pereira, in the “skin” of the curator of the exhibition “Unidos Venceremos. Protest, Strikes and Trade Unions in Marcelismo (1968-1974)”, helps to understand what can be seen and read in the 13 panels that are available in one of the buildings of the former Military Maintenance, now part of the Hub Criativo do Beato (Lisbon) – and where, from May 1 to June 30, a real history lesson will be given about one of the most important periods of labor and and trade union relations in Portugal be available.
For about an hour, Pacheco Pereira guided a visit to a very different country than we all know. “Portugal was poor, backward, illiterate, infant mortality was at the same level as in Africa. And there was the Pé Barefoot campaign because people didn’t have money to buy shoes,” he explained, adding: “The country was unequal In 1967 it rained a lot in Cascais and there were no deaths, in the river area of Lisbon it is not known how many people died, it is thought that 700.” This is the framework for understanding the exhibition whose collection is part of Associação Cultural Ephemera and which is linked to another exhibition in Barreiro, where industrial Portugal is the motto.
The exhibition, which is free to enter from Monday, covers 13 themes: Social Portugal (1968-1974); business associations; New political-social climate; Anticorporate Lists and Union Activities; Interunion; International calls; A path without return; Political movements and parties; Catholics and trade unions; Repression; Strikes and Demonstrations, Women in the Workplace and Protagonists — a tribute to people who were arrested and monitored by the political police for their trade union activities.
All these panels show how a country changed – or tried to change – between 1968 and 1974. How social movements seemed to indicate changes, which after Marcelo Caetano’s rise to power ended up not going as far as expected. A regime that tried to avoid these changes through repression, but ended up having to deal with unions coming to power, despite the existence of unions that were nothing more than armed weapons of that same regime. And, of course, with the predominance of the PCP, which came to power by controlling the leadership of the trade unions and their legal services.
The exhibition will be inaugurated on Monday, May 1 at 10:30 am by the President of the Republic Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, who will then have lunch with fishermen in Barreiro and visit the CP workshops.
Source: DN
