FROM POWER TO PEACE

I WAS IN LISBON AT THE END OF MAY. The city—like the entire country of Portugal—was gearing up to celebrate the 51st anniversary of the Carnation Revolution.

- 

Locals call it by the date: vinte cinco de Abril (April 25). The revolution was a military coup by military officers who overthrew the repressive fascist Estado Novo government. It was named for the carnations that demonstrators placed in the muzzles of guns and on soldiers' uniforms when the population took to the streets to celebrate the end of the dictatorship.

Locals and tourists attended parades and ceremonies and walked through the streets with red carnations they bought from street vendors. The jubilant mood continued well into the night, with every bar and restaurant having a party and loud music overlapping into a celebratory cacophony. I wondered how the day differed from their Independence Day. When was their Independence Day? Wait ... did they even have an Independence Day? Who would they have gained independence from? They were the colonizers!

A quick search confirmed that, except for a brief period of 60 years (1580-1640) when Spain controlled it, Portugal has been a sovereign country since its founding in 1143. It would eventually become one of the earliest and longest-lasting colonial powers, extending its reach to South America (Brazil), Africa (Angola, Mozambique, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, and São Tomé and Príncipe), and Asia (Goa, Macao, parts of India, and Southeast Asia). In 1526, in the name of profit, they created a horrifically dehumanizing practice that would subsequently change the very fabric of the Americas: the transatlantic slave trade.