Inauguration today went ahead as planned
An impressive mural commemorating today’s 50th anniversary of the April 25 revolution was vandalised overnight with graffiti praising Salazar, the municipality announced today, guaranteeing that the inauguration would go ahead as planned.
In a statement, Maia City Council (Porto district), confirmed that the mural by Regg Salgado and Mariana Santos – and commissioned by the municipality as part of the Cultural Commemorations Programme – was to be inaugurated at 3.30 pm.
In a post on his personal Facebook page, the municipality’s Councillor for Culture, Mário Nuno Neves, wrote: “When the Freedom that April gave us is used intelligently, the Portuguese rise. When it is used stupidly, as it was in this act of vandalism, we all fall apart (…) May everyone’s presence signify a clear repudiation of acts carried out by those who have learnt nothing from history.”
‘O Som da Revolução’ (The Sound of the Revolution), as the municipality describes the vast undertaking, ‘is an impactful artistic manifestation’, measuring 420 square metres, in which the artists ‘wanted to pay homage to the thousands of people who made the revolution happen and who continue to fight for freedom to this day’.
The mural features a person holding a radio because it was over the radio that passwords that secretly signalled the start of the revolution were transmitted.
Other areas of the mural show the crowds that gathered in the streets to support and celebrate the revolution all over the country – and the days and weeks that followed.
As the local authority explains: “This work is intended to praise the people who took part in the revolution because it was precisely because of their mass support for the movement that the regime’s reaction was practically non-existent – making April 25 perhaps the most peaceful revolution in history”.
LUSA
