Thursday, 25 April 2024 — The Tricontinental
Maria Helena Vieira da Silva (Portugal), A Poesia Está Na Rua I [Poetry Is out on the Street I], 1974.
Dear friends,
Greetings from the desk of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research.
Fifty years ago, on 25 April 1974, the people of Portugal took to the streets of their cities and towns in enormous numbers to overthrow the fascist dictatorship of the Estado Novo (‘New State’), formally established in 1926. Fascist Portugal – led first by António de Oliveira Salazar until 1968 and then by Marcelo Caetano – was welcomed into the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) in 1949, the United Nations in 1955, and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development in 1961 and signed a pact with the European Economic Community in 1972. The United States and Europe worked closely with the Salazar and Caetano governments, turning a blind eye to their atrocities.
The New Dark Age 