My 25th of April by Eurico Dias Gomes*

Sleeping soundly, as you do when you’re 28 and recently married, I was woken up by a doorbell that kept ringing. My friend and neighbor Rebelo burst through the door: – Fuck, wake up… this time it looks like it’s going to be for real!… and from then on, everything took on a new time, although still in the same space but already changing.
CURIOUSLY, MY APRIL 25 began in July or August 73. After graduating from medical school, the call-up to Mafra didn’t take long and, according to what was said at the time, it was the largest intake of cadets ever. And I, a cadet, like a good few hundred others, no longer as young as the name would have you believe, went and took my place. I mention this date because of the memories and adventures I experienced during this so-called embodiment, which I remember with nostalgia, but above all because of the awareness that was not difficult for me to absorb that “none of this will last”… which was also largely due to an ensign friend with whom I had the good fortune to come into contact and whom I already knew. Anyway, just memories! But let’s move on to April 25th.

And that’s what you can already guess… as the song would say… Sleeping soundly, as you do when you’re 28 and recently married, I was woken up by a doorbell that kept ringing. My friend and neighbor Rebelo burst through the door: – Fuck, wake up… this time it looks like it’s going to be for real!… and from then on, everything took on a new time, although still in the same space but already changing. By coincidence, that day I was in an emergency at Curry Cabral Hospital and, living in Odivelas, when I arrived at Calçada de Carriche I was pulled over by a military team… which only comforted me and, once the situation had been clarified, allowed us to exchange the best phrase: – This time it’s for real!

My April 25th didn’t and couldn’t end there… but to describe what I experienced from then on, from the young soldier with the G3 firing into the air and me on the ground telling him that the aim was the PIDE headquarters, to the unforgettable date of May 1st, 1974… I always limit myself to the phrase I tried to explain to my son: – “I lived more in that period than in the rest of my life”!!! But, as always, the beautiful dream we lived soon began to be destroyed, step by step, just as they know, today, and then in justice, then in land reform, and, of course, in what had been achieved best, like the most beautiful carnation – the SNS! The 50th anniversary of April 25, let’s face it, still makes our dry eyes water… but it says very little to the young people of today. Of course, we must and should not only commemorate and standardize the date with all that it is and continues to raise for freedom.

But I can’t end this short statement without raising my voice today, as I did 50 years ago, so that in these times that have fallen upon us I can continue to say: – Fascism (even in new guises) never again!

* Medical Doctor, A25A member

We thank the Luso-American Education Foundation for their recent gift to PBBI-Fresno State for our various projects, including this literary and cultural platform, Filamentos.