I put my morning writing aside and turned my attention to the household chores necessary for the smooth running of daily life. Before noon, with lunch already planned out, I realized I needed eggs to poach. There weren’t any in the fridge, so I went downstairs, grabbed my keys, and walked into the supermarket right below my apartment. Yes, I’m lucky. I live above a supermarket, and at any time of day, I can pop down there to grab an onion, a carrot, half a dozen eggs, and so on. I don’t even need change, because I pay the bill at the end of the month.

It just so happened that two neighbors were chatting at the door, and I heard one of them say:

“The only thing Hitler did wrong was not wiping them all out.”

As soon as I heard that, my antennae went up, and I paid close attention to the conversation. Keep in mind that this is an ordinary man, with ordinary language and thoughts, plus a somewhat scruffy appearance. The other one, with a gold tooth, a longtime neighbor and old friend of my parents, spoke in a soothing tone.

The hothead continued:

“Who owns Hollywood? Who’s in charge of all this? It’s the Jews! Hitler was the one who was right.”

Meanwhile, I, holding a carton of eggs, approach the man and say to him:

“You can’t say things like that in Portugal. It’s illegal. It’s hate speech.”

“How can I not say it?! I have my freedom.”

“No, you don’t. You can’t say everything you think.”

I’m on my way to my door when he says something about “the blacks.” That’s when I lose my patience.

“On top of everything else, you’re a racist!”

I go into my house, close the door, and head to the kitchen to finish lunch. Meanwhile, I think this isn’t what the Armed Forces Movement (MFA) risked the April 25th Revolution for, and why the people took to the streets in a frenzy of freedom in 1974. This isn’t what we dreamed of when we envisioned a better future, a united and inclusive country. And my heart, already scarred from so many wounds inflicted on that initial hope, aches once more, bleeds a little more.

Half a century was all it took for freedom of expression against the authoritarianism of the Estado Novo and against censorship to turn into normalized hate speech on social media, trivialized in coffee shop conversations and in the mindsets of more than a third of the Portuguese people. Half a century. We are in the age of a lack of empathy. Of cultural and ideological barbarism. We are in the era of “I want everything I’m entitled to” and “I have my freedom.” But these rights and freedoms do not include the right to vote, the right to unionize, or the right to protest—even when those rights are under threat. People chose not to exercise those rights.

We are in the era of the right to cheat the state, the employer, and the neighbor, whenever possible. In the era of the right to stupidity, racism, misogyny, and homophobia, I have my freedom to anonymously go on social media and spew hatred against immigrants, women, or leftists because my guru says they’re bad—and it’s even fun to do so. I have the right for my opinion to be worth more than the facts. I have the freedom to be ignorant and the right to be proud of it.

We are a people of petty grievances; we gossip and quietly spew hatred. Along the way, we are the heirs of the explorers and the slave traders, of the colonists and the PIDE informants. We have never aired our dirty laundry in public. We have never taught our children about our original sins, so we quietly parrot what the little Salazarians preach from the pulpit and on social media. And so we go on.

Avelina da Silveira is a poet, novelist, editor, political and cultural activist