Chronicles of a Distant April

April 11, 2026

Today I was browsing Facebook on the @think and exist page and came across the following dilemma, titled “Granted or Won? — George Carlin vs. Malcolm X”:

Are rights something granted to us, or something we must defend? On that page, it is explained that George Carlin questions their stability—he argues that rights can seem conditional, reshaped, or restricted when those in power feel threatened. On the other hand, Malcolm X goes further—insisting that freedom is not granted by authority, but claimed and protected by those who demand it.

If your acquired rights can be taken away, were they ever truly secure?

To drive clicks on the post, Facebook presents both theses in opposition, but in truth, they tell us the same thing: those in power never spontaneously acknowledge the self-evident and a priori truth that the people have rights—to peace; to affordable food; to decent housing; to free and universal healthcare; to bodily autonomy; to work and to the enjoyment of the surplus value of their labor.

Without these rights equally guaranteed under the rule of law, there is no real democracy—only a kind of electoral theater where the people, as is the case with the Azorean people where one-fifth of the population is functionally illiterate, elect representatives who promise them the moon and then shamelessly, brazenly break their word. This is the case with the national and regional governments currently in power, which have been eroding each and every one of the rights listed above.

Following the hopeful euphoria of April 25, 1974, various rights were guaranteed in the 1976 Constitution of the Portuguese Republic. These rights were won through half a century of resistance to fascism and through the courage and willingness to compromise of disparate factions in the Constituent Assembly. Only the Christian Democrats voted against the Constitution and have, for over half a century, been undermining all the rights defined therein.

It took decades for women’s right to bodily autonomy to be recognized by law and for the right to voluntary termination of pregnancy to be legalized. Even so, on the night before it was enacted, the then-Minister of Health (CDS) in Cavaco Silva’s government restricted access to only ten weeks of pregnancy, among other obstacles.

This was followed by the struggle for the right to medically assisted dying, which was approved by parliament during the last Socialist Party government but has been shelved by right-wing governments.

Now it is the labor struggle, where the erosion of workers’ rights is so extensive that not even the UGT (General Labor Union) agrees with what the government proposes—the liberalization of the labor market, which removes job stability and guarantees for new workers.

So what I say, like Malcolm X, is that all rights must be achieved through the struggle of workers and the people, but for that struggle to happen, people must have class consciousness—an awareness of their exclusion and oppression. Ultimately, they must organize because unity is strength, and they must have courage and persistence because the struggle for fundamental rights is long and arduous. But once achieved, these rights are not set in stone. As Carlin argues, hard-won rights are always threatened by those in power, as seen in Portugal with the amendment to labor law.

It is essential that we remain vigilant at all times because, often without realizing it, hard-won rights are diluted through non-implementation or eroded by legal force. What saddens me is that all these changes taking place—which distort the spirit of April—do not seem to trouble people, who continue their lives grumbling but without organizing or taking action in the public sphere.

The people are so engrossed in soap operas and devastated by the effects of climate change and the rising cost of living—feeling their lives becoming increasingly harsh—that they no longer care about what is happening in their own region or country. And so we go on, indifferent to an April that feels so distant.

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