25 de Abril sempre! | João Pedro Almeida

In Portugal April is the revolutionary month, it’s the month where the Carnation Revolution is celebrated, the military coup (bloodless, nevertheless) that overthrew the fascist regime long after a fascism was defeated in the World War II. It is and has always been an national holiday, you might say it’s the current regime’s “official holiday”, but because the coup was mostly inspired by left-wing ideals the Carnation Revolution is a very big part of the Portuguese left-wing mythology.

Each year there’s an alternative celebration of the holiday, where the true ideals of the revolution (as seen from the left-wing) are shouted over and over so they can be remembered, the expression “25 de Abril Sempre!” (roughly translated to “Always April 25th!”) is a gentle reminder of that. In the latest years, with the austerity and the bailout events like this and May Day became a perfect gathering for people to show their growing dissatisfaction, both party militants, always ready for an occasion to show up and wave their flags, and the regular everyday people that feels this might be the occasion to make themselves heard.

Some time ago this was what led me to photograph these events, which were happening more frequently than nowadays, so I found myself in the Faces of Protest, which covers some of the protests and rallies from late 2011 to 2013 (that correspond to the first years of the bailout), a project that I stopped for no other reason than I didn’t feel like doing anymore. Not until I revisited it last Saturday, as myself and Ruben walked down Liberty Avenue following this year’s march.

FUJIFILM X-E2 (18mm, f/3.2, 1/1700 sec, ISO200)