By 1974, the situation within the Portuguese military had reached breaking point. Portugal was in its 13th year of fighting a colonial war on three African fronts, forcing the authoritarian, ultra-nationalist Estado Novo regime to sink increasingly untenable levels of manpower into maintaining control.
Given the gay abandon people throw around the word fascist these days you’d think they’d call actual fascists actual, you know, fascists?
Seems to be a few mentions of fascists in the reference Tim.
Of course I sympathise with the Portuguese effort to hold on to their empire. Although I have to admit the revolutionaries were right to dump it.
Salazar was certainly authoritarian but he wasn’t a fascist, was he? Too austere for that.
Franco wasn’t a fascist either though his Falange supporters were. But it was a coalition he led and they were only part of it.
Anyway, for all their faults those two ensured that neither Portugal nor Spain was conquered by Nazis or Communists or, even worse, a succession of them.
“you’d think they’d call actual fascists actual, you know, fascists”
The headline is “How Portugal’s 1974 Eurovision entry toppled the country’s fascist regime”. How much more explicit could it be?
Angola and Mozambique, yes, but which was the third?
Guinea Bissau
I always thought that somewhere called Guinea Bissau should have had Jacqueline Bisset as President.
Nearly as good as having Ali Bongo in charge of Gabon.