The elections of 18 May arrive. However, we have a new Pope, an increasingly crazy Trump, houses only for Pokémon and salaries, pensions and taxes to go up. But in the opposite direction to the desirable. This in 2025. And how was it in 1975, when I voted for the first time for free elections and for everyone?
By Mendo Castro Henriques *
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In 1975, the vote was almost like going to Fatima, but with a voting relationship instead of candles, cabins instead of confessionals and many lines throughout the country instead of a single procession. The country had just got rid of almost half a century of dictatorship and was in a “total opening” mode: freedom, parties, posters, hymns, blackheads, screaming rally and megaphones – it seemed rock in Rio, but with much ideology and less beer.
The vote was more than a duty, it was a civic religion (Jean-Jacques’ things). Everyone who left the voting taxi had a shiver in his eyes while he said: “I participated in the story! And without censorship!” We still needed (revolutionary process in progress), but it could also be the resurrected process of the citizen.
And be careful: there was emotion, discussion, beliefs. Each party had almost a soul. The person reads political programs like those who read Camrip – with passion and dictionary next door. Coffee conversations were intense; Family, friends and neighbors supported if MDP/CDE had a future or if the PS would have touched the right or if the CDS had twenty deputies. And all this with the belief that the vote has even changed things. It was like launching the data of the national destination and still running.
Cherry at the top? The constitution of 1976, with a boring reading and with a writing of boats, like all legal documents, had a phrase that saved everything: the goal of Portugal was to create “a free, just and solidarity society”. I almost wanted to frame (they say it was written by people who read Sophia de Mello Breyner in his free time).
Fifty years later, we are in 2025. We passed the vote in ecstasy to the joke mode. Is democracy still here, but as regards enthusiasm? This went to have a coffee and hasn’t returned yet. The vote today is, for many, something that is done with the same enthusiasm with which you go to the dentist. Only less times.
The abstention is so high that there are proposals in which they take place in Parliament. Young people say they do not vote why “they do not see each other in the parties” – which makes sense, since the parties themselves have a very, much more confused identity than 1975. The electoral debates make you think: “What is the Netflix series that we will see?”
And yes, we have freedom. Many. So much so that some think that the greatest proof of freedom is not to vote. Others vote against the gypsies (I find it badly). Others think that democracy is an app that should be updated. But surprise, programmers (read: sovereigns) continue to use the 1975 operating system.
The German jurist Böckenförde (name that looks like a sausage brand, but was a serious philosopher) has already warned: “The centuries -old liberal state lives on hypotheses that cannot guarantee”. Translation: if nobody makes an effort, stagnant democracy – a type of duplicate car. Or as the philosopher Hannah Arendt would say; Political freedom does not live on the sofa. If you don’t show yourself in the public space, you are not making democracy, you’re just looking for. Freedom without participation is like going to the gym just to see others – don’t count. “
Now, pause a “moment of the Latour in 2 minutes”. Bruno Latour, a very intelligent French who thought outside the box, proposed a kind of mad and a half genius: the Parliament of things. Yes, it’s true. A parliament in which not only human, but also rivers, forests, climate, cows, satellites and even wi-fi and would represent.
Imagine: “Lord President, Tagus asks for the floor. He is tired of being polluted.” “Serra da extol votes against the construction of this resort.” “The global climate proposes a motion of censorship to the economic model”.
Does it seem strange? It is strange. But by rethinking, if things – or rather, the natural and digital systems that keep us alive – do not have a voice in the political system, how will we resolve the collapse of the climate, the housing crisis or the price of Courts in the supermarket? Latour proposes a more … collective policy in the literal sense. A policy in which the “community” includes humans and non -human. A world in which the vote does not only concern “those who govern”, but “as we all live together”.
It seems that we continue with a Pope who reminds us that the community still tells it (even if the family’s WhatsApp group suggests the opposite), a young man who protests for climate, accommodation, wages and free Tiktok. But we have a political system (let’s say only “system”, as in football) which looks like a soap work: the scenario changes, but the characters repeat and the story goes to the circles.
The most ironic? In 1975, Portugal was leaving the empire and entered democracy. In 2025, we are leaving illusions. In 1975 the people followed the sovereigns. Now they are the sovereigns that run after the people, with several delayed steps and X-Tlawitters measures. That is: we are in a new revolutionary situation but with less mustache and more memes.
* Professor at Catholic University and author of works of philosophy and citizenship. Article originally published on the Stemargens website.
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