ABSTRACT
The Carnation Revolution of 25 April 1974 marks one of the most important turning points in twentieth-century Portugal. In only one day, the military coup d’état put an end to a 48-year dictatorship and to a colonial rule that had lasted over 500 years, laying the foundations of modern democracy in Portugal. While the Carnation Revolution’s contribution to the democratisation of the country is widely accepted in contemporary Portugal, the same does not apply to the decolonisation process. The manner in which the independence of the former colonies was negotiated remains one of the most contested issues in Portugal to this day. The purpose of this chapter is to analyse the decolonisation narrative offered in the TV series Depois do Adeus, which was broadcast on Portugal’s first public channel RTP1 in 2013. I will argue that although this series is one of the first attempts to outline a cultural memory of decolonisation, it remains basically attached to a rewriting of history from the point of view of the so-called retornados⏤former settlers who were forced to abandon their African homes after independence. In its commitment to morally rehabilitating the retornados, the series misses the opportunity to develop a consensual memory of the decolonisation process.
