Revolution & Dictatorship (Bastille Day)

This is Lisbon's monument to the Carnation Revolution of 25 April 1974 which overthrew 48 years of ultra-conservative dictatorship.
The sun is setting behind it.
In the background you see the lowest part of a white stone column, which you can see more of reflected in the water in the last photo below.

What the pics don't show is how the Revolution monument is more or less of a ruin. People who don't know what it is mistake it for a ruin, as it depicts so well something either incomplete, or failed, lost in time.

On the other hand, the column, which is one of a pair, standing imperiously looking down on the almost apologetic, humble "Revolution", was built decades ago, both bearing the artistic stamp of fascist propaganda. Tall, prominent, clean, naked, bland, white; AUTHORITY.
The question seems to be from the combined monuments: "So what's changed? Who won?"



And what is this, rising up out of the ruin? An ejaculating male organ? Why? What does this mean in relation to the revolution?

Questions from the outsider; almost no answers from the insiders. Most people reply that they'd never thought about the twin towers like that, and that they like them. Don't want to see them demolished, because they would miss them.
Once I was nearby and I noticed a well-known left-wing Portuguese historian there. I asked him about the monuments, what he thought. He remains the only person ever to tell me that he wished the towers were dismantled, that the revolution had a more meaningful monument and that - biggest "mistake" of all - it had never been constructed between those towers, where the symbolism of the two phenomena were so negatively juxtaposed.



So, in the end, it doesn't matter that much to anyone.








But I shot photos of the reflection of the tower very deliberately, to depict what I'd like to see happen to both of them!