Call for Freedom – Avante!

It is the first week of September and we've been expecting this since the first week of last year's September. From first timers to veterans, everyone is getting ready for six minutes of pure joy, five days of pure freedom and many red flags. Founded on 1976 as commemoration of the ideal of the Communist party, it is taken by the militants of the party as a space for sharing and celebration and, by everyone else, as a place of pure anarchy and freedom. After a fight of over 50 years against the fascism in the country, the PCP – Partido Comunista Português (Portuguese Communist Party) founded a special holiday just for the people that join their voices to those of the workers. "Avante!" can be roughly translated from Portuguese as "Keep Going!" and that's the main objective. However, do we – non-militants, visitors, observers – really join this special political exclusive holiday for the values?

Nobody Gives you a Party like this Party

It's the first day and the camp site opens at 2 pm. It's 11 am, but the line to enter already goes around the block. What to do? Calls. With a couple of them, we easily locate a friend a bit further in the line. It's in the line that the first adventures start.
Even though the values of the party strive for simplicity, the bureaucracy starts at the entrance of the camp. It's rare for people that come to stay anywhere else: half of the party happens after the party is over, after all. First you have to register a tent: big or small. It is worthless to try to sneak up, because they will review all the tents and confirm each of them has as much people as it is allowed. Then you have to register yourself, inside a tent. Finally, they will give you a bracelet that allows you to enter and leave the camp any time. Usually the camp is filled during the first few hours. However, thank goodness!, the service is efficient. All the employees are volunteers. The Communist party in Portugal is composed only by dedicated people, that devout themselves to the militancy. In exchange, the party pays them dinners illustrated by conferences on the state of nation.

The party has a lot of activities, all organized by the militants of the party and volunteers. Only the security staff and urgency doctors are hired, but that's just because it's obligatory by law. If not, probably our safety would be in the hands of those who believe on the freedom.

We finally enter. It's now time to prepare the camp: we find our usual site (the group has been going for so many years that w have a tree marked with our power word), put up the tents, put down a protection on the floor and a couple of chairs and put up Christina, our symbol. Now when we say "we're under Christina" people will only have to follow the giant sunblind that has a picture of naked Christina Aguilera holding her guitar. But our family camp is not even near the most complex ones. They are always the same… The acid camp, that has house music playing constantly and, in front of it, the metal camp (that has black metal music playing constantly) are good examples. It's also common to find family camps, with tables, chairs and babies on it, not to mention camps from specific cities that announce themselves with banners or stolen road signs.

The party is waking up. The better is yet to come.

Life lasts for two days. Avante! lasts for three.

Thursday, the second day. But how, if the party lasts for the weekend? The truth is that the party itself goes from Friday to Sunday but remember: half of the party is outside it. In fact, there are even people that only come to the camp and ignore the party itself. Avante! is more than the events or the concerts. Above all, it's in the camp that everything happens. And Thursday 's night is known of being "the night".

The first thing to do is to get supplies. There is a supermarket 10 meters away, as well as a gas station and a village with many coffee shops. However we must get everything as soon as possible, not counting with what we brought from home. Because by the night of Friday everything will be out of stock. Except for the bread and other cereal based food, all the essential needs (like beer, vodka and cigarettes) will be sold out in an instant.

The second thing is to get contacts for the other essential supplies. Avante! is to go forward and, in front, we'll find freedom. If we meet people that we already know from past years they will get us to other people and so on till we get to the desired objects. Some of them are easier to find, but those we don't need, those we can bring from home. We want to stock for the future, not only for the camp, but that's almost impossible. MDMA, LSD, Speed, White, Tablets, that's what we'll search for right after. The various categories of marijuana and its components are not even up for sale, it's a known fact that everybody has them. Eventually someone will smoke all of their stock and look for more, but besides that, the most that happens are trades (pollen for acorn, for example) or giveaways.

If at first it may seem easy to get all of this, a party of mad people just tripping around a camp site, the reality is that it's quite complicated to get the more desired things. Sometimes they are out of stock everywhere in the world because the plant that produces them produced less due to lack of rain season. Sometimes, the main dealer simply could not come to the party. However in this camp the trades and sales are not for profit. Discounted rates are usual for the most common substances: it's what we call the "Avante! price".

Drinking and smoking are just the appetizers for the night. When the hard substances come, great adventures start appearing. From finding lost children under lumps of ground to talking with fish made of sand, passing by hunting fellow campers and trying to cross fences guarded by security. Everything happens. Only fighting is rare. The environment of this holiday does not permit fighting; it does not fit the overall feeling. It's misplaced. So many adventures happen for each of us that it would be impossible to refer all of them. It's more than a trip. It's a connection with the very own feeling of the party. It's freedom.

A Title for Solidarity

At last the Friday! After the mad night of Thursday we need some relaxed moments, this time outside the camp. We can access the party place with an EP (Permanent Entrance), that we have to buy before the party. The last day to buy it is Monday, and we can get it at the Centers of Work of the PCP. They are small offices, usually with a place for people to drink their coffee and chat for a while, where the militants gather to discuss about things that matter to them, like unemployment and the state of the nation. What is odd about these places is that everyone treats you, a mere visitor, like a prospective member for their club, almost like a cult. It's not an expensive ticket, for three days of what we could call a music festival with political events in the between. And it's needed, or else the party could not be done every year.

Unlike the bracelet for the camp, the EP is impossible to falsify. It has protection seals in various areas and stamped at the entrance of the camp, in case you're camping. But the space for the party is so big that it's not hard to find a leak in security and jump in.

So, what do we have at the party? A variety of stages and selling booths. On the stages, national and invited "revolutionary" bands play and sing about political freedom and oppression. Once in a while a speaker rises to stage and talks. About political freedom and oppression. And unemployment, taxes and other things that should be important for us. The selling booths deliver national products. They are divided by regions. Lisbon is a good one, where many traditional restaurants are located. Sintra has an important stage for feminist militants. Santarém is also very important, because it sells very cheap national wine. The food, as we can't bring none to the enclosure, is also an important element. Traditional dishes are served in many regions, but they also have KFC and Pizza Hut, which is just a little bit on the ironic side, considering that the party is the holiday of Communism.

Six Minutes of Pure Joy

Every night concerts are delivered at the main stage, except for Saturday in which half of the concerts are replaced by the president of the Communist party talking about something. We usually play cards – or Uno – during that moment. Other three stages deliver concerts: New Values (for assorted rock and metal bands), Origins (for the most organic and tribal music) and Ribatejo. Ribatejo is a special one, because it's also an area of the country. So, besides the stage, it also has a restaurant and panels about political issues. Everything hits this stage, from the most traditional percussion to the less orthodox electronics. At 5 pm, the main stage officially opens, closing at about 1 am after the last concert. Saturday is the second "the night", and that's because we are already in the mood for the song that opens and closes the stage: the Carvalhesa (roughly translated, "oaktreellese")

The song is the personification of every value of this holiday. It's first beat marks immediately the mood and everybody starts running to the space in front of the stage. Then, they start dancing. Jumping around, arms on the arms of each other. Everyone is a friend, even if it's the first time you've seen them. Everyone, from the older lady to the smallest child that has just learned to walk, is invaded by the song. By the half, it suddenly turns mad, repeating the same round gallop. And everyone follows it, everyone goes completely mad and dance without any control. It's not possible to have any control.

And when it stops, it feels like life is brighter and fuller.

Saturday's Carvalhesas are precisely the middle two. They represent the core of the party. Everyone is already so drugged and drunk from the days before that reality, fantasy and altered conscience mix into the same sense of joy and fun. It's the only place where you are free to look at the moon and to truly see an old lady there. Also the only place where you don't care anymore on where you step or sit, because vomit is already part of the background. Not to mention the fainted people and ambulances coming up and down. Saturday is the hell of urgency care services.

The Fight Continues

Finally, Sunday. We are not alive anymore. The restaurants and coffee shops are starting to get slowly back to normal, by cleaning their toilets for the first time in four days. Next day, in the early morning, the responsible for the camp will start waking people up and expelling them. This is the last night, but we can't really enjoy it anymore. Our time beyond the gates of the enclosure will be spent sleeping (for our great grace, the floor is cleaned every night. And the toilets too. Or else…), smoking the remains, enjoying the sun and doing our last sales on hippie objects. Except when the last Carvalhesa sounds. The last one is special. We raise up on our last effort, cough out a piece of a lunge and release ourselves into this last ritual dance. Six minutes already filled with the sadness of parting.
But the fight will continue. Next year, same time, the holiday will be back. With the same habits and the same little rituals, but so many different small details.

Next year there will be more!

Many of us, me included, live half of the remaining year thinking about how great the last Avante! was. The other half is lived thinking about how great the next Avante! will be. Maybe for those that do not come it will just seem a reunion of mad potheads and political dinosaurs, but we truly believe that this is a remarkable holiday.

A small laboratory for anarchy, a tiny piece of freedom, a place to be away from the real world for a while, but surrounded with real people. The feeling of absolute that it delivers is impossible to explain. So all I can do is to tell you to take off 5 days of work, leave your political views at home and come. Then, you will truly understand and when asked what Avante! is you'll also answer "it's a five day holiday, every September"

References
http://ciencianafesta.blogspot.com/1976/09/1-festa-1976.html
http://www.festadoavante.pcp.pt
http://www.pcp.pt/index.php (how odd, for a Communist party to have a website. But I guess that there are some things even the most purist militants have to give in…)
http://www.avante.pt/