He is said to have been a “soldier”, a metaphor for the warlike and monastic will of the spirit of service
Agostinho da Silva (1906-1994) allegorically gave himself the nickname “sailor”, a figure of an argonaut at the helm who overcomes storms and torments, yielding to the discipline of the sea and detached from vile things in order to exercise and trust in the absolute freedom of being himself, being the whole world, because “man dreams, the work is born”. It doesn’t matter if it’s a “short life”, the important thing is to be big for the “long sea”, because “Sailing is necessary; living is not”. Since every navigating being is interested in learning how to navigate – conceived as a dramatic action of learning to become the author and actor of his Being-navigating – he was certainly a man with an Oceanic Soul.
He is said to have been a “soldier”, a metaphor for the warrior and monastic will of the spirit of service, acting in an orderly and integrative way so as to awaken people’s vocation to be, each one of them, poets at large, fulfilling this mission with all their heart and all their intellect. A personality with a “convertible life” who “did not limit himself to having ideas, but to being the ideas he had”, he gave himself the chance to make his life a work in dialogue in which opposites harmonize, because true understanding occurs when unity is variety. Variety in unity is the supreme law of the universe.
Unable to be comfortable in the “style of the predictable”, Augustine never surrendered to facts that were not true and knew how to reject them when they contradicted his own nature, which is that of full, infinite and inescapable freedom. He was also a “knight-errant” of astonishing erudition and an acute sense of politics, having spread his poetic thinking in various quarters, based on philosophical and spiritual knowledge, which has the potential to inspire and guide individuals. Like a “genius”, he infected everyone with an unusual cheerfulness, free from the constraints of time and space.
Augustine was “a kind shepherd of dreams, an energetic and patient gardener of hope”
Loyal to his diverse and complex ideas, many of them paradoxical, and to his multifaceted philosophy, devoted to a certain critical thinking – which has said a lot about Lusophone culture [lusofônica], about the Portuguese language [inflamada e inflamante], which has become a comprehensive linguistic code, demarcating a specific territory that offers itself as a way of carrying out all kinds of activities, be they political, scientific, environmental, cultural or pedagogical – and faithful to Ethics, the basis for human conduct and for the ecumen, he thus fulfilled his desire to be a “master” of a safe and convertible life added to the beauty of the world.
Precisely because he was aware of the barbarism that had been spreading throughout the world for a long time and was often fomented in an execrable way, Augustine, being “a kind shepherd of dreams, an energetic and patient gardener of hope”, was calling for a “human, universal republic”, governed by the gifts of the Holy Spirit [o ser irmão do mundo] and driven by an “aristocracy of the heart”, in which all men, without distinction, would be free to enjoy both material pleasures (food, education, health and leisure) and spiritual pleasures – because, right now, we should (and need to) move closer to an era in which the economic structure ensures the freedom to be what you are in “creative leisure”.
Culture of Peace (so currently heralded): democratic structures and planetary commitment
On this Augustinian path, everyone could contribute their “spark of fire” [análoga às “Índias interiores”] to bring about the emergence of a time of self-belief and respect for others, making the whole of life a re-ligare and a manifestation of art and science. This would be nothing more than the establishment of the Universal Brotherhood, equivalent to the establishment of the Culture of Peace (so currently heralded): democratic structures and planetary commitment, stripping away the material refinements and superfluous everyday life of modern man.
This is the Augustinian force of destiny: an intrinsic energy connected to a deeper essence that drives each individual towards a unique destiny of contributing to a just, compassionate and spiritually enriching greater good, and meaningful expression and fulfillment that transcends (self-)imposed limitations. In this path of dreams and hope, in which “the world always ends up doing what the poets dreamed of”, Augustine challenged the mentality of his time (by then already an anti-modern modernity), which was predominantly materialistic, competitive, individualistic, technicist and technocratic, submissive to the tyranny of the law and financial dictators.
In the time of the Augustinian bonanza, everyone would be guaranteed human rights, equity and compassionate solidarity. This corresponds to the consolidation of the Kingdom of the Holy Spirit where a state of elevated collective consciousness would be established (an era of realization of the ecumene in which human beings would transcend limits and unite in a common quest for freedom and equal rights), a period of cultural renewal that would involve all of humanity [em seu potencial humano], restoring ethics and universal values, as opposed to the decadence and moral imbalance, materialism and corruption of contemporary societies conformed to the sameness of homogeneity. Even if this kingdom appears to us as an Augustinian philosophical metaphor, it is a utopia of the possible [porque necessária para realizamo-nos como humanidade] full of a discursive tonic of the consciousness of civilization, mediated by democracy and justice, id est, criticism of the present and a new arrangement of the present elements to give rise, renewed, to another “spring dawn of ideal freedom”, because “what is truly traditional is the invention of the future”.
The power to change the world lies with us, and not with the structures of the system.
You can’t live outside the system, but it’s perfectly feasible not to be engendered by it, because “the important thing is to never stop questioning” – and Augustine did this well in his continuous alethopoietic mode, challenging the established paradigms because he was a free thinker who didn’t submit to dogmatic limitations or rigid boundaries of knowledge. Therefore, any transformation will depend on reforming mentalities in order to mobilize cooperative actions to put an end to fear, weapons, repression and the tyranny of the law. It is from us, and not from the structures of the system, that lies the power to change the world, to give birth to another, more perfect human organization, with no cultural restrictions, no government coercion, no ownership of men and land. All of this can be achieved gradually and through the fraternal effort of everyone in the power of destiny.
This force of destiny was crucial, it was like a guide that even impregnated Augustine’s idea of an Education [integral] of constructive convergence of knowledge [the supreme good, because it is the key to all goods] for the reinvention of new horizons and for freedom, so that the individual would not be a simple machine wheel, resisting any kind of subjection that prevents people from thinking and having initiative, but a vigilante in defense of the oppressed.
As for the educators, he gave them the responsibility of nurturing and guiding this force of destiny in each student
Its pedagogical approach, aligned with humanist values, philosophical principles and spirituality, encompassed the possibilities of communion and understanding of human complexity with concrete implications for everyday life, promoting an intellectual education closely associated with the emotional, social, cultural and spiritual development of the individual, giving them the opportunity to discover their qualities as much as possible and, at the same time, integrating them more deeply into the social group. As for educators, he gave them the responsibility of nurturing and guiding this force of destiny in each student, providing an environment that encouraged inner searching and the discovery of life’s purpose in the deeper understanding of existence. This meant going beyond the mere transmission of academic knowledge to cultivate an education that awakened curiosity, passion and commitment to deeper, nobler values.
With special attention to children, the master Augustine said, with intellectual humility, but with a “wisdom that transcended the intellect”, that we need an education that is open to nature, a source of inspiration and learning; focused on play, creativity, artistic expression, a culture of active listening and dialogue, because “the world advances to the extent that someone asks” in order to always think the unthought. The topicality of his pedagogical notes on educational practices is unequivocal and corroborates the need to transform mentalities, which implies a review of political and social structures that neglect the human dimension, the Being of the human being.
In addition, Agostinho had a foresight into the future of an economic collaboration bloc that would eventually unite Africa (continent), Brazil and China, forming what he called the “ABC policy”.
Augustine, an exceptional being – a “total man” or a “man of the world” – let his “spirit run wild” appear, fulfilling “the project of the dream or the dream of the project” or what I call the reason that dreams or the dream of reason, giving him an overflowing ethos. As the great visionary that he was, he foresaw the collapse of the Portuguese colonies and outlined the main lines of Brazil’s independent foreign policy, not only in Asia but also in Africa.
Apart from all the attributions given to Agostinho da Silva by a huge number of researchers who have looked into his work and those already mentioned, it is inevitable to attribute to him – who “was the most remarkable Portuguese of the second half of the twentieth century, just as Fernando Pessoa was of the first”. the genius idea of setting up the Community of Portuguese Language Countries (CPLP), which is fundamental to the Lusophony that he envisioned as solidarity between transcontinental, multi-ethnic and multi-cultural communities.
He also foresaw the future of an economic collaboration bloc that would, over time, unite Africa (continent), Brazil and China, forming what he called the “ABC policy” and to which I direct that force of destiny, re-signifying it: a call to intertwine trade routes that, by boosting the potential development of each region, would promote a more supportive and collaborative relationship towards shared economic objectives and, consequently, bring about a positive social transformation that would include all the parties involved. Agostinho expressed his belief that the African continent would be “the great land of the future”, with the participation of Brazil and China, and would have all the conditions for great development.
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“It is possible to match the acronym ABC with the acronym BRIC, created in 2001 by economist Jim O’Neill of Goldman Sachs, whose initials refer to Brazil, Russia, India and China. Later, the letter “S” was added to refer to South Africa. Perhaps the BRICS will redraw development poles in the international system through the formalization of agreements and similar economic measures in a world that is already multipolar as opposed to the imperialist scenario it needs to combat.”
Agostinho was convinced that Brazil is the model of the future in terms of population mixing.
It was through Agostinho’s inventiveness that Brazil was able to recognize its Luso-African roots and that the engine of its affirmation in the world would be the Portuguese language, above all, in a new civilizational paradigm of human sympathy, artistic imagination, religious syncretism, appetite for life, social inclusion and cultural revival. He was convinced that Brazil is the model of the future in terms of the mix of populations and convinced us that what makes Brazil is its diversity. In other words, Brazil is a certain unusual invention of homeland and country that conceives a race by mixing the others. He believed that Brazil had a promised future, provided, he said, that we knew how to build it.
With an adventurous spirit, similar to that of the best of the Portuguese Renaissance, “an investigator of arts, souls, ideas and ideals”, the Portuguese-Brazilian Agostinho da Silva sowed his astonishing erudition on both sides of the Atlantic, bringing it to fruition. He founded several study centers around the world and during his 25 years in Brazil he helped create higher education institutions, such as the University of Brasilia, where he established the Brazilian Center for Portuguese Studies. Uninterruptedly, he made present in his poetic thinking a “generous civilizing theory” in force of destiny, which results in his moral reference in the contemporary Lusophone panorama: a vagrant poet forever to be.
