Free Nonsense

The roots of Brazil and Portuguese heritage

* By José Celso Freire Júnior

The Brazilian family of Buarque de Holanda is not unknown to the Portuguese. Especially Francisco... so much is the sea! But Chico’s father (Sérgio) and uncle (Aurélio) both brought important contributions to the Brazilian culture.

Sérgio Buarque de Holanda was a historian who wrote one of the most important books on the fight for a Brazilian identity. Raízes do Brasil (Roots of Brazil) was innovative in the sense that it chose to value and not despise cultural heritage. To value does not mean assuming a self-congratulatory or an acritical attitude before the harm that was caused during the formation of the country. But its main value lies in an implicit idea-force: the future of the country cannot be planned against what we are. Denying the self is an illusion, a trap that forces us to the ground. To know the past and to interpret it is a condition for what we may call “epistemological autonomy”. No country is a blank sheet of paper...

Even for those who don’t know the book, it is easy to imagine how much of Portugal is in it. In a game of to’s and fro’s, some questions are analysed, such as: the “peripheral” situation of Portugal in Europe during the Discovery times; the difference between the Portuguese and the Spanish in their colonial efforts; the implications for Brazil of the differences between the valorisation of the Iberians’ adventures, as opposed to the typical valorisation that the retired have towards work. But it is the concept of cordial man proposed by Sérgio Buarque de Holanda I would like to focus on. 

According to him, that cordiality is far from signifying civility or politeness. Sometimes it can mean exactly the opposite, for it comes from “cordes”, which means "heart"!  There are aspects about this man that aren’t so modern, such as his tendency to see the State as a continuity of the family (patriarchal, rural and colonial) and, consequently, his difficulty, as a holder of public positions, in distinguishing between what is public and what is private. In his words: “... a lack of impersonal management that characterizes life in the bureaucratic State”.

However, on the other hand, Holanda considers that the cordial man is the greatest Brazilian contribution to civilization because, as an archetype of man, it represents a type of refusal for some features that today are hegemonic: the standardisation, the impersonality and objectified relationships. Using the concept of MarcuseIt. it is a refusal of the unidimensionalisation of the human being. My experiences in Portugal tell me that many of this cordial man’s features still persist in Brazil and in Portugal. There are features that unite us, both Portuguese and Brazilian, and that are bigger than the language. And those are apparent in our way of being and in the way we live, in the refusal to live regulatory shapes and procedures that castrate the spontaneous. 

The press says that Brazilians are welcome anywhere in the world (or in most countries...). And that is because of their kindness, their ability to integrate and their joy. As stated by Ruy Guerra, "The Brazilian is found in joy", and in joy we also meet other people. But it is also true that for the “ideal type” that is the concept of cordial man, even sadness is preferable to the tasteless satisfaction of the sameness without passion.

My stay in Porto allowed me to savour the going back and forth of the influences of the matrix of the cordial man for its fruits overseas. Yes, the Portuguese heritage defined numberless features of the Brazilian people. Yes, we have inherited the interest in helping, the disposition for a good conversation and for friendship. These characteristics, among others, have shaped the Brazilian personality and have defined our place in joy. Or in sadness. But not in indifference.

The Portuguese living in Brazil and their closer descendents need to revise their “little land” from time to time. The will to go back, I have inherited too. Yet another way to fight indifference. And to feed joy.