There is a crucial historical moment in the collective existence of the Portuguese, when after being invested as king by the three states, in 1495, D. Manuel, fulfilling the designs of the perfect prince, his predecessor, asked his council if we should go to India. As the chronicler João de Barros tells us, the answer he obtained was negative, dominated by the fears of the dangers and uncertainties of the Ocean Sea. However, hearing the counselors, he had no doubt in deciding to continue to continue. “Finally El-Rei settled to continue this discovery; and then, being in Estremoz, he told Vasco da Gama, nobleman of his house, by the captain of the candles he had to send to him, his confidence he had of his person as having a timeline on this trip.” And so we can understand the discoveries as the demand for new stops and new peoples, as well as the finding of ourselves and the first time in the history of humanity of a global world capable of realizing the dialogue between the peoples of the West and the East and the recognition of the same dignity for all people.
In this way, D. Manuel, the venturous, would become the first global monarch, in what Arnold Toynbee designated as the gamic era, considering the arrival of Vasco da Gama to India a unique moment in the opening of horizons to consider humanity as one. As much as some want to devalue the event, the truth is that everything then changed to the face of the earth. One day at UNESCO, António Alçada Baptista asked some navigation critics, how it would have been possible to ensure the universal recognition of human rights without this decisive step. And Eduardo Lourenço has taught us to understand that, more than talking about glory or disappointment, we must look forward and assume today’s responsibilities with all consequences.
We are ourselves, with all that is required now, neither better nor worse than others, knowing how to deal with virtues and defects – without false messianisms. And if there are serious lessons to take, since we cannot redo the past history, it is important to make it clear that there are two domains in which we should not transit: the refusal of improvisation, and the requirement of preparation and planning; as well as the recognition of the importance of education and science, learning and experience, “the whole knowledge of experiences done”. The infants D. Pedro and D. Henrique acted in coherence and complementarity according to a common goal. And we have to be clear about the recognition of the importance of planning, the concern we find in the chronicle of the guinea de Zurara achievements that is mirrored in the living testimony of Pedro Nunes, Garcia de Orta and D. João de Castro. “There is no doubt that the navigations of this hundred year kingdom to this part: are the greatest: most wonderful: of the highest and most discreet conjectures: than those of no other people in the world,” as Pedro Nunes said.
Chance does not dictate development, it requires willingness, determination and evaluation to define the way and to correct setbacks and doubts. This is why the Indian plan was talking about what was not a matter of the past, but teaching for the present and future, regarding non -illusions, but the consideration of current questions, linked to the necessary weighting of what has to be done for human progress.
Executive Administrator of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation