Samuel, a Brazilian

I woke up shocked by the death of a giant: Samuel Pinheiro Guimarães. Samuel was not only one of the greatest diplomats of his generation, who held very important positions, such as Secretary-General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Minister-Chief of the Secretariat of Strategic Affairs of the Presidency of the Republic.

Samuel was also one of Brazil's great contemporary thinkers. His works, such as "Five Hundred Years of Periphery" and "Brazilian Challenges in the Age of Giants," contributed to identifying and analyzing the crucial issues that the country must overcome in order to develop.

Always very kind and generous, Samuel used to send me messages praising my writing and encouraging me to write more. He also used to send me his texts, asking for my feedback before publication, which, for me, was always an honor and a pleasure. I felt privileged.

One of the last texts Samuel sent me was Utopias: Brazil after the Pandemic. In this text, with his usual clarity and ability to summarize, Samuel wrote:

"The mega-utopia after the pandemic is to elect a government determined to execute a project for the majority of the Brazilian people, and not a project benefiting a mythical and insignificant market. An inclusive, tolerant project, from an efficient, dignified government, with the intense participation of Brazilian private enterprise, foreign capital, the State, and labor. Its utopian goals, to be pursued with firmness, prudence, and tenacity, should be:  

• a. to improve democracy in order to overcome the oligarchic-plutocratic political system;
• b. to accelerate development and redistribute income in order to overcome the colonial relationship of dependency;
• c. to promote social justice in order to overcome barbarism;
• d. to promote national sovereignty in order to free Brazil from abject submission to the Empire.”

Well, the first mega-utopia has already been realized. We managed to elect Lula, committed to a future project for the Brazilian people; not for the "market." Not for backward, rent-seeking oligarchies ideologically committed to an agrarian-export model. Now, all that remains is to do the rest. The rest that Brazil has been waiting for for over five hundred years, as Samuel identifies with his Cartesian rigor.

However, what struck me most about Samuel's thinking was not his analytical rigor. It was his passion for Brazil. His texts exuded an unwavering faith in Brazil and a profound contempt for the "mongrels" who always tried to keep the country small, dependent, peripheral, and backward.

Before becoming a diplomat and a qualified intellectual, Samuel was a great patriot. A true patriot. Not a patriot in the name of the Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF) jersey. He was someone deeply committed to the Brazilian people. Someone existentially committed to the utopia of a sovereign, developed, truly democratic and just country.  

There are very few left, very few, like him.  

With his death, a little bit of the best part of Brazil also dies.

I'll never see him again. That hurts.

But I will always see the clarity of his ideas and his luminous love for Brazil. That comforts me.