Agostinho Neto´s centenary celebrations open with conferences in Portugal

Lisbon - An international colloquium called ”Sou um dia em noite escura” (I am a day in dark night), framed in the celebrations of the Centenary of Agostinho Neto, was held on 9 and 10 September in the city of Porto, Portugal.

The conference, attended by the Ambassador of Angola to Portugal, Carlos Alberto Fonseca, was organized by the Faculty of Arts at the University of Porto, with the support of the Angolan Diplomatic Mission.

 

At the opening of the colloquium, the Ambassador Carlos Alberto Fonseca underlined the importance of the event as a sublime tribute to the presence and participation of distinguished academics, professors, essayists, poets, authors and scholars of the world of letters, who honour with their knowledge the study of the life and work of that man, whose poetic dimension impregnated his life, his destiny and the heroic saga of resistance, struggle and affirmation of an entire people, against an atrocious and anachronistic system of domination, until the proclamation and affirmation of the Independence of Angola.

 

For the diplomat, we cannot speak about Agostinho Neto as a politician without making reference to its poetical dimension, that it was part of its being as a political figure and statesman.

 

Carlos Alberto Fonseca also highlighted that one cannot read Agostinho Neto´s poetry without understanding its human and politics dimension, its convictions, motivations of tireless fighter for the freedom, bonding man and to the same time a key of the main values to the honour of the human dignity, with the universality dimension.

 

On Friday, at one of the high points of the colloquium, professor Pires Laranjeira and the College of Letters of Porto University were honored by the Angolan Embassy in Portugal, as a form of recognition for the committed way as they have helped to promote the workmanship and the figure of Agostinho Neto.

 

Pires Laranjeira, a recognized academic of the Coimbra University, has been one of the main investigators and promoters of the role and the importance that Agostinho Neto had, not only for Angola, but also for the world.

 

On its turn, the College of Sciences of Porto University, just over a year ago unveiled an Agostinho Neto Cathedral, showing itself always open to receive initiatives that help to promote and to publicise the figure of the Angolan first President.

 

In the programme, elaborated for the professors Francisco Topa from the College of Science of Porto University and Abreu Paxe from the Higher Institute of Educational Sciences of Luanda (ISCED), different interventions of research specialists towards the passage of Agostinho Neto were included.

 

Of the programme, prominence was given to Ana Maria Martinho from the Nova Lisboa University, Ana Ribeiro, to Luigia de Crescenzo, from the Minho University, to Nazir Ahmed Can from Rome University, to Roberto Vecchi from the Barcelona Autonomous University, to Xosé Lois García from the Bologna University, and to Francisco Topa from the Porto University.

 

The conference was attended by speakers of different countries who had presented topics and debated with different visions on the figure, the thought and the work of Agostinho Neto.

 

The closing of the colloquium was marked with the inauguration, this Saturday, of a photographic exhibition called “Angolans holding hands for the future”, followed by the distribution of a biography of Agostinho Neto.

 

The same photographic exhibition continues open to the public until 19 September, in the Military Museum of OPorto, where Agostinho Neto was detained.