goanet-digest Wednesday, May 1 2002 Volume 01 : Number 3916
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In this issue:
Re: [Goanet] Mental health -- a Goan myth
Re: [Goanet] Merry Month Of May.
[Goanet] Stars in the sky
[Goanet] Indo-Portuguese-Canadian film project with a Goan backdrop
[Goanet] Dinesh =?iso-8859-1?Q?D=92Souza:?= Assimilation of immigrants in the
West.
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Date: Wed, 01 May 2002 22:24:32 +0000
From: "Tim de Mello" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: [Goanet] Mental health -- a Goan myth
>From: "Jorge/Livia de Abreu Noronha" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
in response to this
- ----- Original Message -----
From: "M Mascarenhas" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
. . . I met a mechanic friend of mine who told me he was migrating to
Portugal. He was very excited about his plans. I asked him how long it had
taken for him to process his papers for a Portuguese passport. A few months,
he said, and I was so distracted by his reply, that one of the cutters
managed to slip in ahead of me. The mechanic confided that the entire
process had been expedited because he paid an agent in Lisbon 500 USD to
follow up on that end. . . . "
said:
"...It is not fair to give an idea that there is some "underhand" business
going on."
and
"I cannot accept that there is place for bribery at the top level at the
"Conservatoria"."
So if M Mascarenhas could kindly get more information from her mechanic
friend, . . . "
=========
I didn't think that Margaret was suggesting anything underhanded like
bribery. A fee was paid to an agent to follow up on an application.
In order to expedite a Canadian Citizenship application one can hire an
agent who "knows the ropes". The agents charge a fee for this service. There
is nothing underhanded about this.
Looks like the mechanic used a similar agent. No/Yes?
Have I got the wrong end of the stick? Won't be the first time!
Tim de Mello
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Ontario, CANADA
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Date: Wed, 01 May 2002 22:44:52 +0000
From: "Tim de Mello" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: [Goanet] Merry Month Of May.
Daniel this sounds like fun.
My experience of May weather was not so exciting. I was there in 1998 with
two of my boys to celebrate my Dad's 90th birthday (May 25). Everyone was
very uncomfortable. We nevertheless had fun.
But I can share one experience with you. The fans were next to useless. When
the electricity was working, all that the fans did was blow hot air.
I did not find many other Goans celebrating . . . in Anjuna.
Tim de Mello
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Ontario, CANADA
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Date: Wed, 1 May 2002 13:06:22 -0400
From: "Mervyn Lobo" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [Goanet] Stars in the sky
Sunila Muzawar wrote:
>Can you really see many stars in the sky in Canada ?
The answer, of course, depends from what part of Canada you look at the sky.
If you go up north, there are no stars in the sky for a couple of months.
The sun does not set there and the is actually no 'night' in summer.
The other place where you do not see stars, are the large cities. The light
pollution is sufficient enough to erase all but the brightest stars from the
sky.
But then again, the national passtime here, is to go camping/cottageing.
That's when one realizes that one is almost amongst the stars and that this
country is almost heaven :-)
Mervyn
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Date: Thu, 02 May 2002 00:59:01 GMT
From: Eddie Fernandes <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [Goanet] Indo-Portuguese-Canadian film project with a Goan backdrop
Headline: Week-long Canadian film festival from May 9.
Press Trust of India. 30 April 2002
New Delhi, Apr 30 (PTI) A week-long festival of Canadian cinema, showcasing
films made by directors of South Asian origin and others, opens here next
week.
The festival, organised by the Canadian High Commission and the
Indo-Canadian Films International will open on May 9 with Indian born Nisha
Pahuja's debut film 'Bollywood Bound', Gautam Hooja, president of
Indo-Canadian Films International said on Tuesday.
The festival was an attempt to bring Indo-Candian ties closer through the
medium of cinema, he told reporters at a media preview of the festival.
"Canada and India are on the verge of signing a co-production treaty and
the Information Minister, Mrs Sushma Swaraj has been very positive about
it," he said.
The treaty, if signed, would allow exchange of talent and technical
expertise by both countries. Canada has signed such treaties with 50
countries in the world. The Canadian model of movie funding had been
appreciated internationally. An Indo-Portuguese-Canadian project with a
Goan backdrop was also in the pipeline, he said.
The festival will screen films like Danny in the Sky, Between the Moon and
Montevideo by award winning Director, Attila Bertalan and Protection by
Bruce Spangler and conclude on May 15 with 'Fade to Black' directed by
Rohan Fernando, who is of Sri Lankan origin.
Don't forget - you saw it on GoaNet!
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Date: Thu, 02 May 2002 01:12:55 GMT
From: Eddie Fernandes <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [Goanet] Dinesh =?iso-8859-1?Q?D=92Souza:?= Assimilation of immigrants in
the West.
Dinesh D�Souza has been in the news this week. He has just had a new book
published 'What's So Great About America,' (Regnery, April 2002). The
Christian Science Monitor, 26 Apr. carried a review. See:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0426/p11s01-coop.html
For more info about the book or for D�Souza�s biodata and photograph, go to
http://www.dineshdsouza.com/
More photographs of him are at:
http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=Dinesh+D%27Souza&btnG=Google+Search
...........................................
Dinesh D�Souza has written a provocative article in the 30 Apr. issue of
Financial Times (UK) entitled �European countries struggling to assimilate
immigrants should look to the US for ways to minimise ethnic tensions.�
Full text:
The uproar over Jean-Marie Le Pen in Europe has most Americans intrigued
but not worried. America has its own Le Pen. He is the author, television
personality and sometime presidential candidate Patrick Buchanan. Unlike Mr
Le Pen, however, Mr Buchanan commands the support of only about 1 per cent
of the American people.
The reason for this is that the US has found a more successful model for
dealing with immigrants than most European countries. The French, in
particular, can learn a lot from the US's way of attracting people from all
over the world and then allowing them to "become American".
"Becoming American" is, I admit, a strange concept. Many countries would
find the very idea incomprehensible. For instance, an American could come
to my native country of India and live there for 30 years. He could even
take Indian citizenship. But he could not, in any meaningful sense, "become
Indian". You become Indian by being born in India to Indian parents.
By contrast, millions of people have come to the US over the years and they
have become Americans. This process takes time: in some cases assimilation
does not happen until the second or third generation. This was true of the
Irish, the Italians and the Jews who came to America a century ago and it
is also true of the Koreans, the Pakistanis and the West Indians who come
to America today.
The reason why assimilation works is that America has a common culture that
is not defined ethnically and is, in principle, open to all. In addition,
America has found a formula for deflecting ethnic consciousness and
steering the energies of people towards something else. That something else
is commerce. America is fundamentally a commercial society. The only
"right" mentioned in the original constitution prior to the addition of the
Bill of Rights is the right to patents and copyrights.
The American Founders did not want to import into their new nation the
religious and ethnic battles that had divided and nearly destroyed Europe.
Drawing on the teachings of John Locke, they arrived at a novel solution:
to focus the daily lives of citizens not on denominational controversy or
ancestral disputes but on bettering their condition and making money.
The American approach is expressed in Samuel Johnson's remark: "Men are
never as harmlessly occupied as when they are getting money." The basic
logic is that people who are saving to make an addition to their kitchen,
who are planning for the weekend or for their annual holiday, who are
watching their port-folios, are not going to waste their time duelling over
religion or ethnicity, or over whether someone else's ancestors wronged
their ancestors.
Of course, this portrait is somewhat idealised. Racial and religious
tensions do erupt in America. Many African-Americans feel excluded from the
top echelons of commerce and their activists want financial reparations for
historical wrongs. Still, the commercial experiment in America continues to
work remarkably well. Look at New York City. It is a place teeming with
racial, religious, linguistic, stylistic and even moral diversity. One
might expect it to be a cauldron of conflict. In reality it is a peaceful
and prosperous place.
A second reason for America's success is that it is a merit-based society
in which who you are is much less important than what you can do. Another
way to put this is that Americans usually judge people, as Martin Luther
King put it, "not by the colour of their skin but by the content of their
character". Once again, I am not suggesting that this American ideal is
always respected in practice. Discrimination is a reality - but what
distinguishes America is the supreme effort that the country has made to
reduce the scope of nepotism and discrimination and to increase the scope
of opportunity and merit.
Mr Buchanan and his fellow nativists allege that the US has too many
immigrants. They say that immigrants take the jobs of native-born Americans
because they are willing to do the same job for less. This is undoubtedly
true but America's low un-employment rate shows there is plenty of work for
everyone. Moreover, the relatively cheap labour of immigrants allows
consumers to benefit from cheaper products.
Americans also know that immigrants will clean homes, serve as nannies and
pick strawberries - jobs that American-born workers are reluctant to do.
Last, immigrant doctors, engineers and computer programmers bring needed
skills to the country and help to keep America the most inventive and
dynamic economy in the world.
As with Mr Le Pen, Mr Buchanan's most resonant argument against immigration
is not economic but cultural. The immigrants, he says, are corrupting
American values and eroding the American way of life. As proof, he points
to high rates of crime and illegitimacy, the vulgarity of popular culture
and so on. These are legitimate social concerns - but who has caused such
cultural decline? Not the immigrants but the natives. In many cases,
immigrants bring values of hard work, self-discipline, deferred
gratification and family unity that can provide a moral lesson to
native-born Americans.
None of this is to say that the problem of immigration has been solved in
the US. Some immigrants come to the US looking not for economic opportunity
but for the hand-outs made available by the welfare state. In some parts of
California and Texas, immigrants seem reluctant to assimilate; and
multicultural activists urge them not to give up their native language and
native culture. These unfortunate developments help to strengthen
anti-immigrant sentiment in America.
Still, the US has avoided the Le Pen problem. Indeed, America has
demonstrated that it is possible to have a successful multiracial society.
For Europeans who are frustrated with the situation of alienated,
undigested immigrant populations in their midst, there may be valuable
lessons to be learnt from the folk across the Atlantic.
===================
Don�t forget, you saw it on GoaNet!
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End of goanet-digest V1 #3916
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