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Ms. Helga Gomes,
It is a pleasure to read a mail that is serious, honest and factual, something that is rare on goanet. You ask if you make sense. Well, you do, because you put forward your views in a rational way, without getting emotional about it, as happens to many contributors to goanet.I respect other peoples's views, when they are honestly expressed.
You mentioned my misconceptions about Indian Goans. Let me explain:
1. Brainwashing
After leaving Mozambique (where I was born), in 1977, I lived in Goa for some time, before settling in Portugal. You cannot begin to imagine the amount of provocations, derogatory remarks and plain abuse I had to endure from some of my colleagues at Loyola High School, just because I was a Portuguese national. Remarks about Portugal being a very poor and backward country were commonplace. Some even suggested Portugal was poorer than India, because in their minds, Goa developed after 1961 and Portugal...was left behind Goa and India! If you try and succeed in imagining yourself in my place, what conclusions would you draw? I concluded that such crap, told with conviction by 10th graders who had never been to Portugal, could only be the product of a refined brainwashing effort, carried out by the state-controlled education system, the state-controlled media and within the families (with people not realising that they were brainwashing and being brainwashed, to the extent that they believed and propagated a whole bunch of lies about Portugal).
How would you feel going through that experience? I knew both countries, so I knew that what I had to put up with was an outrage. At that time India was even poorer and more backward than it is today. Lisbon had as many cars as Bombay, the largest city of India (this is a statistical fact)! Bombay had not a single FM radio station, something we had in Mozambique since the sixties! Goa had no television broadcasting (must have been one of the last places on earth to get it).
Those same colleagues of mine offered to buy just about everything Portuguese that I had (!!!!), from used shoes to used jeans, watch, etc.
In Miramar, where I lived, we used to get a 2-hour water supply per day, from the mains, which meant opening the water tank of the building for 15 minutes every day! The daily power cut (sometimes several a day) was as certain as the visit of the baker. These are a few examples...
2. Goans's distinct identity
You claim that that identity is well preserved. I hope you are right. Only the future can tell. The catholics, who have more to loose from dilution into the hindu majority mainstream, don't seem to be worried about it. I Know of people that have traded portuguese surnames for hindu ones. Is that a necessity in order to integrate in India?
There is a hindu fundamentalist Govt. in India and in Goa. I don't know of any concerted effort by the christian minority, muslims, secular hindus, to oppose the saffron agenda.
But it's nice to know that you are self-assured, that you have a great sense of identity, "more than you need perhaps",and that I must not fear for it. One nagging doubt in my mind is whether you perceive Goan identity as being different / distinct (not opposed) from Indian identity, or whether you consider yourself one with the other 1000 million Indians. If that is the case, there is no point in discussing Goan identity, as you would definitely have given it up.
Rui Colla�o
From: "Helga do Rosario Gomes" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: [Goanet] flogging a very dead and decomposed horse Date: Tue, 18 Mar 2003 23:00:36 -0500
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Rui Collaco,
Unless you are new to the goanet this isn't a new topic of discussion - in
fact we are now flogging a very dead and decomposed horse! When this rotten
carcass makes its odiferous presence felt on the net occasionally (probably
from winter cabin fever) I tend to ignore it because I do not have anything
new to contribute to its decay.
But this time I felt I should set straight a few misconceptions that I did
not know that Goan-Portuguese or Portuguese -Goans had about Indians who
live in Goa. Like many others who you are arguing with these days I too
lived and was educated in Goa, spoke Portuguese because my parents were
educated in Goa but was too young to 'appreciate' the loss and void that you
think the Portuguese left behind. However as some others have already
impressed upon you we were never 'brainwashed' into thinking ill of our
colonizers. Maybe you should explain what you really mean by brainwashed
for I have heard it been used pretty broadly! Could it mean what the Ohm and
Asahara cult did to brilliant Tokyo Univ graduates - sent high voltage
shocks to their brains so they could work to make his sarin gas? I hope not.
Just plain barraging with misinformation like many dictators tend to do?
Maybe? Well just to set you straight neither of this happened - no one in my
school and in my college ever told me that Portugal was the backwaters of
prosperous Europe and that the Portuguese were a bunch of clods who ate only
dried cod. In fact and perhaps I should be complaining about this no one
told me anything about Portugal except perhaps in Geography class. So I had
absolutely no opinion about it. I have plenty of cousins and two uncles in
Lisbon - the former visited a lot and we loved to practice our Portuguese on
them but that is about it! So it follows that your second accusation that we
gave up our identify is also incorrect. Fear not, we have a great sense of
identify more than we need perhaps and are very self assured. Perhaps we do
not have the identify that you would like us to have but this is in itself
negates the meaning of identify doesnt it - am I seeing an oxymoron here? I
have no problems being raised an Indian, reading Indian literature,
listening to Indian food, hanging with my Indian friends and relishing our
wonderful cuisine just like I am sure you enjoy your life in Portugal! So
let us be - do not foist on us something we do not feel. Have a great life!
Yes, I did go to Portugal in 1998 to give a talk on remote sensing and
oceanography at a very well attended conference in Belem organized by NASA
and the European space agency when your country was celebrating its 'Year of
the oceans'. The European Union pumped a lot of money as did the Portuguese
government to put up a great show including the construction of a very
beautiful aquarium with if I remember right had at least 6 biomes - the
aquarium was conceptualized and designed by an American - yes the same
people who eat junk food and drive gas guzzlers. But I digress. Considering
that Portugal has been land of navigators and explorers I was surprised to
see that there were no Portuguese oceanographers giving talks and taking a
lead in discussions. I did feel hopeful when I some great and very eager
students all of who were trained in the US and the UK who were very eager to
jump on the bandwagon! Good for them - one has to move on. I was very
impressed with the National Institute of Oceanography, Goa which put up a
great show with a very well attended pavilion and a very well received book
written by an Indian woman on old fishing practices in I think but I could
be wrong the Lakhshadeep.
After the conference I traveled all over Portugal and it was a great
holiday not only for the old churches, the wine and the good food but also
for the old friends and many relatives although the later tired me with
their American and Japanese bashing but I can live with that. I just tune
off and think about my next meal! However, at no point did I feel I was
part of that world - it was great to be able to speak the language it always
is in any country but it was just that - another country. My visit
certainly was more enjoyable than yours was to Goa and unlike you I am sure
to go again but I would like to go to many other countries too. Do I make
sense? Its late in the night so I could be rambling!
-- Helga do Rosario Gomes
>Mr. Pinto, you talk about looking at Portugal. Well, indeed, why not? I
>invite you and all other brainwashed Goans to take a good look at Portugal.
>Have you ever set foot in this country?
Thall, India is one of the poorest and most
>backward countries on earth, a world champion in mass poverty and social
>injustice.
>They welcomed the "liberators", they accepted being brainwashed,
>they gave up their distinct identity (which even Nehru talked of
>preserving), so I think they got what they deserved in a big way. I would
>rather talk about East Timor and how a valiant people conquered their
>freedom and created a new nation (with Portugal's unswerving support).
> I wish to assure you that I don't have the slightest intention of moving
>to the US, inspite of its superpower status. I would never trade Europe for
>America. I don't get impressed with skyscrapers and aircraft carriers, I
>hate junk food and prefer to have wine at meals, rather than coke. I prefer
>a continent where people don't go around with guns, and cowboys don't run
>for presidents, and cars are not gas-guzzlers. I prefer a continent where
>there is heritage, monuments, castles, medieval towns, history and
>tradition. You ask in Europe how many people want to move to America.You
>wouldn't form even a small army with them. It is very pretentious of you to
>say that those who settled in Europe made a "terrible mistake".Maybe such
an
>assertion is understandable from people who go from India to the US
(perhaps
>your case). Indians tend to be fascinated with America, for obvious
reasons.
>Europeans don't. I live in Lisbon, Portugal, and have a very good life. I
>enjoy one intangible thing which you may never have heard about: the
>pleasures of european living. If you ask some cultured Americans who have
>lived in Europe about this you may come to learn a couple of things about
>"relatively backward Europe".
>There have been a number of Goan
>judges, university professors, medical doctors, high Govt. officials,
>ambassadors (there are probably more Goans as ambassadors of Portugal than
>as ambassadors of India),etc.from the 19th century onwards, working all
>across the then portuguese empire.The colonisation of Mozambique was done
by
>Europeans and Goans, side by side.Today there are thousands of goans (or
>rather, citizens of goan origin, like myself) in the Govt. departments,
ere have been otehrs who hol the same opinon as you as you and that is fine
with me - all i ask is for yuo to let us be! Let us
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