After I reported about the plight of the Portuguese illegal immigrants in Canada on goanet, I received private mails from a Lisbon-based goanetter Henrique Salles da Fonseca and quick responses of three of his sypathizers of Goan origin, curiously all living with Portuguese passports outside India and Portugal and all sharing a common surname name!
The tone of the mails is the same that we are used to on goanet ad nauseam and against which fortunately Tony Correia-Afonso, Valmiki Faleiro, Mario Gouveia, Fred Noronha and few others have voiced their convictions. It is unbelievable how much some Portuguese in Portugal and some of their sympathizers are still linving in times of pre-democratic Portugal of pre-1974 era! I presume every country has its share of duds such as these who believe that Portugal has done a favour by granting citizenship rights to those who have moved into Portugal or have cared to opt for Portuguese passport after fulfilling the requirements of the Portuguese legal system. Some believe and even convey it very crudely that a Portuguese citizen who has moved in from former colonies has no right to «full citizenship»! and should restrain from any criticism of the Portuguese ill-habits and abuses he sees all around. The white ethnic Portuguese seem to have the right to say whatever pleases them and are not deemed anti-national for that. One of those above mentioned mails presumes that whoever lives and works in Portugal gets his meals from the Portuguese (charities ?!) and as such should keep quiet and eat his meals with servile gratitude. I suppose they would love if they would keep singing about the «herois do mar»! I wish such Nazi-type nationalists would rather spend their pseudo-patriotic zeal and energies in feeding nearly a million or more of the good and nation-loving Portuguese citizens who have not enough to eat or other basic necessities for a decent living. Why is nearly 10% of the population of this «Jardim à beira-mar plantado» («a garden by the sea-shore», an oft-quoted expression of a Portuguese poet ) still in miserable conditions even by standards of some third world countries? The nationalists and pseudo-nationalists of Portugal should rather devote their intelligence and efforts to uplifting of these less fortunate citizens of Portugal, rather than feed them with false patriotism. Teotonio R. de Souza From: Mervyn Lobo <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: [Goanet] Illegal Portuguese immigrants made legal - Canada To: "Goa's premiere mailing list, estb. 1994!" <goanet@goanet.org> Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Ottawa, Portugal hold talks on illegal workers Canada urged to review deportations No change in policy, Conservatives say Mar. 31, 2006. 09:25 AM BRUCE CHAMPION-SMITH OTTAWA BUREAU The Star OTTAWACanada and Portugal have agreed to begin diplomatic talks aimed at resolving the plight of illegal workers in this country. Diogo Freitas do Amaral, Portugal's minister of state and foreign affairs, said that Canada had agreed to change the status of the illegal Portuguese workers to legal workers by dropping the il. Il means "the" in Portuguese. ...... The Tory platform, titled "Stand up for Canada," vowed in the pre-elections last winter, that the party would "swiftly carry out new deportation orders on socialist Europeans." The number of undocumented workers has been estimated at 400,000 in the Greater Toronto Area and 200,000 nationwide. Freitas do Amaral will be in Toronto today to meet with community members, Cecil Pinto and those of you who are still reading this, totally unaware that I got you once again in an APRIL FOOLS joke :-) Mervyn3.0 http://campussocial.ulusofona.pt/index_ingles.htm _____________________________________________ Do not post admin requests to the list. Goanet mailing list (Goanet@goanet.org) Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription: %(user_optionsurl)s This email sent to %(user_address)s