--- Roland Francis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Methinks something has been responsible for stirring > your loins. Could it be some conservative political > omen, or some hunger for Goan sweets or banish the > thought, have you seen and hanker for some > sashaying Goenche mana that has crossed your street > with all the alloi-dolloi at her command. > Mario responds: > Roland, It is not my loins that are looking forward to my next trip to Goa with pleasant anticipation, only my eyes, ears and taste buds. My days of hankering for sashaying Goan manas on the sands of Calangute ended decades ago after I married one from Bombay. > BTW, my intellectual loins were stirred and amused by the exchange between you and Selma and Vidhyadhar on the one hand, and our young Turks, Sunith and Aristo, whose attitude reminds me of myself at that age and an older Turk, Cecil, who is busy watching movies right now, but you can count on hearing from him soon. > You see, my take on India and Goa is more like theirs, optimistic, rather than that of left-wingers like you and Selma and Vidhyadhar, incredibly pessimistic. You have divested your property in Goa, I have re-invested in property in Goa. Perhaps our different backgrounds and experiences explain this dichotomy. > I see socialism as based on pessimistic assumptions about the capabilities of the average citizen, who thus needs the elites as leaders, because the elites know what's good for everyone else, better than they do. Capitalism is based on an optimistic belief that almost everyone is capable of determining their own enlightened self interest, which they will act upon given the opportunity by others, will create their own opportunities if necessary, and that it is in everyone's interest to address the cultural impediments based on caste and creed and poverty. One wants to provide a crutch, the other rehabilitation where its necessary. > Thus, Selma sees Goa as "devolving" whereas I see it as "evolving". Things may get worse before they get better, especially for those whose frame of reference is the bucolic old-world "stability" of a colony, but they will get better in my opinion, for most people. > I will soon share some interesting new research findings which show that people in the US who consider themselves "conservative" give far more in terms of private charitable contributions and volunteer time to the needy that those who consider themselves to be "liberal", even though the average income of the "conservatives" nationally is far below the average income of the "liberals". The conservatives believe it is their job to help the needy. The liberals believe it is the government's. > I grew up in chaotic and newly independent central India, so I don't have the same affinity for the "stability" of a foreign colony as some other Goans do. My relatives were nationalists and my family were blacklisted by Portuguese because of this and barred from Goa for several years. All the things you and Selma complain about were commonplace and familiar to me in a new democracy emerging from decades of colonialism. > My formative years mirrored independant India's, and I left India 35 years ago having given up on it's mindless socialism I thought would never change. The figurative straw that broke my camel's back was when I heard an anecdote about a meeting between a group of major industrialists, one of whom was my seniormost boss, and Indira Gandhi, where she literally snubbed their suggestion that India embark on a massive road and highway building network like the north American Freeways or the German Autobahns, using India's rural labor far more than the Germans or Americans did, as a means of opening up the country and creating a tsunami of economic development. Why? Because, she said, that such a project would benefit mostly the industrialists! > Indira had obviously learned from her Father his reprehensible contempt for private business and private businessmen. > Of course the industrialists would benefit, but, like a typical socialist ideologue, Indira could not see that she was unintentionally harming the very people that would have benefited most, the rest of the country. > For the next thirty years while I was evolving into the implacable American compassionate conservative that Goanet is familiar with, India was simply a place to visit occasionally because our parents lived there. > Then, during a visit in 2001 sfter several years, we had an epiphany when we realized that the "liberalization" that we had scoffed about as yet another pious Indian sophistry, started by Manmohan Singh, whom I consider an epic modern Indian visionary, and continued by the BJP, was for real. This was no longer the India we had escaped from years ago. This was finally an India that actually had the potential of moving towards it's original destiny with prosperity, initially made possible by the Nehrus and the Gandhis, then derailed by the Nehrus and their descendants. > Unlike you, our ancestral property in Goa had been "borrowed" in perpetuity by shrewd mundkars and interested relatives while we were not paying attention. We have since re-invested in India, and our future plans are to increasingly split our time between where our ancestors roamed, and where our descendants will roam. Perhaps some day they will begin to do the same. Only time will tell. > In summary, I am a refugee from socialism who then saw how a substantially capitalist, free market, diverse, democratic republic works, have seen how Indians have thrived in the relatively free society of the new world, have seen how India is now furiously playing catch-up, and seen the emerging partnership between my two countries based on common interests and concerns and a mutual belief in freedom and democracy. > I simply cannot agree that the essentially socialist prescriptions that you, Selma and Vidhyadhar "know" will work, will work. There is far too much evidence to the contrary, in India and elsewhere. > Is India and Goa chaotic? Of course it is. Sunith outlined how chaotic the emerging US used to be. It took the US some 13 years after independence to develop and ratify it's unique divided form of government, with built in checks and balances and written protections for the smallest minority. They then fought a bloody civil war to keep the country together and then another non-violent one to ensure the civil rights of everyone. Even though the US was not switching from one economic ideology to another, which would have made everything else more difficult, it took them 190 years from the declaration of independence in 1776 to the beginning of the new civil-rights-for-all era in 1966. > Anyway, that's my story and I'm sticking to it. >
------------------------------------------------------------------------ Goanet supports BMX, the alumni network of Britto's, St Mary's and Xavier's -- three prominent institutions in Mapusa, Goa. Events scheduled from Dec 16 to 21, 2006 For more details visit http://www.bmxgoa.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------
