A pertinent query, Roland, on what "giving people a voice entails," and one which one got a sense of from the excellent summations of Hanv Konn and of Alito's personality by his friends and colleagues during the release of the anthology. May I propose that the Youtube video of the release explains this process of the empowerment of the put-upon better than someone who has yet to read Hanv Konn or any other of Alito's written work? ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1u8Pdv_hB4I) But going by the proceedings at this meeting, it appears to me that it implies that the disempowered should be enabled to recognise that they have been forced into a subservient place in society and have been fed myths that condition them to accept this position as natural and inevitable. This internalisation of the myths the dominants impose on the dominated is, of course, a familiar story, but the Hanv Konn writing project seemed to wish to make Goa's own dominated segments of society (the Velips, the Christian 'tribals', women, the dam-displaced villagers of Curdi et al) recognise the actual reality of the 'fate' assigned to them by 'life', with the natural corollary that follows, acting to do something about it. This, perhaps, is what is meant by giving people their voice, that is, the ability to express themselves and to be heard and listened to.
Linken Fernandes
