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* * * 2007 ANNUAL GOANETTERS MEET - GOA * * *
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WHERE: Foodland Cafe - Miramar Residency - Miramar, Goa
WHEN: December 27, 2007 @ 4:30pm
More info:
http://lists.goanet.org/pipermail/goanet-goanet.org/2007-December/066098.html
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Hi Bosco
I had sent this some days ago but suspect that it did not get to you nor the
forwarded copy. It does not appear in the archives.I have therefore retyped it
for transmission please.
Thanks
Cornel
Dear Readers
I am keen for my part, to bring to an end this long discussion on
caste/casteism among 'Catholic' Goans. However, I recognise that there are
likely to be some questions from readers that may need responses.
To start with, I recall a couple from Goa settled in Toronto who some years
ago recounted to me that, life was pretty tough initially when the whites
there, did not relish visible minorities settling in their neighbourhoods.Their
families, urged them to return to Goa rather than be "second-class citizens" in
Canada. However, my informants stuck it out in the belief that, it was better
to be a 'second-class citizen' in Canada than a third-class one in Goa. Their
minority religious status in Goa made them 'second class' in their view, but
even worse, was their despair over the Bamon attitude (often from barely
literate ones), to them as inferior people! In time, virtually the entire
family in Goa joined them permanently in Canada and are really happy there now.
The above story has often made me wonder whether the well-established Goa
Bamons in particular, unwittingly encouraged so much emigration of the
Catholics from Goa in addition to the well known economic reasons. There may be
a kernel of truth in this but I received no significant responses to this point
when I made it on Goanet about two years ago. But of course, the Bamons also
emigrated far and wide. Fortunately, any manifestations of their supposed
superiority cuts no ice now, especially in the Goan Diaspora of today, and
hopefully, with education and material advances of the Goans generally, such
eradication of 'Catholic' Goan caste in the Diaspora will soon spread to Goa
too.
I wish to re-state my position on the caste issue as a principled one (with
absolutely no desire to be a hero as suggested by one padre!), borne out of
conviction: that all racism is wrong including casteism. There can be no
compromise whatsoever on this issue, no ifs and buts from anyone including the
supposedly well-meaning clergy.
However, I want to emphasise strongly, as I did before, that my 'crusade' is
not aimed against the Bamons nor the side-kick Chardos as such! Blame cannot
be automatically put on them for finding themselves historically in a niche
that, was not perhaps forthrightly questioned as now. However, it is absolutely
time that, such folk stopped acting like Bamons (some never did of course), and
instead, fully joined an inclusive Goan society that, treats people as equal at
birth, and are entirely deserving of human dignity and human rights.
Another very important point in eliminating 'Catholic' Goan casteism is that
such Bamons and Chardos should stop indoctrinating their offspring into this
vile abomination. Caste is not a natural phenomena. It is entirely socially
renewed by the parents of offspring, and almost entirely by those who believe
quite irrationally that somehow they are superior beings. Stop this foul family
indoctrination and caste continuity is simply not possible.
I also have never agreed with the subject title used on Goanet rather a lot
about the implicit gradualist "changing hearts and minds on caste" approach.
My position is to follow the successful anti-racist strategies that, have
definitely delivered good results in several parts of the world, and especially
in the West, and in which I have had much hands-on experience. This strategy is
demanding of early results, hard-hitting and confrontational wherever racism is
evident including casteism that is an incredibly insidious form of brown on
brown racism.
To suggest, as at least done by one poster that, cultures simply continue in
their traditional ways even when new 'regimes' are introduced as in
post-apartheid South Africa or in post Civil Rights activity in the USA, and by
implication that, it is OK for casteism to continue is totally unacceptable as
racism is wrong whatever the cultural antecedents.
I have also focused on those who insist on carrying Hindu caste with their
'Catholicism'. I am afraid that even if the inclusive Catholic Church has
definitely compromised on this point for purposes of swelling convert numbers
and consequently generated this terrible headache that we are dealing with,
strictly speaking, it is not possible to be a caste Hindu and a Catholic at the
same time as the two belief systems are totally incompatible. Therefore, I
appeal to our caste carrying Hindus who also think they are 'Catholics' to
sensibly consider choosing one or the other rather than being 'half-baked', and
also not to contaminate the other and live so parasitically to the ire of the
majority of the Catholics in Goa. Alternatively, please definitely stop the
daft pretence of being somehow superior to others when there is no validity for
it.
Some on Goanet have been so exercised by this caste/casteism discourse as to
desperately try to re-define this anti-casteism 'crusade' in Goa as an
illustration of "Goan Casteism". I'm afraid I have never heard anything so
utterly daft as this before but Mario, in his posts has put paid to such
nonsense ever so clearly and so have others.
I have been particularly disappointed to note that our priests have been
unable to state clearly that casteism within Catholicism is wrong. I do not
accept the argument made by some that, they are constrained by the Church to
express such a view, when paradoxically, they will say they are "fighting
casteism". Why on earth are they "fighting casteism" if they cannot say it is
wrong within Catholicism?
Indeed I was even more disappointed when very friendly senior priests could
not state, that casteism within Catholicism is wrong even in long friendly
private telephone conversations with me. They were avid readers of Goanet and
entirely familiar with my 'crusade' against 'Catholic' Goan casteism.
I am also critical of those who claim that the Church's failure on the caste
issue can understandably be compensated for by all the good educational work it
does with poor people today. There are at least two reasons why I reject this
point. Firstly, I'd rather that, through education, the traditionally
conservative Church did not wittingly or unwittingly sustain and 'support' the
caste tradition within which the poor are 'contained' in their low castes.
Indeed, I would rather such poor people were radicalised to fight their caste
oppression that is inevitably keeping them docile and accepting of their lowly
place. Secondly, it is like saying that although Hitler was an absolute
villain, he nevertheless did a lot of good (especially in the beginning) for
the German people. Indeed, such a view was clearly expressed by a prominent
Goanetter and such posts, with ripostes, are available for scrutiny in the
Goanet archives!
Because of the Net, for the first time, we have been able to have a fulsome
discussion on a critical issue that has invariably been swept under the carpet
in the past. However, this vexatious issue is now squarely on the table and in
the archives to be re-visited readily. It no longer can be swept under the
carpet.
I urge fellow Catholic Goans to please let us stop this hypocrisy and
instead, become realistic over this festering issue. We simply have to get it
out of our very beings. Please, let us get off village-based mind-sets and be
bold enough to become contemporary/modern in our thinking over this ghastly
thing called caste that, has absolutely no reason for its continuing existence
within the modern Catholic Goan community.
This Goanet discussion, pretty heated at times, and with some unexpected but
vacuous resistance with absolutely no purchase, has to my mind, been pretty
helpful to advance our thinking and above all has illustrated that, caste-based
divisiveness should be a thing of the past in the Goan Diaspora and Goa itself.
I conclude by drawing on a view so well expressed by Mervyn Lobo (Toronto)
about caste and casteism within the Catholic Goan Community. He said, "I must
contend that if a person cannot denounce caste in the strongest terms, she/he
is essentially just another propagator for the system". Hopefully, zero
tolerance will be the minimum that is acceptable on this issue from 2008
onwards re the utterly diabolical and shameful manifestation of casteism among
Catholic Goans. Instead, we surely deserve to be seen as an enlightened and
progressive community by the wider world community.
Cornel DaCosta, London, UK.
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