On 12/02/2008, Floriano_GMAIL <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Diana, > Tell Fred that Raj Thackeray is alive and kicking accross the border. > Maybe someday the blinds that are covering Fredricks vision will lift and > he > will be able to see reality. > Cheers to your argument. > floriano
Hi Floriano, "Fred" is my login-name. I don't use it to for myself. As far as Raj Thackeray goes, what are the lessons we learn from him? Would you appreciate him if he had a campaigns in Goans in Mumbai too (estimated at 100,000 in 1960, no figures since). Do you think he's doing the right thing w.r.t North Indians? Who do you feel has granted him the rights for him and his uncle to decide whom to target -- South Indians, Muslims, North Indians -- as and when he chooses? Above all, can the concept of India as a federal entity (however flawed) ever continue with more of this kind of "nativism in a metropolis" thinking, as Dipankar Ghosh called it [ http://www.amazon.com/Nativism-Metropolis-Shiv-Sena-Bombay/dp/0836409558] ? Are you just rabble-rousing here, or would you be willing to forego the advantages of belonging to one larger South Asian market (which needs to be expanded, not shrunken) if you are not willing to pay the price that goes along with it? (In fact, the "price" that most of the anti-"outsider" lobby on Goanet blames on the migrant could be better attributed to stem from a range of other trends (corruption, abuse of the system, the loss of control over the political class, deep divisions and mistrust within Goan society, land-related rackets, the spurt of middle class consumption and affluence including by you and me, and the greying of Goa due to the contruction plague which you know about.) Anyway, it's good that you raised this issue. I would like to hear from the ultra-silent gruop who make the 'outsider' the main bugbear of today's Goa over how they see Raj(an) Thackeray's campaigns against North Indians in Mumbai, and whether this is the way forward for a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural, multi-caste country like India to go ahead. FN -- Frederick Noronha http://fn.goa-india.org Ph +91-832-2409490
