Dear Daisy, Thank you for your nice note, and disagreeing agreeably :-). It was a pleasure to meet up the other day, after years of reading your name and following the work both you and Edwin have put out (including the moderately-priced and very informative Goa restaurants guide, which I have found enormously useful and regret that it is currently out-of-print). Incidentally, I think we can fight back competition by unhelpful, defensive rear-guard actions or positive moves, and your book to promote Goan food is a useful step in the latter direction.
Now to get to the debate.... On 12/02/2008, Flower2 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Frederick, > Yes, in migration is as old as the hills in Goa, but I think everyone will > agree, that in the past, Goans have assimilated migrants quite graciously. I Quite graciously? That's an understatement if ever there was one. Let me tell you why. The story of Goa's aboriginals is one of colonialism. Of course, this is not a view you are likely to encounter in the English-speaking rarefied atmosphere of Goa (or even in Konkani, maybe hints of it in Marathi occasionally), because the people who dominate the chattering classes (and control the hegemony over ideas) are people like you and me and not (yet) the Gavada, Kunbi, Velip or Dangar. We need to ask them what they felt about being swamped by later waves of migration, which took over their most fertile lands and sent them to desolate and dusty hillsides where their populations are still found. The story of past Goan migration is also told in old-time legends and myths -- like the story of Parashuram, which has it that the Brahmins were asked to settle here after slaughtering the Kshatriyas! So much for gracious assimilation! Contrary to the saffronised rewriting of Goan history, not all who migrated out of Goa did so to flee the Portuguese religious bigotry. Outmigration has taken place even before 1510, and while it's fashionable to blame Islamic rulers too today, there have been other reasons, including caste-based infighting. When I spoke to leaders of the Goan (largely-invisible) Kunbi community in Kerala, [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kudumbi] they claimed their community size is about 500,000 today. Even if this is an exaggeration, it gives some hints of the reality. > think we have to understand why Goans have suddenly taken to "chauvinism" as > you put it. Could it be that the migrants are now descending in overwhelming > numbers? Perhaps there is no question of assimilation now, because Goans are As Floriano has acknowledged, after some zig-zagging on the issue, it's because Goa's political class, its business lobbies and its intelligentsia have all taken on themselve to point to the "outsider menace" as the cause of Goa's many complex problems (quite a few of which should be blamed on these classes themselves). > being drowned by the waves. You may have a point as you said at the > Goenkaranchem Daiz meeting that Goans are not competitive enough, but here > in Margao, I have seen the cartels that the out of state migrants have > quickly formed with regard to other traditional trades. They have > marginalised outmanoeuvred the naive Goans and taken over. As I see it, the Are their "Goan cartels" as migration studies byStella Mascarenhas-Keyes, Dr Teresa Albuquerque and even the recent Burma-book edited by Yvonne Vaz-Ezdani (disclosure: I have a link to the book) suggest? Why are Goans failing to tap work and opportunity in their own land? My view is that the crisis is far more serious, and if we keep pointing to red-herrings like "in migration", then we're going even further away from a solution. > Goan is a gentler breed than that hailing from other parts of the country - Every community needs to have some 'victim status' if it is to take on battles which have little logic behind them. > all that is fast changing now that the natural Goan graciousness has been > exploited to the hilt by migrants ( and here I do not refer only to the > poorer classes) of course in cahoots with our politicians. Goan-versus-NonGoan is too simplistic an equation. I agree, there are exploiters and exploited. And there's no one-to-one congruence with genetics, ethnicity or place-of-birth here. > Today, they are well on the way to being the major stakeholders, while the > Goans become homeless wanderers. If they have come to make a livelihood, I > don't think anyone has a problem. But when as in Sancoale, the population of > outsiders is 9000 vis a vis some 4000 odd of the Goans, then the balance of > power tilts and control and the decision making process falls into outside > hands. Little wonder then that Deve Gowda sees great political potential for > himself in Goa. Sancoale is one extreme. But can't we understand it as the colonisation of Goa by Goans? Who passed on the land to the Zuari's there? (Some whose surname I share, I believe?) Who was the chief minister of Goa then, and what was behind his agenda of merging Goa into Mahasthtra? Wasn't it just his style of fighting Goan contradictions and hegemony, MGP-style? Shouldn't we be asking more fundamental questions about the nature of industralisation and "development" in Goa, that is crafted to suit the needs of profits, not people? > then we also have the land grabbing developers from up country, building on > unbelievable scale, breaking all environmental laws with money and impunity > and cornering all property, changing the market conditions so our future > generations will have no chance to own a corner of Goa that they can call This is the visible side of the problem. The roots of it lie deeper... > ensure that the law is implemented impartially, objectively and equitably. > The state of lawlessness that presently prevails, for me at least, signifies > the end of hope. We have poor migrants who add to the vote banks and rich > migrants who add to the money banks. Why the contempt only for the non-Goan poor and rich? What are the Goan poor and rich upto? > Intellectuals can debate till the cows come home. In theory all the points > made have 100% validity. But the theory unfortunately in this case at least, > is totally divorced from the ground reality. Life is about human beings and > their feelings. Whoever's fault it may be, the fact is that when a community > feels powerless, marginalised and threatened, "chauvinism" is a natural > reaction. Its happening all over the world - in Britain, where they hate the > Polish, in Netherlands its about the Muslims. We have no alternative but to > accept globalisation and softening of borders. So also, perhaps we need to > mentally accept "chauvinism" as a natural consequence of this new world > order. Yes, there is a groundswell of public opinion against the "outsider" in Goa currently. Bu that doesn't mean that people who are capable of independent thinking should go along or jump on that bandwaggon. Neither does it mean that the analysis of the problem is right or helpful in the long-run! Just my opinion. FN -- Frederick Noronha http://fn.goa-india.org Ph +91-832-2409490 The Goa books blog: http://goabooks.wordpress.com Goa1556 (alt.publishing.goa): http://goa1556.goa-india.org
