Hi Chris I'll be brief: I have never said that most or all Goans are casteist. Indeed, in one of my posts, I had indicated that an estimate of about 5% of the population were deemed to be Brahmin let alone the Chardos, and of these, many would NOT be casteist.
My quarrel is with the continuity of caste adherence, half a milenium after Catholicism was introduced in Goa. I am sure you are not alluding that this was inevitable, nor that, the Church's connivance and support for caste was not a big factor in the continuity of caste hypocrisy among Catholic Goans. I lived for almost six years in Goa initially and then spent two six month periods in Goa in young adulthood. In this period, I saw exactly what Brahmin hegemony meant to poorer people including their manifest fear of any interpreted transgressions by the Bamon landlords. A beating from the Bamon's 'hoods' was not a rare occurrence and I witnessed some of this myself. Indeed, I often debated with myself, who were worse---the big Bamon landlords or the Portuguese in keeping ordinary Goans subdued. It is a real pity that this aspect was not part of your learning experience! I believe that Frederick's view is closer to mine, Antonio's and Mario's than yours and it is a pity that several people on my side of the fence are rather fearful to express themselves except privately. Some are also 'opiately' reverential of the Church although very angry with it over the caste issue and also the segregationist tendencies of the caste adherents. There are 'defrocked' priests too who were forced by the Church to avoid criticism of casteism. Indeed, I have a massive file of the entire correspondence between one Goan priest and the Church hierarchy that was determined to shut him up. Some day, I hope to make this public. Regards Cornel PS As a kid of five and later too I recall in Goa the strong feelings expressed against the caste based confrarias of groups of 'activists' at my family home. Perhaps I got the true flavour of resistance to caste from this. If caste adherence is one side of the coin in Goa, resistance to it is the other side inevitably! --- Chris Vaz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Mario-- > > I know your heart is in the right place but you and > Cornel should look into > this with the proper perspective. It helps if one > was born and brought up > at least for a while in Goa because only then do you > totally breathe and > savor Goanness the way it was meant to be... > >
