Cornel--
If your statistics are to be believed that only 5% of the population is
Brahmin and of those 5% many would NOT be casteists (how many?), then it
appears to be a very marginal minority that could safely be ignored.
Assimilation, through intermarriage and cognitive consonance will take care
of that in the not too distant future. If I were you, I would not unduly
worry about this MINOR problem, and not spend sleepless nights about an
insignificant problem.
Rgds
Chris
----- Original Message -----
From: "CORNEL DACOSTA" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Goa's premiere mailing list, estb. 1994!" <[email protected]>;
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Saturday, April 12, 2008 11:20 AM
Subject: Re: [Goanet] Is the destructiveness of caste a myth?
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...
