Wow, seems like a flurry of posts from otherwise quiet Goanetters :-)) Dear Roland, let me reply to your questions, in no particular order, but hopefully with as much honesty as any Goan can muster about these things.
Goans called Arabs, "boduus". The word, which I believe became part of the Goan dictionary, has its genesis in the Arabic word, "badu". In those days, poor normadic beduins would present themselves, with the phrase, "a'na badu, a'na mas'keen", meaning I'm a bedu and I'm poor. In time, in Goan parlance it came to mean, someone who is illiterate, poor and generally dumb. Hence, a common Gulf Goan phrase was, 'sarko boduu, esxo". Re your second question, as to whether I resented being called "Hindi", let me start at the beginning, at the risk of being verbose. I don't think Goan Catholics, of a certain generation, can truly deny that they considered themselves as Goans and nothing else. This was true whether they were in East Africa, Goa or any other part of the diaspora. They led insular lives divorced from Inda. I grew up in such a diaspora, where I was Goan and nothing else. It was only later in life, when I started working and developed close bonds with other Indians, that my sense of nationalism emerged. In response to your question, no, I do not mind being called Indian, but I certainly minded derisively being called "mul'hindi". Re your question whether I personally experienced this; as an adult from a fully grown Arab, no. But when I was a child, we lived across an Egyptian family, whose children would scream "mul'hindi", everytime we came out and run into the house. Children have a way of echoing those prejudices that simmer behind closed doors. Not that this mortally wounded me in anyway. In turn my parents called them, "boduus." As Egyptians they were anything but boduus, they were cultured Arabs, but such is racism, that we pile on ignorance upon ignorance. Best, selma --------------------------------- --- On Wed, 10/1/08, Roland Francis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > From: Roland Francis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Subject: Re: [Goanet] East African Goans called "Black Europeans"? > To: "Goa's premiere mailing list, estb. 1994!" <[email protected]> > Date: Wednesday, October 1, 2008, 8:25 AM > Selma, > > Since you are repeating for the second time and that too in > short > sucession the following: > "I grew up in a country that derisively called me > Hindi" (a reference > to your life in the Persian Gulf), I must clear the air on > this > particular remark. > .
