--- On Mon, 10/27/08, Mario Goveia <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >
> The lovely and gracious and allegedly frail Venita may not
> have been a danger to flies, but she must have given the
> human authorities some probable cause to arrest her.
> >
> Let the system play out and we will soon find out what the
> real problem was.
-----------------------------------------------
My dear Mario,
Your faith in the system in Goa is so touching, I almost feel like believing in
US banks again. I think this post of yours when read by Goans will provide
hours of light entertainment, especially to those Goans in outer Mongolia, who
may ordinarily be denied good entertainment but would still be better informed
than those residing in Republican USA.
Now, short of me drawing a picture for you, follow the trail of incidents here.
A corrupt panchayat and possibly a corrupt section of the gram sabha was
instrumental in denying Venita her right to free speech. Not only at the
meeting itself, but moreso they demanded she retract what she had written in a
weekly column, thereby denying her the right to free speech altogether.
You see, it is not beyond the realm of human nature to be corruptible, be they
in political offices or village councils such as gram sabhas. Corruption and
greed are endemic and all pervasive in human society. It is naive of Goans to
think that Goa is made up of "us" and "them", or the "virtuous" and the
"corrupt." Goa is made of people with conflicting interests, and at every point
these divergent interests will rear their ugly head and give vent. Gram sabhas
as as vulnerable to divergent interests and partisan agendas as any other
political body in Goa.
Selma
