On 26 September 2010 16:15, Carvalho <[email protected]> wrote: > Dear Augusto, > Your extract from Sarto Esteves > brought tears to my eyes. Like Sarto I too > believed that Goans are the most > cultured and civilized people on the Indian > sub-continent.
Obviously, there is nothing different in our genetic make-up that makes us in any way superior to the rest of the sub-continent. As Roland Francis (if I'm not mistaken) pointed out, Goans have been a charming people as long as they had to cope with poverty and adversity. Give us affluence and the comfy life, and we can be worse than the worst, for sure! Agreed, our history (or *some* of our histories) was different from what the rest of South Asia has known. We encountered (even if not by choice) Westernisation and European colonialism at a very early stage of history, in a very intense way, and for a far longer term than most in Asia. This was a mixed bag, causing some problems, but also giving us some strengths. Both sides of this 'interpretation divide' would see either ONLY the good, or the bad that flowed out of it. (What is worse, a lot of this interpretation seems to flow out of a selfish understanding of how we, our families, our caste, or our religious grouping benefited or was affected by it.) A more balanced understanding of both sides of this balance sheet is yet to be built. Even today, Goans carry with them some talents, some skills and some assets (not in gold or paper!) which could be of lasting value. But instead of focussing these, understanding and building on such community assets, we seem intent on going into a pessimistic self-destruct mode. We can only see corruption, and indulge in infighting, controversy and jostling with one another. Instead of understanding our present and shaping our future, we're quite happily obsessive about our past. That too, failing to see it as a mixed bag, of negatives and positives. Our entire understanding of today's Goa evolves around the goals of one party or one politician desperate to get back into power. We would like to believe that the sky feel on our collective heads when the curtains came down on Portuguese colonialism on that fateful day in December 1961. We want blame all our ills on politicians, not a system that brings such individuals to power, or is capable of making a grotesque caricature of anyone elected to power (surely me or even perhaps you). And yes, tiny sections would like to continue dominating the scene by raising all kinds of red-herrings here, and making sure that the vast majority of the population stays powerless and without a voice. Is this any way to move forward? Is this how we are to build on the skills, achievements, values and benefits of the past, even while moving away from its perils and pitfalls? We are still a long way off from even understanding Goa and her people (including all of their diversity). FN
