Accidental Activist: Happy Birthday! By Venita Coelho
Ever since I moved to Goa, I have had my mornings ruined by something I call the ‘Bizarre Birthday Boy Bonanza’. Open your morning paper and you are confronted with page after page filled with ads wishing some leader or the other a happy birthday. We are informed that ‘his birth was a gift to his parents and the people of Goa’, we are invited to admire his ‘many achievements and astounding dedication to the people of Goa’. In bad verse and in worse prose, his virtues are extolled. The same face stares up at you replicated a dozen times across several pages.
Do the politicians in question actually imagine that the public takes this to be a genuine outpouring of love and affection? Do they think that such orchestrated antics buy them validity? That we believe that all these people madly love them to death and consider their birth a bigger event than the birth of the saviour?
In actual fact, the public is laughing its head off – mostly at the plug ugly photos of the birthday boy plastered all over the papers. It’s enough to put you off your breakfast. To my mind, even funnier were the over made up and air brushed pictures of a leading politicians daughter. If you can’t bully them with displays of power, try to seduce them with sex. We were told that she had displayed astounding signs of leadership while in school, that she spent her time bringing succor to the poor and the sick. That, but for the slight difference in age and looks, here was Mother Teresa herself. And they think we actually believe this stuff, written by PR agents with a very loose grasp of the English language.
Let’s take a closer look at the people who have rushed into print to declare their admiration and love of Birthday Boy. Analysing the list will give you a perfect understand of exactly what interests intersect in the base of power and corruption. The list reveals the tangled web of favour trading and political equations – all out in the open, dressed up to attend a birthday party. There is business, big and small, local governance, and the local grass roots gang, also known as ‘loyal supporters’.
The business houses proudly display their names. You will find ‘ship building’, ‘industrial estate’, and plenty of construction companies. If they have gone the distance to buy an ad, you an only imagine how much more money has been contributed in less public domains. Then there are the government servants who should be ashamed to display so clearly that they are mere tools in the hands of the local power man. Yet there they go – long lists of Panchayat members, and even Zilla Members. If the names of your panchayat members appear below reams of badly written praise for a known crook and tainted minister, I would suggest that you never vote for them again.
Then there is of course the aam aadmi. Entire families put down their names in long eager lists. And here lies what is wrong with the state of Goa. The long list is actually a list of the morally corrupt and sycophantic. It is these people – rushing forward to fawn in print – who have brought Goa to the state it is. There can be no corruption with a coterie. One can understand those with business and power equations at stake doing what it takes to defend their interests. But much worse is the moral bankruptcy that expresses open admiration for a man who has got where he has by underhanded means. When Goan families feel the need to roll over and lick shoes in print, we should worry about the state of Goa.
Corruption is the big issue of the moment in Goa. As this goes into print Goan citizens are coming together to plan a mega march against corruption. We have already seen what the boiling over of the common mans discontent can do in Egypt, and we can only hope for a tidal wave like that in Goa. Only a tidal wave can wash away the institutionalized, hardened structure of corruption that holds this state imprisoned. While politicians must be held accountable and pay the price for what they have done to this state – equally must the ordinary citizen who allowed corruption to thrive be held accountable. And in the lists of names of those who wish the corrupt a long life and happy days we will find a starting point. If you recognize any of those names – tell them that they are not celebrating a birthday. They are celebrating the destruction of our state and they should be ashamed. (ENDS)
====================================================== First published in the Herald, Goa - February 15, 2011
