This response is in reply to Jason Keith Fernandes - Message 6, Goanet Digest Vol 6, Issue 744 (A version of this post was first published in the Gomantak Times 3 August 2011.
Jason wrote: An artiste attending the convention from Goa, suggested to the organisers that given the Convention was called the Goans Convention, it should include all Goans, not just those from a particular community? Point well made, but it seemed to implicitly blame the local organisers? (a largely Catholic group) for not including those from other communities. The sentiment of this artiste was probably right. There should have been members of other Goan communities in attendance. And yet, who is to ensure that this happens? The local committee alone, or the Office of the High Commission for NRI affairs? ..............Was this absence due to a deliberate exclusion, an oversight and the failure to actively invite, or the result of a longer history where there is hardly any relationship between the Goan Catholics and other groups of Goan origin? Melvyn responds: Jason, you may or may not have already read my Message 6, Goanet Digest Vol 6, Issue 700, where in the first paragraph I wrote: Quote In its global headquarters in Porvorim, the air would have been full of excitement as staff prepared to take the 2011 Global Goan Convention to the United Kingdom having been to other countries previously since 2005. I feel sure that in this euphoric atmosphere, it can be excused that in no- one's mind, either in Goa or London, it was felt necessary to check whether the membership of the host organisation i.e. members currently on their books, was proportionate to the number of our people living in the United Kingdom, to ensure it genuinely represented their views, or did they check? Unquote Whilst you have referred to an unnamed artiste who you say commented as to why our people living in other communities who were Goan were not represented at the Global Goan Convention London 2011, in the first place, can I ask you and the unnamed artiste if you are both aware if the current membership of the host organisation is proportionate to the number of our people living in the United Kingdom to adequately bring forward their views to a Global Goans Convention? The reason for my question is that as an honourable volunteer worker for the original host organisation since 1974 I did not renew my membership in 2007 in disgust as I did not feel I was belonging to a community organisation any more. Melvyn Fernandes Thornton Heath, Surrey England 7 August 2011 [email protected]
