On Tue Mar 13 07:20:43 PDT 2007, Carvalho wrote:
Dear Bosco,
I was absolutely serious in my defense of the
Gulf-worker. I find it abhorrent that this
condescension exists for him in Goan society,
reflected and caricatured by writers on this forum.
RESPONSE: I don't understand what it is you are defending. The Gulf-worker
aka Gulfee has done no wrong. There must be close to 500,000 people of Goan
origin earning/living in the Gulf/Middle East. And several thousand more
tarvottis aka Shippies. With such a large segment of the population,
condescension maybe out of place.
I think your assertions about Cecil Pinto are misplaced. Almost everybody
knows that Cecil Pinto is a humor columnist and to juxatpose what he writes
with Carmo (for example) would be absurd. Cecil enjoys bringing a smile and
chortles to his readers. I'm sure you too enjoyed his latest piece on Goan
Eating Etiquette. There are several Gulfies subscribed here and who
participate. Didn't see anybody throw a fit. Similarly it would be improper
for anybody to overly scrutinize your below post made in zest:
http://lists.goanet.org/pipermail/goanet-goanet.org/2007-March/055079.html
I wish, the discussion had dealt with the deeper issues
of why Goans find it hard to respect dignity of
labour, why Goans insist on creating stratification in
society where none should exist and why a negative
stereotype of the "Gulfie" that demeans everything we
should respect, such as hardwork and sacrifice has
arisen in our Goan society.
RESPONSE: Get the ball rolling and hope the discussion catches on. That
certainly is a fertile pool for a sociologist's dissertation.
As far as Sunith is concerned he has been pretty clear from his earliest
messages on this thread that the problem with Goan education lay with
students who had no motivation / poor aspirations. And yes he did go on to
describe some of those aspirations.
This popped into my mailbox today. An article on Goan youth at the beach.
Ofcourse some will blame the Catholic priests, others will blame the
politicians and still others will blame the Goan education
system........there is plenty of blame to go around.....oh yeah and some may
blame expats too. Few want to pull up their own socks.
"Most boys in our age group drop out after class seven or eight, for they
realise that going to school doesn't really guarantee them good jobs," said
Joseph."
"Most of the group felt that getting a driving licence (and someday, a taxi
of their own) would take them further away from poverty than an education
would. Another option local boys often dreamt of, was shipping. "Ten months
on a ship, and you can earn enough to build your own home in the village!"
said Thomas."
The entire article can be found at :
http://www.business-standard.com/opinionanalysis/storypage.php?leftnm=4&subLeft=2&chklogin=N&autono=277201&tab=r
So IMO as far as Cecil and Sunith are concerned on this thread, you're
shooting blanks.
- Bosco
