Does making frequent trips to Goa and reading about
The Inquisition makes Tony D'Souza a Goan?
Despite my pointing out the fact that Tony is NOT a
Goan, the goanconvention website still has his face
running. I mean it to understand that the organizers
don't care if Tony is Goan or not, but his name is a
plus point for the convention. I think such duplicity
is another Goan trait in the composite Goan idenity,
just as Francis mentioned that munisponn is a trait
when I said that a the word munisponn was used to
describe a Goan's character. Prof. Frank's writings
allude to this point in more than one way. Traits are
but the hallmarks of identity.
Francis maintains the knowing Konkani (mother tongue)
is the DEFINITE hallmark of being a Goan.
Language-based identity is one of the identities of a
pluralistic society.
The noted Sikh historian, author and journalist
Kushwant Singh once said, "My mother tongue is English
although my mother doesn't speak a word of it!"
To take Francis's point further, how many of the
executive members of the organizing committee of the
Goan Convention speak Konkani fluently? Knowing a
splattering of Konkani words and making disjointed
sentences qualifies that the person speaks Konkani?
I bet at least one of the main persons behind the
convention does not know conversational Konkani.
On seeing the names of the executive members, I see Al
(Aloysius) Mathias. I was wondering where he was when
I did not see his face running on the website along
with Zulema de Souza. I call the pair Master/Slave
combination. Maybe too harsh, may calling them a tag
team would sound good. They worked in great tandem
during the first Goan convention. They took their
baggage into the International Goan Organization
(IGO). I know that Al is Her Master's Voice. I must
say Al is a "loyalist" a "leader" or rather a
"celebrated Goan" should have.
Talking of IGO, how is that another Goan Cellie
Gonsalves missing? Further, if John D'Souza is part of
the "Celebrated Goans", how come Tim de Mello isn't?
Tim deserves to be there more than John, for it was
Tim who lead the delegation to the Canadian government
to highlight the paedophilia menace in Goa during the
Peats case.
To put the names of some Goans in the "celebrated
Goans" panel is good marketing tool (or ploy), but
inadvertently it creates another class of identity.
The "we" vs "other" distinction that social theorists
such as Derrida spoke about and carried further by
Gayatri Spivak and Edward Said, to mention but two
names.
So, for ordinary or lay Goans such as me who would be
attending the convention it would be a privilege to
meet the "celebrated Goans". It would another case if
these Goans would care to meet with me or "other(s)"
like me.
That's all for now.
Eugene Correia
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