Dear Soter, My point was not to undermine Goan Catholics efforts for Goa. I am well aware of our Contribution. My point was much deeper and was targeted at the root cause:
With reference to some of your facts stated, do you not see any ironies (Hypocrisy): (1) Who bought the Konkan Railway; was it not a Catholic lead Government? -And why are still voting for the same Catholic responsible for the same? Is this not Hypocrisy? Appears we want to have our cake and eat it too!! (2) Are Catholic MLA's not the main culprits in supporting Mega-Projects and destroying areas under their domain -Why are Catholics still voting for these corrupt MLAs? And that to term after term Surely you will appreciate that we are just creating more trouble for ourselves by first (in Hypocrisy) voting for the same Corrupt Catholic Ministers time and time again. I believe that before pointing fingers at others we need to be self-critical of ourselves. If we can translate our values into reponsible action at the Ballot Box; surely we can influence and play a very positive role towards the cause of Saving Goa, Its Land, Environment and its Identity. And Maybe by doing that first, we can be a Good Example to others!! Kind Regards, Arwin Message: 9 Date: Tue, 13 Jul 2010 12:49:12 +0530 From: "soter" <so...@bsnl.in> To: <goa...@goanet.org> Subject: Re: [Goanet] Goa - Answer Within Message-ID: <001801cb225b$b64fea10$1901a...@user77948b9580> Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1"; reply-type=original Below is the reply to Arwin Mesquita's letter to Editor of GT. The reply has been published in GT today 13/7/2010 Sir, The Catholics in Goa have much to ponder upon as pointed out by Arwin Mesquita, UAE in the letter to Editor titled 'Answer within' which was published in GT (12/07/10). The Catholics of Goa have time and again been dubbed anti-nationals, goons and immoral by some enlightened forces within goan society. Now the catholic perspective by Mr. mesquita shows that they pray, fast, teach their children right from wrong, and then in hypocrisy do the very opposite. Looking back to the time of liberation from Portuguese rule, it is perhaps fair to question the political morality of the Catholic community in Goa ever since. They were never in favour of the pro-merger political party, the MGP which ruled Goa for over 20 years, and were terribly wrong in opposing Goa's merger into Maharashtra in the 1968 Opinion Poll. Thereafter, it were these Catholics who demanded that konkani be made the official language of Goa at the cost of marathi. Soon thereafter, the Catholics demanded Statehood which was an even bigger mistake. It was the catholic community that took an anti-national stance in opposing the present Konkan Railway alignment that brings in hordes of migrants and criminals every day and they were unpatriotic by not purchasing bonds floated by the KRC and marketed by BJP and MGP. As if this was not enough, the Catholics worked against development of the State by opposing the setting up of the meta-strips plant at Verna and the Nylon 66 plant at Keri. The latest blunder committed in 2007 was to oppose the Regional Plan 2011. These hypocritical Catholics just disrupt the Gram Sabhas and oppose the mega projects which hampers village development and progress and causes tremendous loss to builders and contractors. The 20 or 30 percent of goan catholic voters have brought nothing but political disaster to the State of Goa by sending 13 Catholic MLAs ( merely 32% ) to the 40 member Legislative Assembly. Catholics have time and again acted hyprocritical inspite of being in a minority and done the very opposite of what other goan communities have wanted since liberation, thus setting a bad example. Isn't it so, Mr. Mesquita? Perhaps, as rightly pointed out by Mr. Mesquita, Catholics now need to consider a new beginning, after all the mistakes of the past 50 years, and stop / avoid being pro-active. -Soter D'souza