Dear Uday, Why are you not interested in a debate? Is there no space for the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socratic_method ?
Can you define what it means to be a "Hindu"? Or a "Catholic"? There are different and diverse definitions for each, but that doesn't mean to say that some shared sense of commonality doesn't exist (even in might primarily surface on a Sunday morning, Thursday evening, feast day or when we need to polarise votes for an election). Because of Goa's peculiar past, we have very differing understanding of what makes a 'Goan'. It could be argued that the identity is a product of accidents of history, from Parashuram (and earlier) to the Portuguese. But then, so is today's modern Indian identity... and four-and-half (or even just under two) centuries of shared experience cannot be wished away. I'm not suggesting a Two Goa theory here ... in fact, even within religious groupings there are divides of caste, geography, class, language, etc... But what I'm saying is that we have to (i) accept the multiplicities while defining this "identity" and (ii) create space for The Other, instead of just trying to exclude him/her, something which we have been great at doing over centuries. FN -- FN +91-832-2409490 or +91-9822122436 f...@goa-india.org Books from Goa,1556 http://scr.bi/Goa1556Books Audio recordings (mostly from Goa): http://bit.ly/GoaRecordings On 17 August 2012 15:49, U. G. Barad <dr.udayba...@gmail.com> wrote: > FN, I'm not interested in entering debate with you or with anyone in the > Goanet on the message I posted seeking answer to: 'Can anyone define "Goan > Identity" which most Goans use invariably in writing and while speaking in > public places?' > If you can define 'Goan Identity' please do so. > Best regards, > U. G. Barad > Frederick FN Noronha fredericknoro...@gmail.com on Fri, 17 Aug 2012 wrote: > > Dr Barad, Are you suggesting that no such thing exists, or that there is no > unanimity/agreement on how we conceputalise it? On the latter I would agree, > as different segments of society have very different ideas about their > history, culture and traditions. FN