Celebrating the Africander Goan ... in text and pics Reviewed by Frederick Noronha f...@goa-india.org
The Africander -- as the Africa-settled Goan was known in our parts of Goa for much of the 20th century -- remains a little-understood animal. He (often she) was greeted with a mix of envy, incomprehension, disdain and bewilderment. Waves of Africander Goans returned back to Goa in the late 1960s and 1970s, only to see their children migrate to places like Australia or Canada in the 1980s and 1990s. For some reason, this vibrant, economically-important, well-educated and high-achieving community was inadequately studied in the past. There are nonetheless some writings available, even if hard to find. Dr Teresa Albuquerque's history of the Goans of Kenya; Peter Nazareth's and Braz Menezes' charming novels set amidst the expat Goan community and in Kenya and Goa; Dr Stella Mascarenhas-Keyes' studies on Goan migration; retired schoolteacher's Blanche D'Souza 'Harnessing the Trade Winds'; a booklet published after the assassination of Pio Gama Pinto; the badly overlooked fiction of Violet Lannoy Dias, among others, all give an insight into the Goan world in Africa. Just out is Selma Carvalho's second book, and is entirely devoted to the Africa Goans of the yesteryears. She pieces together the story by conducting oral interviews, scouring through old newspapers in the libraries, and blending this together with her colourful twist of phrase. Elsewhere, Carvalho has explained the choice of the two dates that serve as her start- and end-point (1865 and 1976). These mark the date of the arrival of C.R. de Souza in Zanzibar and the last expulsion of Goans -- from Malawi -- respectively. Her book starts with Goa, very briefly setting the context for out-migration from here, and ends in the UK, where many of the ex-Africanders have since settled. On Page 2, Caetano do Rosario de Souza has arrived in Zanzibar, and its 1865. We learn of early Goan businessmen -- L.M. de Souza, M.R. de Souza, Souza Junior & Dias, and others -- and Goan-run bars. By the late 1890s, we hear of the Sultan of Zanzibar's "Goanese band". Quickly we run into the medical doctors; the key role of Goan doctors in Africa, products of one of the earliest medical schools in Asia, has already been commented on by scholars. Chapter 2 too has us in Zanzibar, but now between 1900 and 1920. The Goan photographer has reached a lot many parts of India and the world than we might suspect, and here too we encounter a Goan-run photography business. From fragments of memoirs, you can guess the role played by the African tailor. Some years down the line, we might dismiss as an urban myth the fact that a Goan tailor called Caetano Milagres (CM) Gomes created or adapted the Gomesi/Busuuti, the de facto national dress of women in Uganda! This was acknowledged a couple of years ago by the Uganda Monitor newspaper. Others took on roles in "watch, clock and typewriter repairs" (p.17) or ran hotels like D.B. Pereira's 32-bed Hotel Kitaruni. These Goans were followed by others who served as postmasters, clerks, newspaper managers and in other lines. In passing, we're told of the Goan Manuel de Souza of Arusha who "eventually discovered Tanzanite". If you're reading hurriedly, you might miss out on the fact that Tanzanite is used as a gemstone, and naturally-formed Tanzanite is extremely rare. For more on this, and de Souza's role, check the Wikipedia for this gemstone. Carvalho takes us then to Mombasa (1895-1910), Nairobi (1899-1910), the White Highlands (1900-1925), the Goan Institute (1904-1920, across two chapters), Uganda (1900-1935), the civil service, religious life, the Dr Ribeiro Goan School (1915-1931), the Goan community, the Idi Amin-ordered Expulsion from Uganda (1972), the Goan expulsion from Malawi in 1976, till an epilogue that ends the story in Britain where many Africander Goans are now based. The strong point of this book is the amount of details it contains. Carvalho, being based in the UK, which probably has a better archive of colonial African newspapers than Africa does itself, has a headstart here. On the other hand, a strength can also become a weakness. The detail is so much, that one tends to loose sight of the forest for the trees. At times, one also gets the feeling that the 'facts' are arranged in a manner that support a thesis. For instance, the point about "a new relationship" being "negotiated between the sexes" in Goa "even before the Codigo Civil of 1867 made gender equality a constitutional right" had one quite lost. Bringing in Western music and the mando into this picture is even more confusion. So, what was it that brought a greater degree of equality among the genders (at that stage, more among the Catholics) in Goa? Was it mass migration? Was it education? Either would have certainly been a legit argument. But, remember, we're talking about the 1860s or prior; too early for both! Another debatable point is the projection of caste and class politics in the Goan clubs. Without making light of this, one could argue that one's frame of reference and comparison is crucial here. Do we expect Catholic Goans to behave like Europeans, merely because they shared a religion? If we contrast them with the South Asian reality, is the glass half-empty or half-full? In an African continent then almost entirely built on the pillars of race, colonialism and class, what makes us think that one tiny community would be bereft of bias and questionable status markers in its midst? Putting together a book of this sort is an uneasy task. Partly because the canvas is so huge, and also because the author has taken on the task of herself piecing together the parts of this huge puzzle -- rather than collating the first-person accounts of others. It can be a challenge to keep track of the narrative's zig-zags across the different countries that made up East Africa, with sometimes overlapping time-frames. Given the challenges such a work represents, it is understandable that the reader ends up with a feeling that more focus could have been given for certain parts of the book. For instance, the Goa setting seems treated cursorily. What is also noteworthy is that the British biases on writing Portuguese history seem to surface in part of the text (see the Prologue: Goa). It might have helped to have some mention of the Anglo-Portuguese Treaty of 1878, probably a major aggravating factor in the immiseration of the Goan and a serious push-factor for such high out-migration. Nonetheless, many of the vignettes contained in 'A Railway Runs Through ...' give a useful insights into what made the world of the Africander. One can only imagine how much relevance and value a book of this kind would have to any ex-Africa expat trying to understand their role in wider history. The oral-history part of this project is also useful in capturing memories of a generation that is moving into its sunset years, and urgently needs to have its stories recorded. It would make more sense to have these stories in a publicly accessible site online, rather than in a library or difficult-to-access archive. That could perhaps help a more collaborative building of a community's history. This book came out in the UK, and is there has been mention of a Goa edition expected shortly. -- A Railway Runs Through: Goans of British East Africa, 1865-1980 Selma Carvalho. Matador (Troubador Publishing) ISBN 978-1783064-885 Pp 156. Np. [This is a slightly adapted version of the review which first appeared in Navhind Times, Panorama, Sunday, June 6, 2014.]