Free Goa again Dr. Ferdinando dos Reis Falcão, Margão.
There is an English saying which aptly describes a fanatic as one who will not change his mind nor the subject. Mr. Lambert Mascarenhas in his letter titled Expectations from Portugal, seems to be highly obsessed in his qualification as a Freedom fighter, and of his ire of the Portuguese. Let me enlighten Mr. Mascarenhas a little, although he is a couple of decades older than I.
Every country has its quota of educated, uneducated, illiterate and fanatic people; the ratio varies as per civilisation of that country. Just because Portugal had a Salazar regime, who was ousted by the Portuguese themselves, it does not mean that all Portuguese are dictators. Same goes with President G.W. Bush; it does not imply all Americans are like him. Only fanatics can think in those lines and land up hating everyone.
Secondly, Mr. Mascarenhas seems to be in total oblivion of the present situation of Goa and her ethnic Goans. What Freedom is he harping about that he fought for, when Goans are in the clutches of crimes, corruption, criminalisation and total insecurity and on the verge of extinction in their own land? I throw an open challenge to Mr. Mascarenhas and his likes to free our Goa and Goans from at least one of these claws, like of corruption.
The other conclusion that I could derive from the letter is that Mr. Mascarenhas may be, has been left with only the past memory, the present and the immediate past having faded.
