Can we Goans rise above everything that divides us? Can we find a middle ground that will bring every person in Goa feel that he/she belongs? Though all Goans have shared space and history, often, these geographies and histories have been used to whip up divisive sentiments and converted into vote banks for the political forces. Can we Goans understand how we are drawn into a divisive politics that keeps us divided and uses us as mere voters while subtly attacking us as citizens. How could we become citizens and not just voters who abdicate our responsibility as citizens and leave everything entirely into the hands of the political community? Perhaps, we need to come to understand our present condition. The condition that we find ourselves in is resourceful. It opens us possibilities to rise above divisive politics. But it is for us Goans to give ourselves this chance. We need to seek a point of mediation, a medial point that would simultaneously be a remedial point for our society. This would require us to not just counter hegemonic power centres as well as choose the urgent issues from issues that can wait. The medial point which is also a remedial point is in the making. It is not a point that exists in a way that we all have to assemble there. It is a point that we need to bring into being by standing up for Goa.
We may have to think through the underside of Goa. This thinking from the periphery of Goa is thinking at the boundaries. It is a kind of boundary thinking. It has the power to view both sides of the boundary. Such a Goa thinking will definitely be aGonizing moment. It will lead us to bring into being the medial point that is at once remedial. The Goanizing moment that we can inaugurate is a moment of freedom. It has a promise to free us from the entanglement of hostilities and divisions that only serve the political, economic and social ends of few, particularly the political parties that prey on our divisions. Divide and rule British colonizers have come full circle. Hence, the Goanizing moment will enable us to break through bondages of unfreedoms that have kept us chained for long. It has the power to transform both our external and personal inner life. This means the Goanizing moment is profoundly a political moment. It challenges us to understand, discern and resist all forms of peripheralization and dislocation of Goa and all people in Goa. This takes our thinking into a combative zone where all people in Goa both Goans and others are summoned to respond to the impending Goacide .
The Goa thinking that we have ventured into has to be counter-hegemonic. It has to open the horizons of our mind to an active construction of absences/ non-existence and emptiness that are constructed in Goa. Non-existence is produced when some people and their life is discredited, rendered invisible and discardable. There are several modes of production of absences/ non-existence in Goa. Hence, Goa thinking has to illuminate, open and bring into dialogue and debate the spaces, opportunities, accesses and benefits that remain closed to ordinary people in Goa. This reflection on the exclusions, denials, deprivations, forced erasures along with mechanisms of inferiorizations and authoritarian development bring us into the zone where non-existence is constructed and forced on our people. That is why people in Goa are transformed into zonal beings who are on the verge of becoming zonal non-beings. Zonal non-beings are humans who can be absent/ discarded as their life and existence is thought to be of no importance. Thankfully, Goa has not yet reached this tragic scenario. Yet Goans and others in Goa have been reduced to zonal beings who suffer legitimate denials, lack of access to benefits, and several other unfreedoms. Hence, Goa thinking is challenged to be a response to the forced enclosures that are pushing Goans and others into zonal life.
The identification of the struggles of the zonal people in Goa has the power to bring us more to the medial point, which can trigger the Goanizing moment. It brings us to the horizon of possibilities into the space of not-yet. The people facing deprivations, denials of democracy can become those who can bring us to this ‘not-yet’ which can be an anticipation of the Goanizing moment. This arrival at the lived lives of the zonal Goans, like the STs tribes, the low castes, minorities and every other person facing dehumanization offers an opportunity to discern the lines of struggle for dignified life imagined and actively pursued by them. We cannot regard this experience of being marginalized and living on the margins as wasteful life. The Goans subjected to deprivations and denials have the Goa dream very different from the economic tycoons that prey on Goan resources. Hence, the Goa thinking can stretch ahead of itself into a not-yet zone in the power of the ‘other’ dreams, aspirations and visions of the future of the lowliest in Goa. Absences/ non-existence faced by these people amplify the urge to claim that which is denied to them. It is in this claim of the deprived we can reclaim and recover Goa and Goanness.
Caring for the future of Goa is the only armour of hope that we are left with. The focus into the lived life of the deprived of Goa is a point of departure. The point of arrival is in the horizon of not-yet. At the point of departure, we have the tendencies, dreams, hopes, values and practices that have the potential to take us to the final destiny , the Goanizing moment. The struggle against the de-goanization of Goa has to begin with the zonal Goans who directly suffer the consequences of de-goanization that is set in Goa. Only by joining the people rendered marginal that a collective resistance to the-organization is possible. Hence, we need to recognize that the medial point and the remedial point are dispersed on the margins. Hence, Goa thinking is summoned by the margins and the marginalized. The challenge that we face is peri-centralization. This means we have to find the counter-hegemonic centres in the periphery. The solidarity with the zonal people of Goa may enable us to destabilize a vote bank politics that milks Goa’s resources as a colony of Delhi. The voice of the Goan on the margins is already embedded in our culture. The belief in the ‘apshi’, ‘ganv-prush’ ‘devchar’ of the yesteryears has to take us to the people of the margins today. They can be our guides and guardian angels, who can effectively lead us to reverse the-organization and bring about an intense flow of organization from all directions.
