‘Goa Files’ or Goa Defiled ?

Goa Files as showcasing of the crimes of the past is selective and is polemical despite of the stated goals of its promoter.

It’s hypocrisy also stares in our eyes as it hides the original sin of everything that followed after it .
If St. Francis Xavier is to be blamed , what are we to do about Mal Pai of Verna who in collision with Timoja of Honaavar invited the Portuguese. This is mother of all invitations that put Goa and Goans under 450 years of the colonial rule. This is why a polemical approach cannot really help. What we need is a dailogical approach. But unfortunately, it is lacking in the present crisis.

Moreover, the presence of the Naiques as the interpreters in the tribunal of the inquisition indicates how some upper caste members of that time collaborated with the Portuguese in the entire work of the inquisition. Why is there the silence about their work? Had the upper caste of that time found a way of punishing the nascent Christians belonging to lower castes who had left thier fold? Without being casteist and targetting every member of the upper caste, we can discern how the voices that are taking upon themselves to selectively bring history that serve thier sinister agenda also have links with the upper caste. This silence over the upper caste collaboration with the colonial masters that is pushed under the carpet comes back to haunt the discourse of the those who stand with so called half baked Goa Files.

Will the Goa Files expose the upper caste Mal Pai who gave the first invitation that led to 450 years of colonial rule on Goans?
Will Goa Files expose the upper caste collaboration with the colonial empire?
Will thd Goa Files expose those who have economically benefited from the Portuguese rule?

In fact one can also see how the inquisition itself went under self examination and was brought to a close by the colonizers themselves. This means its evil was recognized by its promoters.The complexities therefore of the inquisition need to be tabled and accepted with simplify them.

When one takes a polemical approach which we can see in the approach of media and politics of our day, one disturbs the peace of our society. hence, this dialectical stance has to abandoned. What we really need appears to be the an ethics of dissensus. we do not have to wait for the consesus of all. Lets agree to disagree.

We cannot flog the ass of the past and restore our present and future. The past that wounded us. Now to heal those wounds we cannot inflict more wounds. That will repeat our history. This demands of us to learn from our history. if we do not learn from. History, we will become minic men of the colonizers and repeat the sins of the colonizers doing exactly what we accuse them of doing .

This imitation of violence of the colonizers can only be stopped by doing a reading of history that is doing it from the future. Reading history with sensitivity of what is lying before us and not just what is lying behind us is the need of the hour. Such a dialogue with the past (with what is behind us) fully attune with what is in front of us is the need of day. it is dailogue with full responsibility for Goa and Goans. This us why those that try to do politics about the suffering and wounds of the other cannot be truly Goan nor truly Indians. Unfortunately, those that mimic the politics of the colonizers hide under the cover of nationalism. hence, a therapeutic dialogue can expose them. An polemical approach will only wound us all and wound our future. As true Goans, lets stay united shoulder to shoulder healing ourselves and become therapy to those that open the wounds of our collective past and wound our present and the future.

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