GLOBAL GOANS SPEAK
A few decades ago, two small countries, which gained independence after almost two hundred years of colonisation, and both water-bound quasi-islands. Singapore with none extracting resources and Jamaica blessed with bauxite and alumina, both launched themselves on the path of economic development.
Singapore invested in education and market-based economy with manufacturing services, high technology and high finance industries; while Jamaica, took advantage of extraction resources, bauxite and alumina, it made tourism industry its primary source of revenue. The outcomes of the economic development of these two countries is there for everyone to see.
Over the years, primary drivers of tourism industry in Jamaica have been taken over by foreign corporations, depriving needed revenue to the State. Over the decades of use and abuse of the ecosystem by unsustainable volume of hedonistic tourists, one finds it significantly degraded, the very thing that was marketed to draw tourists. Beach-based self-indulging tourism has ravaged the once tranquil and flourishing oasis. Jamaica is struggling to keep its head above the water.
Tourists are not travellers. Humans have an inner drive to travel and explore the beyond. Humans travel far and wide driven by curiosity to know, desire to learn, eagerness to understand the unfamiliar and appreciate diverse cultures. Travellers respect local cultures and make efforts to learn local idioms to understand local customs, and thus enhance their experiences. Travellers explore local gastronomy to understand history and human ingenuity, entrepreneurial spirit and the wisdom of the ancestors.
Travellers are intrigued to understand “why people do what they do,” while they develop greater appreciation for the local ecosystem. Travellers are not in a rush to move on “to see,” the attractions, but take time to enlighten themselves, and return much enriched. Travellers are life-long learners, who recognise what St Bernard said: "you will find something more in woods than in books. Trees and stones will teach you that which you can never learn from masters", and what Leonardo da Vinci said: “Learn how to see. Realise that everything connects to everything else.”
Tourism is a quick profit-making pseudo-industry, focused on generating large numbers of tourists - after all the more people, the greater the profit. Customer turnover is the basic ingredient of the business model. To accommodate large numbers of people in small spaces, tourism industry destroys the very thing that has been presented as “tourist attraction.” Tourists are attracted by the titillation of the place which the promoters of tourism industry are shrewdly engaged in continuously Disney-fying the natural ecosystem and building Potemkin villages to dazzle and lure unsuspecting tourists. Tourists in general are vagabonds, whose interest is in “hop on and hop off” and check off the list of self-gratification and feel satisfied that their money’s worth is accomplished. Thus, they can boast I was there, I have seen it.
The current proposal to promote “green tourism” in Goa is a bold fraud hoisted on the citizens of Goa in the name of progress. There is no such thing as green tourism despite the attempts to green-wash tourism. Tourism, by definition, is unsustainable and necessarily degrades the tourists stand on. The beaches of Goa are increasingly concreted with hotel structures to accommodate the ever-increasing volume of hedonistic tourists, who are mindlessly entertained by over-exploited local talent. The reckless and shabby construction of the transportation arteries is in insult to the injury to the ecology and to the ecosystem that give life to that enviable corner of the world, which excites and fires up the imagination of pleasure-seeking tourists from around the world.
Despite the observable and measurable climate changes the greed-driven recklessness to make Goa a tourist destination ostensibly to generate revenue, which assuredly benefits a few powerful, is flabbergasting. Is there, among the political class and policy makers a smidgen of conscience that would awaken them to the greater good of society?
It is rather mindboggling to observe how our sensibilities and aesthetics are colonised by the glitter of Disney-fication. The beholden policymakers, the two-bit politicians, the notorious “builders/developers” and the shameless money-laundering class have no compunction to defang, declaw, strip the nature and convert it into a saccharine storybook version of itself in return for some silvery coins. Could they re-imagine a wholesome progressive economy by embracing nature?
Why do the good netizens of Goa not get outraged by the brutal mauling of the very thing that makes Goa the cradle of human sanity? Is tourism the only source of revenue for Goa? May be Singapore would fire our imagination… Perhaps the impending persistent flooding at every corner of Goa when the rainy skies cough up a bit? Perhaps a vehicular tragedy of one the prominent sons or daughters of the reigning political class, God forbid, will awaken the calcified consciences and the ossified minds? After all – what is Progress?
The writer is Chair and Associate Professor of Division of Mass Communication and Director, Institute for International Communication at St John's University in New York
