Fr. Victor Ferrao
Most humans are narcissistic and easily fall prey to identity politics. Narcissism becomes visible particularly in the face of the other and his/ her otherness. The self and its other relationship is very central to any politics of identity. We often see the other from the lens of the sameness of the self. This reduction of the otherness to sameness results in the othering of the Other. Self being the master signifier that opens the meaning of the other, renders the other as not different and as such but as different from the self.
This marking of the boundaries of the self and its other leads to what I have called geographies of closures elsewhere. Geographies of closure arise as we attempt to cope with otherness that often triggers the trauma of the past as well as an aesthetic feeling of nausea or repulsion. Because of this discomfort, we withdraw into the shells of our comfort zones.
This withdrawal into geographies of closure is a sign of under-human development in any society. But this discomfort and in ability to deal with otherness that may trigger a pain of the past or aesthetic nausea can be traced in our society in Goa. The colonial rupture and divide of conversion which resulted in a loss of brethren with whom several Goans of the majority community may share kinship haunts us in several ways today. It does sets in a loss recovery dynamism which has marked by geographies of closure and communion among the Christians and Hindus in particular in Goa has several walls with few openings.
Thus, our dehumanized past continues to dehumanize us even today. We can also see that we may have inherited the colonial bias that the Portuguese had against our Muslim brothers and sisters. Thus our past continue to haunt our present and continues to cripple our society in several real ways.
For a long time, we have exhibited inability to dialogue with each other. This inability to dialogue and understand each other can be seen in the manner in which we respond to crucial issues that challenged our society in the post-colonial times. We can see how we stood divided on basic issues like the opinion poll, Konkani agitation, Konkan railway, medium of primary education, etc.
We stand largely divided by caste, religion and region (north /south). This means we do not seem to have reached high on the several vital indices of human development and are vulnerable to communal as well as regional politics that seem to make hay today.
As we stand divided, we become blind to the transfer of our collective wealth to the power elites, depletion of our Goan culture as well as diminishing of our gene pool etc. Although, we respond in different degrees to our issues, we still need to find a response to our fragility . Otherwise both Goa and Goans may soon be in danger of extinction.
Besides facing our own inner contradictions, we as Goans also exhibit a degree of under-development when it comes to non-Goans. Here like most others, we too seem to follow an aesthetic sensibility that manifests a lack of ethics.
Non-Goan stands in conflict with us Goans in several ways. But this conflict also exhibit layers and degrees and is not a monolith. This means there are different geographies of closure. Some of us might find some sameness in the otherness of the other based on religion while religion itself might become the spook in the wheel of communion.
Thus, several among us might be sympathetic to non- Goan Hindus and intolerant to Muslims. These geographies of closure operate also harshly to other non-Goans who are set apart as tribals or ghantis. This aesthetic sensibility indicates that we need to rise on the wings of ethics and expand our embrace to accept basic human dignity of all.
Human development that we all seek needs to deal with our geographies of closure. The way we deal with the otherness of the other does not just dehumanize the other , it dehumanizes us also. This is why we need to accept that there is a dehumanising dimension to our Goanising. We have the noble task of redeeming it. Scholars show that cultural wars rise in societies subjected to neo-liberal policies. With neo-liberal economic policies, having a gala time in our country, the politics of identity will also have a long life span in our society. This is why an awareness of our vulnerabilities to geographies of closures can be therapeutic. Such an awareness is vital for human development in our society. It will make us ethical which will indeed let us understand that the other is not hell as Jean Paul Satre would teach us.
Thus, the other cannot be an object to be subdued or even an abject to expelled but is a mystery to be lived in a dynamic ‘I-Though’ relationship.
