Celebrating the Margins

Celebrating The Margins 

December 7, 2014 

The Goa Arts and Literary Festival has been celebrating the margins ever since it began in 2010. The homegrown festival pays special attention to poetry, translations, graphic novels and most recently food bloggers. It also encourages contingents from Kashmir, the North East, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Singapore and Australia.

A number of books have also had their exclusive ( worldwide) launches at GALF. Bilal Tanweer’s ‘ The Scatter Here is too Great’, Ranjit Hoskote’s translations of Lal Ded, Naresh Fernandes’ ‘ Taj Mahal Foxtrot’, Amruta Patil’s ‘ Parva’ and Maria Aurora Couto’s ‘ Filomena’s Journey’ among others.

Writer Samar Halarnkar says the warmth and space for alternative voices makes him want to return to the festival.

At the festival one encounters many unexpected people rather than the big commercial names. Poet, cultural theorist and curator Ranjit Hoskote says the festival is an opportunity for him to connect with fellow writers from around the world in a warm and relaxed atmosphere “ even while it is profoundly serious about the practice of the literary arts.” Author Dilip D’Souza says the special scale of the festival allows more intimate sessions and isn’t like other festivals he has attended where there are hundreds of people in the audience. “ Writers like to have lots of people listening but here you can have intimate chats with people who truly appreciate your work.” This year’s festival saw exclusive book launches by Rajdeep Sardesai, Damodar Mauzo and Mamand Dai among others.

One of the highlights of this festival was a contingent of indigenous writers from Australia. Ellen Van Neerven, Jared Thomas and Nicole Watson shared their literary work and interacted with participants at the event.

Australia’s Aboriginal people make up 2.5 percent of the population and Ellen says she often feels like an outsider in her own land and that she shouldn’t speak about certain things. She finds a lot of ‘ othering’ in books written on indigenous people by non indigenous people.

In one of her books Heat and Light her characters are part plant and part people. “ Like mangroves they have roots and the ability to speak the language that comes from the country. Human characters are constantly trying to interrupt and destroy them,” she says.

Nicole says she wants people to have knowledge of the history of her place and brings this out in her book The Boundary which is set in Brisbane town.

“Twenty first century people don’t know that an actual boundary existed and the

curfew was strictly enforced where Aboriginals weren’t allowed to cross at night.” Her books have a strong connection to land and land theft sets the background to her stories.

Jared says the health status of Australia’s Indigenous population is poor by world standards. “ It is a first world country with third world diseases. More than twice as many Indigenous babies suffer low to extremely low birth- weight and are twice as likely to be hospitalized for infectious diseases”. While the Australian government provides support for artistic projects and indigenous art this respect doesn’t always reflect in policies of the government.

“ Unfortunately the focus of the media is not on the positive but the negatives which in turn acts to legitimize paternalism which benefits the government, providing opportunity to acquire land.

The poor health and education outcomes are a result of the marginalization and grief deriving from earlier colonial practices.

It is imperative that Aboriginal Australia exercises self determination and further develops agency to improve life outcomes in partnership with other Australians,” Jared says.

If there’s something Aboriginal people are good at it is waiting, Nicole says.

“We just have to have a 500 year plan and I’m fighting not only for my generation but for the future generations and for the past generations too.” The festival this year not only focused on the margins from outside the state but looked within too.

Goan advocate, agriculturist and social activist from the Gavdda community Joao Fernandes spoke about how the Church in the village of Quepem was destroying the culture of his community.

“The Christian gavdas in Quepem are the most backward and are being exploited educationally and socially. Religious institutions think we don’ have the right to preserve our culture and should follow western culture.” He spoke of how there were nine maands in his village which were systematically destroyed from 1993- 1997. Should this continue the community would be wiped out from the map of Goa, he says.

Today the financially well off and well qualified are slowly moving away from their culture and trying to hide their identities, he explained. The problem he said arose because dignity of labour was nonexistent in the State. “ The education system doesn’t inculcate dignity of labour. Unless this happens, people will not take pride in their culture and favorably take up jobs in agriculture.” Another activist Seby Rodrigues pointed out how most industries in the State today were situated on tribal land. The tribes in the State he says are still struggling to organise themselves.

“What is needed is genuine solidarity with the people and an alternate architecture of resistance to protect the original inhabitants of the State.” He said he is still waiting for an apology from the ex Chief Minister and now Defense Minister who had called him a ‘ Naxalite’. Another writer and activist from Gaodongri in Cotigao, Devidas Gaonkar says the tribal community was promised land if they agreed to convert. Once they did, they realized that they had been betrayed and nothing was given to them.

The Australian Indigenous writers will be interacting and exploring connections with Indigenous writers in Goa and those in other states in the country through a special initiative called the Literary Commons.

Damodar Mauzo and Vivek Menezes never expected the festival to grow to the scale it has today. They say the festival will continue to celebrate the margins. Review Bureau

LISA ANN MONTEIRO 

link: http://epaperoheraldo.in/Details.aspx?id=9726&boxid=175832187&uid=&dat=12/07/2014