A Brazilian in Goa – Arthur Ituassu reflects on the cultural pasts of two Portuguese colonies continents apart, that in many ways mirror each other. Their present challenges he notes, though similar, are independent of their shared history.
"Our food is Goan. It is not Indian, nor Portuguese. It is Goan. We are not Portuguese. We are Indian for sure, but we are also Goan."
The speaker is Jeanette Afonso, a middle-aged Portuguese teacher in Panaji, the small, historic capital city of the Indian state of Goa. As well as teaching, Jeanette runs a small guest-house at her Cantinho dos Afonsos, a double-yellow house in Panaji’s beautiful Old Quarter. At the end of the street, the little white church of São Francisco de Assis bathes in the light, blessing the neighbourhood and enshrining its history – there is even a crucifix that had given authority to the trials of the Goan inquisition (1560-1774).
For a Brazilian, this is a very interesting place to be. It is so clear that both former colonies of Portugal (Brazil 1500-1882, Goa 1510-1961) are products of a shared history – Portugal’s pioneering globalisation – that enables people from widely distant territories to feel at home in the other. When, for example, a mass in Portuguese is celebrated on Sunday morning at the church of Imaculada Conceição, both the oceans and the centuries between Brazil and Goa seem to fall away.
But a common history, as Amartya Sen argues, is no excuse from reasoning. A Brazilian in Goa can equally see that everything here is also "similar, but different". The space for human creation and intervention – for making it new – must never be suppressed. It is such intervention that has also made Brazilia and Goan cultures – their shared histories notwithstanding – different.
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