"Status: Unknowable" in the JOÃO ROQUE LITERARY JOURNAL (September 2017)

“And how do you say your name?”

I am prepared for this question. “Feh-AO,” I over-enunciate with great geniality. The official attempts to mimic the sound I’ve just made. “Fer-OH?”

My name provides the finest bait-and-switch. In this moment, I am secretly grateful to the Portuguese for happening upon my people’s shores some five hundred years ago and bestowing upon us their multi-syllabic monikers. (Never mind that de Albuquerque himself likely had the Moors to thank for his Arabic-sounding name and that he dethroned the Muslim king of our coast.) And they say colonialism gave us nothing!

“Don’t worry,” I commiserate. “I don’t think I say it quite right myself.” He smiles and waves me through.

Self-deprecation is a lost art. I sail through the checkpoint, name mangled, but passport restored.

I always check in online the day before the flight. Even if it’s a domestic flight, I still take my American passport with me – all other forms of governmental identification are too whimsical for these endeavours. I must always resist the urge, nonetheless, to place said passport in a frame of gold that I would hold up like a monstrance on the Highest of High Holy days. The car service has been ordered to arrive a full fifteen minutes before I actually have to leave my home to get to the airport a full two hours before the time at which I’d have to board the flight (which is a full half-hour before the flight is actually scheduled to depart).

That same night, I will have packed all the things I will take on my trip in clear re-sealable bags. On Monday, I will have gone to the supermarket to replenish my store of these containment apparatus. I need them in small, medium, large, and pillow-case. Don’t worry – I recycle. I reuse the bags as often as I can. I always take the same things and so I’ve learned to pack efficiently. At first, I place all the items that are to be sequestered upon the bed in a grid by degree of size. The socks can go into the smallest size bags if I fold them just right. The underwear in the medium. The shirts are stacked in pairs and fit neatly into the larger bags. The trousers will have to go into the largest. When these bags are close to disintegration, I will use them to hold the snacks I take to work. And when they truly cannot be used anymore, I’ll place them in the blue recycling bin.

I know the TSA agent who will check my suitcase would appreciate my efforts to reduce, reuse, and renew, were I able to let him know how Earth-conscious I am. I don’t want him to worry about the multitudinous amounts of plastic he will see when he opens my suitcase. He will kindly let me know that he has randomly checked my luggage, by placing an advisory note lovingly on top of all these see-through packages. He will appreciate that I’ve made his job so much easier by letting him survey at one glance all that my valise holds, and that there is nothing suspicious about my possessions, even if he thinks that the person who has organized and contained these items must seek help for their neurosis. I shall add the informative note he will leave me about how these luggage checks are about my safety to the pile I have collected at home. They remind me of how secure I should feel after the completely routine and random check of my ziplocked underwear.

Also on Monday, I will have acquired new razor blades from the store. I need this to complete my pre-travel toilette. On the night preceding my departure, I will scan YouTube for the latest advice on how to shave so closely that my face will take on its once pre-pubescent mien. This is a challenge, you see, given that every pore on my face sprouts four hairs from each root. Warm wet towels, shave cream, brushes, razors, balms, aftershaves, and unguents will be laid out on my vanity alongside my laptop. From this gadget, the media star I have chosen to counsel me on the occasion will expertly deliver step-by-step instructions on how to relieve myself of the hirsuteness of my face. But, just to be certain, I’ll also shave against the grain. In the morning, I’ll wake up an extra half hour before I normally would to repeat the process. The shaving industry loves my facially hairy race, no doubt. But let it be known that they, too, are doing their bit for national security with the inability of their razor blades to last beyond a few uses.

As an added precaution, I trim my eyebrows. They have betrayed me at the best of times, adding punctuation to my unvoiced thoughts on an otherwise expressionless (and hairless face). It’s like they function independently of all my other facial features, operating heedlessly to reveal my otherwise so well repressed feelings. These damned arches will rise higher than Greek pillars of yore, and rival the sweep of the Arc de Triomphe. One simply cannot have this. Taming these shrewish brows will ensure some measure of control over their wantonness when my travel documents are requested and carefully pored over as if they are written in a language so long dead, it would take a doctorate-holding scholar to decipher their authenticity. But as I tell myself (and my querulous eye-framing pelts), this is indubitably in the service of making everyone’s experience at the airport (and the nation at large) just that little bit better. Down, eyebrows, down!

At the gate, as I count down the time to my flight, I shall pull out the book that I always carry with me when I fly. Its title is innocuous, its cover non-descript, its content never actually consumed. The book is just a prop – it might as well be part of the carefully curated costume I always wear when flying. Let’s start with my shoes. Non-marking soles, dark uppers, no metal parts. My slacks, also dark, comfortable, but most importantly button-flied. This is a necessary detail. Getting in and out of airplane bathrooms rapidly helps keep one’s bodily functions from being misconstrued for other activities. For this reason, I will also not have consumed any liquids up to three hours prior to my flight. And certainly no diuretics. Coffee, tea, and alcohol will not know my insides for several hours. I absolutely appreciate that the cabin pressure and unusually cold air in the aircraft will drain any remaining moisture from my skin, so that upon arrival I shall bear the appearance of an unbandaged mummy. The premature aging this will result in is unfortunate, but the dehydration is tantamount to one less visit to the cloistered space of the bathroom in the sky. Indeed, those obscuring doors, that fold like origami to conceal one’s whereabouts for a few minutes are evidently cause for concern. It is best to limit one’s forays into these alcoves’ mysterious depths.

But I digress. My travel trousers have never known the constriction of a belt. The metal buckles of such bondage devices are tricksters waiting to set off the scanners. It is true that I am often to be seen shimmying in airports as I try to pull my trousers back upon my buttocks. For this reason, I stay seated for as long as one can before the boarding process ensues.

Upon my torso will be seen no letters or patterns, for my t-shirt and its encasing jacket will be devoid of any such visual encumbrance. I don’t want anyone to be of the impression that Nike might be the holy deity to which I profess my devotion and loyalty to such an unfettered extent that I would be willing to lay down my life for them.

This tried and tested ensemble is as practical as it is elegant while being, at the same time, completely inconspicuous. That I look like someone from an Old Navy commercial, circa 2003, 1999, and 2017, is a compliment I will take for my sartorial ability to be the very definition of a yawn-inducing surburbanite.

Occasionally, a fellow-passenger will attempt to engage me in conversation as we both await entry into the hallowed space of the metal bird. I am prepared. “You on this flight?” they’ll ask. I’ll look up from the book I am not reading, push back the glasses I do not need to read (but such a useful travel prop, I must say!), and smile. “Uh huh!” In those two syllables I will have successfully made known my friendliness, while also politely demonstrating that my communication skills are those of someone more given to rumination than utterance. The spectacles work well, too, to affect just that slight bit of nerdiness which everyone knows to be a sure sign of lovably excusable social ineptitude. 

“Flight’s late again!” someone else will proclaim within earshot and obviously with the intention of bringing me into a collective rant about the general nature of air travel today and how it no longer bears the charms and glamour of the golden era when one dressed up in their Sunday best to travel and were served martinis while discussing how the good ol’ boys were doing in the playoffs. In response, I will let my eye catch theirs for the briefest of seconds, sigh, shoulders raised and lowered just so, smile, and then go back to not reading my book. I love being a friendly part of the community at the airport.

It is now that moment we have all been waiting for. We are about to board the flight. The bag I carry is the perfect size so that – you guessed it! – I can occupy my seat quickly after having stowed my luggage efficaciously and without incident. But then, alas! Disaster strikes. “Ladies and gentlemen,” the flight attendant’s garbled voice says over the PA. “I must ask you to deplane.”

For this I am not prepared.

As I retrieve my bag and share unplanned eye contact with the other passengers who slowly make their way to the exit, I feel the sweat seep through my t-shirt, creating a pattern around my speedily beating heart and spelling out tell-tale words across my heaving chest. My trousers start a mutinous descent down my flanks. My decoy book looks even to me like a manual for mayhem. My heretofore empty bladder threatens to betray me at any moment, its contents brimming alarmingly.

Back at the holding pen after we make our egress, I feel the itch of someone staring at me. I pretend to pay rapt attention to the airline staff who are about to make an announcement. “We’re really sorry, folks. We’ll have you back on the plane momentarily. Slight maintenance issue – one of the toilets needed to be unclogged.”

Don’t look at me, dude. I didn’t need to go to the bathroom until just now!

We are allowed back onto the plane. I take my seat by the window and anticipate the arrival of the person who will make the journey alongside me. When they show up, I am given not more than a look and am said nothing to, which suits me just fine. My practiced smile turns up the corners of my lips for a millisecond and I return to the ardent non-study of the tome in my hands. Only a few hours before this journey is done. It’s so close at this point that I can taste it!

Closely shaven to within tasting distance of my circulatory system, properly packed with methods to unimpede security’s optics, meticulously dehydrated to the point of being shrivelled up into a raisin, what I want more than anything is to have a drink. But I cannot afford such a luxury while the mission still remains unfulfilled! Exhaustion looms, but I am wired. I look like I am devouring every last letter in this well-thumbed book…

Not until I am off the plane, have retrieved my suitcase (I cannot wait to read the love-letter the TSA have left me this time), and departed the sanctum of the airport that I allow myself the pleasure of declaring victory. I have made it through without raising suspicion of my birth in the Middle East!

But I cannot let this triumph soften me. I must begin plotting for my return in a few days hence. Do I have enough resealable bags?

From the João Roque Literary Journal.

"Blacklisted: Racism and the Injustice of Popular Violence" - THE NAVHIND TIMES (6 November 2013)

On 31^st October, the local media was saturated with news of a group of Nigerian nationals who, it was claimed, had removed the corpse of their murdered compatriot from the hearse carrying it, thereafter placing the body on the road, effectively blocking traffic on NH 17 in protest. Policepersons intervening in the protest were said to have been assaulted and, to complicate matters, the Nigerians were subsequently set upon by a mob, and viciously beaten up, such that two Nigerians suffered life-threatening injuries. The statements made by some of the Nigerians, that the protest was spurred by their fear that the police were not investigating the murder seriously nor paying heed to allegations that two prominent Goan politicians were involved in the drug trade of which the murder was a possible fall-out, were largely ignored.

Public reaction was astounding. Instead of being horrified at the mob lynching of the protesting Nigerians, most persons tended to respond with the simplistic question, what else were the locals supposed to do? This question implies that the Nigerians deserve what they got, not only because they were causing a nuisance, but primarily because of their alleged involvement in the drug trade in Goa. It is precisely this sort of rhetoric that demonstrates the double-standards at work in our society and as especially evidenced in this particular case. The assault on the Nigerians as well as the subsequent reportage, not to mention comments on social media, reek of a barely concealed, when not blatant, racism.

Incidents of mob lynching are often presented as spontaneous eruptions of anger against an ineffective government, but are in fact almost never so. Usually the manifestation of a shared local sentiment against a weaker opponent, they tend to happen only when it is convenient and ‘safe’ to take the law into one’s own hands. Why should a blockage of the highway lead to murderous assaults by people armed with lathis and iron rods? If this lynching was really a response to the government’s inaction against the drug mafia, as some claim, why have we never seen such attacks on the police or the politicians who have been frequently accused of protecting or patronising the trade? The answer is that most participants in the lynching are aware that attacking the police or politicians would have very serious legal and extra-legal implications. Lynching is never directed at the powerful but at the powerless. This ugly phenomenon is often directed at the innocent, as in the case at Arambol a few months ago, when a person mistaken for a thief was tied to a pole and then beaten almost to death – again by ‘locals’ – before he was rescued by the police. Media images showed a bound and bloody semi-naked figure whom bystanders were laughing at and taking pictures of on their cell phones. Social sanction for lynching is deeply troubling, and it cannot just be blamed on an unresponsive government.

Next is the issue of the ‘common sense’ that seems to prevail in Goa: that Nigerians are drug peddlers. It should be obvious that the entire population of Nigerians who visit or are resident in Goa cannot be peddling drugs. Such an assumption gains credibility only when supported by a racist logic that tars an entire community based on the actions of a few. Substantial examples of racism can be found in media reports and editorials, while the viciousness of social media is almost beyond description. Nigerians have been described as “hefty”, “boisterous”, “Uncivilized, uneducated pirates”, and one commentator proclaims, “we can't forget what they did to us during Idi Amin times”. As the latter quotes demonstrate, the identities of distinct nationalities – Ugandans, Nigerians, and others – have been conflated while venting frustration. The only common feature between these nationalities is that they are all African and black. Even Goan diasporic history – the 1972 expulsion of Asians from Uganda by Amin – is roped in as reason for retribution. Further, there is the almost classic racist fear of the savagery of African men. One particularly telling comment on Facebook describes them as “massive Afzal Khan brand African giants,” intertwining the fear of the Muslim along with that of the African. 

This is not surprising given our caste culture, which can surely teach racism a thing or two about violent discrimination on the basis of birth. Our society nurtures a biased belief in hierarchy and discrimination, all of which is also tied to skin colour, so that it is very normal for black people to be treated worse than whites. In an interview many years ago, an African living in Mumbai pointed out that while apartheid in South Africa was the law, in India it is human nature. This results in the khapri, or African, being relegated to the bottom of the caste ladder, lower than the lowest – not least because of Goans recalling their times in Africa as colonial collaborators, but also due to the legacy of slavery in Portuguese Goa, both of which have given Goans unacknowledged African bloodlines. Ganging up on Africans, whether physically or politically, brings Goans ‘together’ against the lowly outsider, creating a fake and racist unity. How convenient this racism is can be seen from the immediate attempts to cash in by MLAs like Rohan Khaunte and Vijai Sardessai, with their open defence of the lynching and avowed support to defend those responsible.

The calls for “rounding up” and deporting Nigerians are disturbingly reminiscent of the pogroms carried out against the Roma and Jews in Europe, and against other ethnic minority groups across the world. It is all the more ironic given the contemporary and routine racial profiling of South Asians, Goans included, who travel to or live in other countries. While many citizens see profiling as a logical response of the State, the fact is that such assertions of tough administration invariably come after an incident such as this; they are merely spectacles and knee-jerk responses, not evidence of good governance. In fact, the inherent jingoism conceals the rot in the system that has produced the problem in the first place. If some Nigerians are involved in drug peddling, can they have been doing it without local assistance? Indeed, the incident that commenced in Parra and concluded in Porvorim is an example of how institutions of governance have been systematically dismantled over time to serve the personal agendas of the locally powerful. Some foreigners may have benefitted from the space that opened up, but the truth is, as so amply demonstrated on 31^st October, that eventually they are as much the victims as locals. Tragically, these victims set upon one another while the kingpins laugh all the way to the bank.
 

In the face of this popular support for mob violence, Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar’s assertion that it cannot do for citizens to take the law into their own hands is well placed, and one hopes that his statement that his government may prosecute those responsible for the life-threatening attacks on the Nigerians will be realised. Lynchings become precedents for more violence and, to reiterate, they invariably mete out unjust punishments. 

This article was co-written with Jason Keith Fernandes, Amita Kanekar, Anibel Ferus-Comelo, and Albertina Almeida, and appears on The Navhind Times.

"Europeans of An Other Colour: Why the Goans are Portuguese" - KAFILA (India - 31 August 2013)

This article serves as a response to Sir Andrew Green’s comment on the alleged misuse of Portuguese citizenship by Indian nationals of Goan origin whom the Daily Star and the Daily Mail have characterized as immigrants who travel to Great Britain to take advantage of it. Green’s perspective from a few months ago mirrors prevalent xenophobic views on the rights of immigrants to Europe; hence, the counterpoint offered here hopes to challenge such bias as it will surely continue to be expressed.

On 13 May, 2013, the Goan Ethernet was aflame with outrage at statements made by Sir Andrew Green, chairperson of Migration Watch, and carried in the Daily Star and the Daily Mail. The Daily Star reported, “An Indian national from Goa can obtain Portuguese citizenship if their parents were Portuguese citizens prior to 1961,” and quoted Green as saying, “They can then move straight to the UK with their family. On arrival they can avail themselves, immediately, of all the benefits available to UK citizens.” The Daily Mail seems to have been spurred on by Green’s statement, going on to claim that “[a] number of Indian nationals from the former Portuguese territory of Goa are thought to have taken advantage of the loophole. Indians living in Goa can claim they have Portuguese heritage and so claim Portuguese citizenship. They can then move directly to Britain - without ever having to visit Portugal - and bring a family without meeting any qualification test.”

Given the manner in which the matter regarding Goan access to Portuguese citizenship has been reported in the British press, as academics studying Goa and the Goan community, we believe that there is a need to redress such misrepresentations and firmly call out, not only the wilful amnesia about Britain’s imperial past, but also the Anglo-centric interpretation of colonialism, the post-colonial, and de-colonised world order that motivates such representations. In so doing, our aim is to address not merely a need for Goans and others of former Portuguese India to assert the legitimacy of their actions, but to also enable a view of the global order from a position that is more respectful of the formerly colonised.

Addressing the aforementioned inherently Anglo-centric bias of the colonial and post-colonial context requires commencing with a review of the Western European encounter with South Asia. This engagement traces back to the late 15^th century with the Portuguese “discovery” of the sea-route to the fabled Indies. It resulted in the establishment of what came to be known as Estado da Índia Portuguesa, or the Portuguese State in India, which was centred in Goa in 1510. The boundaries of Portuguese India, which extended to other enclaves beyond Goa were firmly fixed only in the 18^th century in the face of contestation with, not just local, but other European powers as well. As a result of this early entry into South Asia, by the time the British departed from the subcontinent upon handing over power to two nation-states - India and Pakistan - the Portuguese State in India would outlast their English counterparts and have existed for approximately 450 years. This Portuguese state was markedly different from the one that the British had created in the course of their time in the subcontinent. Most significant, for the misrepresentations that we seek to correct, was the fact that through the length of its presence in the subcontinent, the Portuguese state attempted to recognise natives as citizens, or bearers of rights equal to those of persons from the metropole. As a consequence, Goa was represented by non-white parliamentary representatives from 1834 when the declaration of the constitutional monarchy in Portugal created the space for a national parliament. These rights were extended universally in 1910 with the commencement of the First Portuguese Republic, only to be eclipsed somewhat during the course of the dictatorial Estado Novo, or New State, headed by Dr. António Oliveira Salazar. Nonetheless, the rhetoric of equality was firmly established and constantly referred to by Portuguese Indians, whether living in Goa, or as migrants to British India or, indeed, British East Africa where many Goans lived and worked, as bearers of Portuguese citizenship. Within this colonial framework, even if only in legal theory, racial and cultural difference was in fact surmountable.

This situation was certainly different from that existent in British India, or in any other part of the British Empire for that matter, where the only status enjoyed by the natives was as that of subjects of the British crown. As a result, one could argue that it was the failure of the British state to extend the much coveted status of imperial citizen to the comprador British Indian elites that caused members of that echelon to then set up their claim for independence from the Crown. The nationalist claims that these elites initiated rested on the creation of a national culture that accepted the racial and other differences that the British colonial system enforced. This situation ensured that extant differences were perpetuated rather than challenged. 

The Portuguese State in India came to a definitive close with the actions of the Indian state in 1961, when the

Indian armed forces invaded the Portuguese territory of Goa. While an anti-colonial movement was afoot in the region, the eventual decolonisation of Goa cannot be said to have resulted primarily from the anti-imperialist movements of its own soil due to the military intervention of the Indian state and its subsequent denial of the right of self-determination to the Goan populace. Additionally, in an imperialist act that was echoed in the newly independent nation’s actions in Kashmir and the north-east of the country, the formerly British India unilaterally integrated the territory of Goa into itself. If India was able to get away with this, it was because the developing post-colonial order was awash in racist and ethnocentric perspectives engendered to a large degree by British colonial practices. These were predicated on the assumption that territorial contiguity and the presence of the Hindu religion across the geographic expanse, though not exclusively or without diversity, gave India ample right to take over marginal territories such as Goa and Kashmir.

The significant fact that the Goan people were legally Portuguese citizens was given short shrift and eclipsed by an act of the Indian parliament that bestowed on them Indian citizenship. Hindered by an effectively xenophobic understanding of Indian-ness, and its relationship with the countries that surround it, in contrast to many other legal regimes, the Indian state does not permit its citizens to hold multiple nationalities. Therein, unlike British Indian subjects, in being made a part of the Indian state, Goans and other Portuguese Indians lost their Portuguese citizenship, and the ability to be both South Asian and European, only to have Indian citizenship thrust upon them, and be fixed as solely Indian.

It was only subsequent to the normalization of relations between India and Portugal that a number of former citizens of the Portuguese State of India were able to reclaim their Portuguese citizenship. It is precisely because of the unfounded allegations of the Daily Mail that it should be stressed that these Portuguese Indians are not petitioning for new citizenship, nor exploiting a loophole. What they are doing is reclaiming a legitimate right that was lost owing to the actions of the Indian state. There is no need for them to prove their Portuguese character as the Daily Mail suggests, for their parents, if not they themselves, were Portuguese, and 450 years of Goa being a part of Portugal has made those Goans as Portuguese as any other person in continental Europe who holds Portuguese citizenship. The Daily Mail’s claim is profoundly offensive since it is based on the racist assumption that only Caucasians can be Portuguese and European. This assumption is of course buttressed by the fact that the colonial practices of states like Britain considered only whites to be properly British or European.

The British nation’s historical record when it comes to matters of who is deemed British enough is a controversial one. Note that in the 1960s and 70s, the aftermath of decolonisation in East Africa and Africanisation policies, emergent from impoverishment due to colonisation, saw the vilification and expulsion of Asians who were then denied entry to the United Kingdom despite being holders of UK passports as

colonial subjects. In 1972, when 50,000 Asians were expelled from Uganda by Idi Amin, the very notion of the Commonwealth was proven to be one in name only because, by 1968, the right of colonial-era UK passport holders to enter Britain had been withdrawn in response to an increase in economically induced out-migration from Kenya in 1967. It is important to stress here that not only were Asians – Goans included – in East African countries because the British administration of those colonies had recruited them, but also that their labour had benefitted the Empire. Goans were given British subjecthood to serve the colonial administration in many cases. In so much as Goans were nominally British, their UK passports served more as travel documents than a guarantee of citizenship rights, as became painfully evident in the post-colonial period. While Goans and other colonised groups had been British “enough” to serve the regime, it became apparent that was no longer the case once their usefulness had been outlived. This was a profound abdication of national  and legal responsibility, not least for the racialised political climate induced by years of British colonial rule in Africa. In fact, the colonial legacy continues to reveal itself as is the case with the revelation this year of the destruction of records relating to violent and deadly atrocities committed against Kenya’s Mau Maus who rebelled against British rule.     

 For all the problems that Portuguese colonialism produced, and the racism that accompanied it, what must be underscored is that it is also differentiated by the legal rhetoric that recognised, and continues to recognise, the multiple groups outside of Portugal as equally Portuguese. Thus, the Portuguese Indians who recover their Portuguese citizenship and then migrate, not merely to Britain but across the world, trace a path similar to other Portuguese nationals who are currently in flight from a Portugal laid low by the European

crisis. Portuguese legal history and flows of migration are often ignored by the largely Anglo-centric understanding of the world. The recognition of the Lusitanian milieu allows for a reconstruction of European-ness outside of the racist frameworks that currently delimit it.  It permits a corrective to the manner in which the post-colonial world was constructed along racist lines, restricting the ability of persons to freely move internationally. While white privilege has ensured an ease of travel for some, the accompanying racism leads to the outcries as evidenced in the reports by the Daily Star and Daily Mail, as well as the ritual humiliations of non-white travellers at embassies, consulates, and immigration check-points globally. In challenging this racism that underlies the statement attributed to Sir Andrew Green, there is also an option opened up for Europe wherein the racism that undergirds the European project can be challenged, and in re-understanding the flows of capital and populations that have contributed to European hegemony today, the current crisis can be utilised as a way to reimagine the European Union’s association with the world outside itself and as the product of its own history.

This article appears online at the Kafila website, and was co-written with Jason Keith Fernandes. A version in Portuguese appears on Alice News. Goan Voice UK was our initial source for the reports on Green's statements.