Goa - Roteiro Histórico-cultural
(Teotonio R. de Souza)
Teotonio R. de Souza, Goa: Roteiro Histórico-Cultural, Lisboa, Ministério da Educação: Grupo de Trabalho para as Comemorações dos Descobrimentos Portugueses, 1996, ISBN 972-8186-28-2, pp.207. Maps:8, Illustr: 21, Graphs: 4 The book resulted from travel notes of The author who was invited by the Portuguese National Comission for Commemorating the Portuguese Discoveries in 1998 toaccompany a group of Portuguese high school teachers on a study tour to the former colony. Teotonio R. de Souzahas tried to present in this historical-cultural guide of Goa the vestiges of four and half centuries old portuguese presence as it lies embedded in the multisecular base of the Indian culture. The guide is meantto accompany the portuguese visitors not to look simply at a series of historical sites, monuments and other objects, but first and foremost to get a feel and to begin to understand a people in their home - Goans in Goa. In order to make this possible, the authorwants the visitors to assume that Goa and Goans had a long past that anteceded the arrival of the Portuguese there, and which continued after the Portuguese vacated the land. The portuguese presence is thus viewed in a wider context of Goa´s historical and cultural past, which goes back to its paleolithic past discovered during the past 15 years. If 500 years ago the Portuguese took interest in Goa and in Goans for strategic reasons and for exploiting them, the Portuguese of today can return there to seek to understand the Goans and to dialogue with them over issues and concerns of mutual interest. This can be possible only when Goa and Goans are seen in their historical and cultural contexts. That is the reason for the three introductory chapters in this guide-book: 1. Goa in its pre-historic and historic march; 2. Goa: its ecology and some socio-economic indicators; 3. Goa: a cultural fusion in evolution . The Portuguese visitors to Goa can rightfully feel proud of the contribution made by Portugal to the Goan identity. Fully aware of the Portuguese historic conscience and all the elements that marred the process of its evolution, the Portuguese journalist Miguel de Sousa Tavares wrote poignantly in the travel magazine Grande Reportagem after a brief visit to Goa in 1992: It is possible to love what one does not possess, and it is possible to serve what no longer belongs to us. The end-goal of peoples is not to have empires, but to have memories. The authorwishes that hisguide book will aid the discovery and recovery of those memories of the challenges that Portugal and the Portuguese faced in the headquarters of their former Estado da Índia, their old eastern empire, which inspired the epic of Camões and also caused frustrations to him and his fellow-countrymen. The glories and the fumes of Indies, the allurements and disenchantments constitute and will remain essential components of the Portuguese historical memories.
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