This is a question that every Goan has at the core of his or her heart. After all, a relationship between those who chose and those who are chosen has to be understanding and trusting, but above all, it has to be about faith and solidarity.
When you vote you don’t choose an MLA, you chose your destiny
If you enjoyed reading this article, you can help support our journalism by adding OHeraldo as a preferred source.
When you choose those who should govern, you don’t only choose an MLA. You chose your destiny. And that of your children. Will the prayer of Goans ever be answered that they will get a real hero as the preserver, as a protector of Goa’s environment its land, its culture and resources? Or will they get only heroes of “wealth” and their own resources?
That is easy to get. But when Goans vote they seek a protective wall around our nature and its assets, around our farms and fields, around our identities and culture.
The people of the State and the politicians they elect cannot be in conflict. Those who are elected are expected to be aligned with people’s expectations. Goans do pray and ask if God will indeed send us ministers who Goans will truly worship and adore, revere and respect. Will that be a challenge or will that be easy?
Which son or daughter of the soil will rise to do it for us?
In any country or society when people have to repeatedly knock on the doors of governance or seek justice, it indicates that they don’t have real heroes of the people. When jobs and self-employment, when the quality of life, when harmony, when freedoms, when the right to peacefully protest, when the right to hold truth to power is not naturally available when that is all people want from any government anywhere in the world, there is something wrong with the State.
The reason why governments have a fixed term is that allows people to make decisions, reward them or punish them.
And one of the points on which people, chose is whether the leadership does these three things
1) Preserve the fiercely protect what is good and what needs to be protected
2) Change, and change quickly, decisions and laws that are anti-people so that there is equality and justice for all
3) Be open to people’s suggestions and their complaints and always hear them by giving them access
4) Do not take the state or country on a path where people really question their own choices – for instance in a coastal state, of ministers who say they don’t want beaches or farms and fields. People will see this as an assault on the identity of the state.
People see the state as a real treasure and the hero but they need custodians who care for the state, not betrayers who say good things about the land they live in but continue to betray the same land.
We will always remember Anthony’s words at Ceaser’s funeral “Yet Brutus says he (Ceaser) was ambitious. And Brutus is an honourable man. I thrice presented him (Ceaser) (with) a kingly crown. Which he did thrice refuse. Was this ambition? Yet he (Brutus) is an honourable man.”
Here Anthony, very smartly, in his speech, in a tone that praises Brutus actually shows how the wily Brutus had tried to call the good Ceaser “ambitious” in a dishonourable way. But Anthony also showed that Ceaser refused the kingly crown and therefore was not ambitious for power at all. Anthony thus exposed Brutus’ true character.
In contemporary Goa, are Goans like Mark Anthony? Do they see through the Brutus’ (some elected people) who betray the land and the Constitutions, even though those in high offices are referred to as “Honourable”? Answers to these questions are within the hearts of Goans. They continue to pray for good, just leaders like Ceaser to come and be the real heroes of the people.
That is a hope that never dies nor should die. For the sake of our combined destinies.
