Ohm Stanley
Twenty-six-year-old Tarek Mohamed Bouazzi was, according to some sources, an University graduate who could not find work and thus took up to selling fruits in a small Tunisian town of Sidi Bouzid. He was the sole bread winner for a family of eight. One day, a policewoman accompanied by two municipal officers confiscated Tarek’s fruits and his electronic weighing scale and told him that he could not sell his fruits at that spot. To make matters worse the policewoman slapped Tarek, an extreme insult in the deeply patriarchal society. A frustrated and disappointed Tarek responded by self immolating himself in front of the Governor’s Office.
This was the spark that ignited what is popularly known as the Arab Spring. The Arab uprising brought down deeply entrenched despots such as Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, Libya’s Col. Gaddafi, Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak and Yemen’s Ali Abdullah Salah. Syria was plunged into civil war and if not for the support of Russia, President Assad Al Bashar would be long gone. Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman and many other gulf countries experienced protests of varying degree.
Why this history lesson? I started to think of Tarek when I first read about the arrest of Maclon Fernandes for selling fruits on the roadside, under Sec 34 of Police Act. The police action just like the action of the policewoman and municipal authorities in Tunisia, may be completely legal, however, it is an insensitive and biased act on the part of the State. A Goan youth instead of migrating to greener pastures or indulging in trade in drugs or prostitution in this coastal tourist State sells fruits by the roadside. Is he to be punished? If the same yardstick is applied by Goa Police I dare say there will be not a single street hawker in Goa. But we know that will never happen.
Tarek was a spark. There were many reasons behind the Arab Spring. Demography loaded towards youth, high rate of unemployment, poverty, authoritarian Governments and corruption were some of them. These same ingredients exist in Goan society. Add to it the local ingredients of an unsympathetic Government, a minority Government that has robbed the people’s mandate, non performing ministers led by an ailing Chief Minister, Goan ethos and values quickly eroding, ministers openly favouring immigrants to bolster their vote banks, environment being sacrificed for corporate needs cloaked in the garb of ‘development’, etc.
When will a Maclon Fernandes be our Tarek? What spark will ignite the susegad Goan? Or are we condemned to suffer like poor Maclon because “mhaka kiteak poddlam”?
