Claiming the Right to Say No-30 Nov 09-EQUATIONS - Equitable ...

Claiming the Right to Say No
De-narrativising Goa
We have become heighteningly aware that Goa, Goans and our
honourable visitors are subjected to a narrative of tourism that has led the
construction of Goa as a land of milk and honey for tourism industry. The
fact that we have discovered the narrative impact on us as hosts, our land
and visitors is already a step towards the deconstruction of narratives
that are shape the present discourse about tourism in Goa.
In our quest to find a critical and creative response to the narrativization
of Goa, we must be aware that we are always inherently embedded in
some or the other narrative structure. Alister MacIntyre teaches that
‘stories are lived before they told’. We live our narratives and understand
others in terms of narrative or because of narrative. As we are both the
authors and actors of our own narratives, our present is shaped by the
image of the future and represented in the in our present aims and goal,
as well as constrained by the past. Thus, within our narratives, we pursue
our virtues and our vices. This means our narratives present us standards
of excellence.
The form of tourism that is pursued in our land is a natural out come of the
kind of narrative of tourism that we have constructed. The standards of
excellence that the tourism industry in our land has uncritically set have to
be studied with due attention.
Although we are born in a cultural narrative and have no freedom to say
‘I don’t want to start from here’ yet we can reach a critical moment of
awakening like the man who happens to slip out of Plato’s cave. This
critical moment of awakening results into a leap in consciousness and we
can begin to understand the narrative impacts on our life and thus raise
questions on the fitness of the standard of excellence emerging from the
tourism narratives that dominate the scene.
Re-narritivising Goa
The project of deconstruction of the narrative entanglement of Goans is
not a bed of roses. This noble project is indeed the need of the hour as
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