BSS

Colonization can never be good: Researcher
Dec 19, 2011, 06.33AM
Goa’s 50th year of liberation|colonization
PANAJI: Goa has experienced the worst kind of colonialism as it was ruled by a weak power- the
Portuguese. No other territory has lived under such long and effective domination as Goa, professor
Boaventura de Souza Santos, director at the Centre for Social Studies at Coimbra University in
Portugal said, speaking at the Goa University on Sunday.
Nostalgia about colonial rule is too simplistic a view as such a rule can never be a good thing,
professor Souza said, while speaking at the opening ceremony of Goa University's three-day
international conference on the eve of Goa's 50th year of liberation from the Portuguese rule.
"Goa was colonized by a weak colonial power. The official British historian under the English
colonial rule wrote of the Portuguese as being 'barbarian'. So it was a different, complex situation
for Goa under the Portuguese rule," the historian said. Highlighting the difference between the
powerful fellow colonizers of Portugal and the then relatively sparsely populated nation, the scholar
said, "At one point, Portugal shifted its capital to a colony- Brazil. One cannot imagine the French
or British rulers doing such a thing. It was then a country of just one billion which was ruling across
five continents. Mozambique was being ruled from Goa."