In memory of a great Goan: Professor Adolfo Mascarenhas

 Sharing some interesting info from an old classmate whom we have kept in touch with for many years. Jaipal was a top student at St Joseph’s in the 50s and then caught up with us in Tabora in the early 60s.  Edwin and Ivy,

In all the recent furore about the election of Zohran Mamdani as New York Mayor, I vaguely recalled that I may have met his father in 1970s Dar. It was probably at my classmate Adolfo Mascarenhas’ home at the University of Dar es Salaam. I think Mahmood was a Shia Ithna Asheri based in Uganda, who was at the time an academic briefly attached to the University of Dar es Salaam. 

I also remember the stir created by  Mira Nair’s 1991 film “Mississippi Masala”, which dared to cast an Indian girl (refugee from Idi Amin’s Uganda growing up in the US), falling in love with an African American, played by a young Denzel Washington. I did not know until now that Mira Nair had met and married Mahmood Mamdani in Kampala. Apparently, Mira met Mahmood when she was in Uganda researching her film “Mississippi Masala”. 

I trawled through the Internet to find some background on Mahmood Mamdani, the late Professor Adolfo, and other Indian-origin academics at Dar University in the 1960s/1970s, but found this, which I thought may interest the two of you:

JOHN NAZARETH:

I was sad to read of the passing of Prof Adolf.

I first met him when I was pretty young, visiting my brother Peter Nazareth in Makerere College in the 1950s. Adolf was one of his close friends. In 1963 I accompanied Peter to attend Adolf and Ophelia's wedding in Dar-es-Salaam. But I really reconnected with him as an adult through goa-research-net.

I reached out to him a few months ago to get me a copy of the late Ben Mkapa's autobiography, as I couldn't get it anywhere else. We had plans to discuss the book together.

We first delayed when I was trying to recover from the passing of my dear wife Cynthia - something which is still raw 2 years on. But more recently, I noticed that it was not easy to get going again. I suspect Adolf was ailing.

Adolf was a great patriot.

The eminent anthropologist Prof Robert Newman wrote that Goans have been multicultural for over 1000 years. Like Adolf, I felt I could embrace many personas without rejecting the other.  I am Goan, Indian, Ugandan, African and Canadian - and I don't know how to live any other way. Adolf was a real inspiration.

Rest in peace, my dear friend.

John Nazareth

I was sad to read of the passing of Prof Adolf.

I first met him when I was pretty young, visiting my brother Peter Nazareth in Makerere College in the 1950s. Adolf was one of his close friends. In 1963 I accompanied Peter to attend Adolf and Ophelia's wedding in Dar-es-Salaam.

But I really reconnected with him as an adult through goa-research-net. I reached out to him a few months ago to get me a copy of the late Ben Mkapa's autobiography as I couldn't get it anywhere else. We had plans to discuss the book together. We first delayed when I was trying to recover from the passing of my dear wife Cynthia - something which is still raw 2 years on.

But more recently I noticed that it was not easy to get going again. I suspect Adolf was ailing.

Adolf was a great patriot.

The eminent anthropologist Prof Robert Newman wrote that Goans have been multicultural for over 1000 years. Like Adolf I felt I could embrace many personas without rejecting the other.  I am Goan, Indian, Ugandan, African and Canadian - and I don't know how to live any other way.Adolf was a real inspiration.

Rest in peace my dear friend.

John Nazareth

By Adolfo Mascarenhas

mascar at ud.co.tz<http://ud.co.tz/>

 

Let me say how honoured I am to address this issue. About 50 years ago, as the first  Tanganyikan to be offered a chance to pursue an honours degree in Geography, I toyed with the idea of doing a research paper on the impact of Goa on the Arabian Sea and Africa and beyond.

Over the last few years in my retirement, I have begun to take a greater interest in Poverty, Knowledge and Development. How are these two episodes linked? Very simply in 2003 when I saw the ruins of St Augustine's Church at Old Goa, I came to the conclusion that the Portuguese could not have left such an impact on their own. They needed the help of the Goans; there was no way that a few hundred Portuguese could hold sway over the Eastern Hemisphere extending from Lobito to Osaka from their Asian outpost of Goa.

A few days later, in the new year of 2004, I spent time in Chandor and, further south, saw the Mahadeva Temple at Tambdi Surla in interior Goa. Dating back to the thirteenth century, or nearly two hundred years before the arrival of the Portuguese, it was simply an awesome historical reality. It is built on solid basalt with intricate carving on rock, and convinced me even more that I was on the right path.

Personally, there are many reasons why I am honoured to be here (in Goa), including the fact that I am a Mugoa. Tribally, this means that I have my ancestral roots in Goa.

THE LARGER CONTEXT

Any person interested in development today must put things in a bigger picture or in a global context. Despite the anti-colonial struggles and the over threefold increase in the number of nations since World War II, western ethnocentrism still dominates our world. International financial institutions have pushed for the neo-liberal agenda and to a major degree have and will be responsible for the vulnerability of many Third World countries, especially in Africa. More and more, the agenda is being sweetened by the promise of aid without paying attention to the devastating distortion that this aid has on development. Have we paid attention to who the producers are, who profits and accumulates, and how the surplus is used?

The bottom line is that we are living in an extremely unequal world, and we should be very conscious of this if we are interested in our development. The differences between the rich and the poor are staggering. The logical conclusion should make all thinking people start rethinking and taking a stand.

(A slightly edited version)

 Sharing some interesting info from an old classmate whom we have kept in touch with for many years. Jaipal was a top student at St Joseph’s in the 50s and then caught up with us in Tabora in the early 60s.  Edwin and Ivy,

In all the recent furore about the election of Zohran Mamdani as New York Mayor, I vaguely recalled that I may have met his father in 1970s Dar. It was probably at my classmate Adolfo Mascarenhas’ home at the University of Dar es Salaam. I think Mahmood was a Shia Ithna Asheri based in Uganda, who was at the time an academic briefly attached to the University of Dar es Salaam. 

I also remember the stir created by  Mira Nair’s 1991 film “Mississippi Masala”, which dared to cast an Indian girl (refugee from Idi Amin’s Uganda growing up in the US), falling in love with an African American, played by a young Denzel Washington. I did not know until now that Mira Nair had met and married Mahmood Mamdani in Kampala. Apparently, Mira met Mahmood when she was in Uganda researching her film “Mississippi Masala”. 

I trawled through the Internet to find some background on Mahmood Mamdani, the late Professor Adolfo, and other Indian-origin academics at Dar University in the 1960s/1970s, but found this, which I thought may interest the two of you:

JOHN NAZARETH:

I was sad to read of the passing of Prof Adolf.

I first met him when I was pretty young, visiting my brother Peter Nazareth in Makerere College in the 1950s. Adolf was one of his close friends. In 1963 I accompanied Peter to attend Adolf and Ophelia's wedding in Dar-es-Salaam. But I really reconnected with him as an adult through goa-research-net.

I reached out to him a few months ago to get me a copy of the late Ben Mkapa's autobiography, as I couldn't get it anywhere else. We had plans to discuss the book together.

We first delayed when I was trying to recover from the passing of my dear wife Cynthia - something which is still raw 2 years on. But more recently, I noticed that it was not easy to get going again. I suspect Adolf was ailing.

Adolf was a great patriot.

The eminent anthropologist Prof Robert Newman wrote that Goans have been multicultural for over 1000 years. Like Adolf, I felt I could embrace many personas without rejecting the other.  I am Goan, Indian, Ugandan, African and Canadian - and I don't know how to live any other way. Adolf was a real inspiration.

Rest in peace, my dear friend.

John Nazareth

I was sad to read of the passing of Prof Adolf.

I first met him when I was pretty young, visiting my brother Peter Nazareth in Makerere College in the 1950s. Adolf was one of his close friends. In 1963 I accompanied Peter to attend Adolf and Ophelia's wedding in Dar-es-Salaam.

But I really reconnected with him as an adult through goa-research-net. I reached out to him a few months ago to get me a copy of the late Ben Mkapa's autobiography as I couldn't get it anywhere else. We had plans to discuss the book together. We first delayed when I was trying to recover from the passing of my dear wife Cynthia - something which is still raw 2 years on.

But more recently I noticed that it was not easy to get going again. I suspect Adolf was ailing.

Adolf was a great patriot.

The eminent anthropologist Prof Robert Newman wrote that Goans have been multicultural for over 1000 years. Like Adolf I felt I could embrace many personas without rejecting the other.  I am Goan, Indian, Ugandan, African and Canadian - and I don't know how to live any other way.Adolf was a real inspiration.

Rest in peace my dear friend.

John Nazareth

By Adolfo Mascarenhas

mascar at ud.co.tz<http://ud.co.tz/>

 

Let me say how honoured I am to address this issue. About 50 years ago, as the first  Tanganyikan to be offered a chance to pursue an honours degree in Geography, I toyed with the idea of doing a research paper on the impact of Goa on the Arabian Sea and Africa and beyond.

Over the last few years in my retirement, I have begun to take a greater interest in Poverty, Knowledge and Development. How are these two episodes linked? Very simply in 2003 when I saw the ruins of St Augustine's Church at Old Goa, I came to the conclusion that the Portuguese could not have left such an impact on their own. They needed the help of the Goans; there was no way that a few hundred Portuguese could hold sway over the Eastern Hemisphere extending from Lobito to Osaka from their Asian outpost of Goa.

A few days later, in the new year of 2004, I spent time in Chandor and, further south, saw the Mahadeva Temple at Tambdi Surla in interior Goa. Dating back to the thirteenth century, or nearly two hundred years before the arrival of the Portuguese, it was simply an awesome historical reality. It is built on solid basalt with intricate carving on rock, and convinced me even more that I was on the right path.

Personally, there are many reasons why I am honoured to be here (in Goa), including the fact that I am a Mugoa. Tribally, this means that I have my ancestral roots in Goa.

THE LARGER CONTEXT

Any person interested in development today must put things in a bigger picture or in a global context. Despite the anti-colonial struggles and the over threefold increase in the number of nations since World War II, western ethnocentrism still dominates our world. International financial institutions have pushed for the neo-liberal agenda and to a major degree have and will be responsible for the vulnerability of many Third World countries, especially in Africa. More and more, the agenda is being sweetened by the promise of aid without paying attention to the devastating distortion that this aid has on development. Have we paid attention to who the producers are, who profits and accumulates, and how the surplus is used?

The bottom line is that we are living in an extremely unequal world, and we should be very conscious of this if we are interested in our development. The differences between the rich and the poor are staggering. The logical conclusion should make all thinking people start rethinking and taking a stand.

(A slightly edited version)