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The Fabrics of Race (3)
(Third of Three Parts)
Why were the Nazis the only Whites who were made to account for the crimes they committed against humanity? There is also a need to consider past acts of slavery and the abuses, killings, and plunder committed by the White imperialist powers against the colonized people in countries they invaded as criminal acts. The Nazis committed their barbaric acts only for the duration of World War 2. Conversely, the White colonial powers perpetuated their brutality for centuries and yet got nothing, not even a slap on the hand.
The colonial powers and slave masters should acknowledge that they owe a debt to the descendants of the countries they colonized. There’s no way around it. It’s the only way that justice will be served. They must pay for the damages they caused. A way to quantify the debt for generations of exploitation, plunder, and enslavement must be devised. The colonizers must pay. More importantly, aside from financial restitution, they must also offer an apology.
However, convening in Geneva to establish statutes to retroactively determine the guilt of the practitioners of slavery and the White colonial masters is seemingly like Don Quixote fighting the windmills. Waiting for justice to be served, at least in terms of restitution and apology, is like Vladimir and Estragon waiting for Godot.
The victims of slavery and imperialism, like Don Quixote, are fighting against the insurmountable Caucasian forces hiding in their cocoon of denial and amnesia, and impervious to their pleas for justice. But unlike the delusional Don Quixote, the victims’ fight for justice is grounded in the harsh reality of the oppression they suffered at the hands of their colonial abusers. But the victims of slavery and imperialism could be like Vladimir and Estragon, endlessly awaiting the arrival of Godot, who never comes. The justice that should be given to them may never materialize.
Will the proud and mighty Caucasians of the world agree to indemnify and apologize to the victims of their colonial abuses? To hope that it will happen is more like waiting for Godot than believing that hope springs eternal. Those powerful white-dominated nations will never allow the passing of such measures if ever a convention for that purpose is held in Geneva or elsewhere in the world.
Instead of reparations for colonial crimes, the perpetrators justify their actions, asserting self-defense. They contend that they fought with and killed the native inhabitants of the countries they invaded because those people resisted. But why would they not? What else were they supposed to do when they were being enslaved, robbed, beaten, killed… and their daughters, sisters, and mothers raped? Would they be expected to say and do nothing? There are even arguments positing that colonial governments shouldn’t be condemned but rather compensated because they built roads, bridges, and schools for the people they colonized, as if that makes up for the crimes and abuses they committed. As if they didn’t exploit and force those same people to build those things and use those people’s own resources. As if they didn’t steal the natural resources of every land they took.
Colonizers claim that they brought prosperity to the countries they invaded. But what if it’s the opposite? What if, in reality, the resources the colonizers stole from their colonies through the violent subjugation of the Native peoples made their countries wealthy and progressive?
After a few years in the academe, a tertiary institution employed me as a school administrator. It necessitated my staying in an apartment away from my family during weekdays. I had no choice but to do the laundry myself. I decided to veer away from my grandmother’s strict orders to separate the white garments from the colored ones. I put them all together in the washing machine. When I did so for the first time, I recalled my grandmother’s stern warning, “You’ll be in big trouble with me if you do.”
That time was already the 21st century, and I thought that the world had become more aware of (and sensitive to) issues related to equality and racial discrimination. I thought that the world had embraced the doctrine of political correctness. I thought that people are trying to avoid language and actions that could be offensive to others, especially those relating to sex, gender, and race.
I was wrong.
I experienced firsthand how the monster called racial discrimination reared its ugly head. Such experience made me realize how deeply the injustice of colonialism and racial segregation had permeated societies, not just in America and Europe but all over the world.
That experience occurred when I applied as an English (ESL) teacher overseas and was unpleasantly surprised to discover that most universities in the countries where I hoped to work would hire only native speakers of English who were citizens of (guess what?) predominantly white countries. I had thought native speakerism was just gossip. How naïve of me not to believe what some of my friends said that preference is given to native speakers of English in the field of English language teaching overseas. Can I be faulted for thinking that the academe would be the last bastion of equality, justice, and meritocracy?
While the period of colonialism may have ended, neo-colonialism has taken its place. And I never thought that some universities have become their purveyors. Standing before the mirror at that moment, I was reminded that, yes, I am fully capable of teaching English, and I have the necessary educational qualifications, pedagogical training, and teaching experience. However, there is one thing I don’t have: fair skin. It made me think that even if I were a citizen of one of those countries predominantly populated by Caucasians, I might still not be hired by those universities because the unspoken standard is not citizenship—it’s the color of one’s skin.
What my grandmother repeatedly said when instructing the ones doing the laundry came back to mind: “Separate the whites from the colored fabrics.” Was I cursed because I did not follow her bidding? Should I have separated the white garments from the colored ones? Should I have treated the whites delicately? That’s essentially what those universities were doing. They were giving the Whites preferential treatment. It felt like a cruel reminder of the color of my skin… dark brown, almost black.
What hurts is the fact that the people in those universities who implement that discriminatory rule of hiring only native speakers of English to teach the language are Asians like me. Then I realized that the color of their skin is neither black nor brown. They belong to the yellow race, and their skin is almost white. White and yellow, both skins are fair. At that time, in my mind, neo-colonialism ceased to be just an abstract political term. I saw how alive it is in the structures that still marginalize people based on race and skin color.
The painful truth that many of the universities in those countries I hoped to work in would hire only native speakers of English from predominantly white nations, while overlooking my qualifications, is a stark reminder that colonial ideologies still shape opportunities and perceptions
*****
Just one more WHY?
When I was young, my mother told me that one day, when I grew older, I would understand why in America, colored people weren’t allowed to use the same toilets as White people. But here I am, a grown-up with graying hair that is supposed to symbolize wisdom, and still I do not understand.
Here’s my next why.
Why, after all these years, do we still see the same patterns of discrimination, hatred, and violence based on skin color?
What would I say to my children, or grandchildren, or any young person if they were to see the same images I saw before? Will I be able to sufficiently respond if they asked why people with dark skin couldn’t use the Whites’ drinking fountain?
What if, in the future, they see on social media the image of a person of color being mercilessly manhandled by a White person, like the photo of a White police officer (yes, a police officer) kneeling on the neck of a defenseless Black man, causing his death? Something that happened not centuries ago, when black slavery was at its worst, but one that occurred only a few years back. What will I say if they ask me why? Why do people like Derek Chauvin continue to exist, inflicting so much pain on the George Floyds of the world?
Maybe I’ll do as my mother did—nod, smile, and say, “Someday, my children, you will understand why.” But my fervent prayer to the Good Man above is that they never have to ask the same questions I did.” I hope they will live in a world where skin color no longer dictates one’s worth or opportunities.
Did America Save the Philippines From Spain?
Not so long ago, in our university’s English lounge, I had a discussion with two colleagues about a comparative study on the effects of native and non-native English language teachers on students’ performance in English. When the discussion brought us to the three concentric circles of Englishes, we tried to identify the countries colonized by England and America. Surprisingly, one of them said, “The Philippines (my country) was rescued by the Americans from the Spaniards.” I paused, looked at him and said, “Are you sure you want us to discuss that topic?”
I was ready for a debate. I had the advantage – I am a Filipino. I know my nation’s history (which apparently he knew little or nothing about). Philippine History was also one of the subjects I had taught (quite passionately) in my country and I was ready to teach him a lesson. I was ready to hit him with my historical whip. I even wanted to tell him of the injustice his country (Britain) did to the Sultanate of Sulu and the Philippines by wrongly turning over Sabah to the Malaysian government.
To that question I asked, he just responded with a smile and redirected the discussion to the original topic.
Even if I wanted us to go back to his statement, for I really needed to respond, our time in the English lounge was over. We had to leave. He was saved by the bell.
That desire to respond stayed with me. It tortured my Filipino soul. The Filipino in me could not stand down. I did not stand down when another colleague said some unsavory remarks about Filipinos in his country. I could still recall how irate he was with the things I had to say in response. He was so vexed by the manner I refuted his statements that one time when he got drunk he gave me a mouthful and had to be restrained by his friends.
To that fit of rage from a drunk person, I did not respond. Why would I? But to that statement that “my country was saved by Uncle Sam by the bullies from the Iberian peninsula,” I had to. The only way for me to regain my peace was to respond in any way. So, I decided to write this article hoping that one day that colleague who wrongly thought that the Americans were the Filipinos’ knights in shining armor would be able to read it.
Now, let me answer the question “Did the Americans save the Filipinos from the Spaniards?”
HELL NO!
The Americans extinguished the flames of Filipino nationalism that was just beginning to flicker and deprived the Filipinos of the chance to chart their own destiny as a nation. That’s what they did.
Let me share some excerpts from my on-going study entitled “How Colonialism Shaped the Filipino Character.”
**********
In 1896, the Filipinos staged the biggest and most organized revolt against Spain. Previous attempts by them to overthrow their invaders from the Iberian peninsula were all quelled. According to historians, the reasons those uprisings failed were the following: they were caused by non-encompassing issues; based on limited geographical scales; and they were lacking in national character. The 1896 revolution was different. It started in the capital of the country – Manila – then spread to surrounding provinces and eventually became national in scope. The revolt was driven mainly by the rise of Filipino nationalism.
The Spaniards had their hands full and it was only a matter of time and their more than three centuries rule would have come to an end. Even if the Americans did not come, the Filipinos could have succeeded in ending the Spanish rule.
The Americans duped Emilio Aguinaldo, the leader of the revolt against Spain, into believing that they came to help the Filipinos establish a republic and that they didn’t need any colony.
Then, the Filipinos watched helplessly as the Spaniards, too proud to accept defeat in the hands of the Indios they enslaved for centuries, surrendered to the Americans instead and was paid $20,000,000 for all the improvements they made in the Philippine islands during their colonial rule. That’s one of the conditions set in the Treaty of Paris in 1898 which the two countries concluded without concurring with the Filipino people.
Would the Americans pay the Spaniards that huge amount (which is worth more than half a billion dollars today) and get nothing in return?
HELL NO!
America, then an emerging world power, needed to flex its muscles in the Pacific. The Philippines was the most ideal place for that. Their military strategists probably thought it was necessary for America to have presence in Asia to counter the growing military might of imperial Japan.
So, the Americans, contrary to their promise which Aguinaldo said he naively believed, declared Philippines a territory ceded to them by Spain.
It was a painful experience for the Filipinos. After centuries of struggle against Spain they finally had a chance to chart their own destiny as a nation. But the Americans stood on their way. The Filipinos had to continue their search for that elusive freedom.
So, the Philippines changed hands – from one colonial master to another, from the Spanish yoke to that of the American.
What if the Americans observed the principle that “governments derived their just powers from the consent of the governed” and decided not to stay in 1898 and allow the Filipinos to govern themselves? The Americans should have known better. That principle was the driving force of the declaration of their independence in 1776. It is touted to be the model for the right to self-determination, the very right that they deprived the Filipinos of when they colonized the Philippines. The Americans justified their occupation of the islands by saying that the Filipinos were not ready for self-governance. But how sure were they? And even then, the Filipinos certainly would have preferred to have charted their own destiny as a nation no matter what the consequences maybe. The world will never know what would have happened to the Philippines had the Americans gave them the reins of their own government. While it is not certain that the Filipinos would have succeeded, one thing is clear, neither did the Philippines become a better nation because the Americans occupied it.
It would have been a big boost to the Filipino pride if only they were allowed to continue their war with Spain which they were winning at that time when the Spanish and American strategists connived to stage what would later become known as the “Mock Battle at the Manila Bay” which the Americans purportedly won. That plan was concocted to prevent Manila, the nation’s capital, from falling into the hands of Filipino revolutionaries. Just imagine how big a victory like that would have affected the Filipino psyche. Its character as a nation would have evolved in a much different direction. But it was not meant to be.
The last quarter of the 19th century was perhaps the most significant stage in the development of the Philippines as a nation. It was when nationalism started to fluorish. It took centuries before the natives managed to put up a united front against their colonizers. Like the sun starting to rise from the east spreading it’s golden rays to signal the coming of a new day, the emerging solidarity among the natives became a portent of greater things to come (that never came.)
The most important ingredient for national development was finally manifesting among Filipinos at that time. The seeds of nationalism began to sprout. The influx of liberal ideas from Europe, the rise of the middle class and the martyrdom of Fathers Gomez, Burgos and Zamora (GomBurZa) were among the factors believed to have fan the flames of national unity.
It was a long and arduous journey towards national solidarity made difficult to achieve by a combination of factors…the island nation being geographically fragmented, the people speaking different dialects, and the Spaniards’ employment of “divide-and-conquer” tactics.
The Spaniards succeeded tremendously in employing the “divide-and-conquer” tactic against the colonized people so much so that they reigned supreme for more than 300 years. But when the Filipinos began to develop a cohesive spirit to fill their geographical gaps, when they dismantled the language barriers with their deafening cry for freedom, the days of the Hispanic colonizers became numbered. The colonial masters suffered humiliating defeats from the people they held by the neck for a long time and were forced to retreat to the walled city of Intramuros.
But the next chapter of the Philippine drama unfolded not the way the Filipinos had the script written but the way the directors from Hollywood penned it. And just when the Filipinos were ready to hit the last nail in the coffin of Spanish tyranny, the Americans said, “CUUUTTTT!”
With absolute certainty, the revolution the Filipinos started in 1896 would have finally ended Spanish rule. The natives had them figured out. All they needed was just to march together with their hands tied by the bond of patriotism. The Filipinos were ready to storm Intramuros, the last bastion of Spanish rule but they were stopped on their tracks by the Americans who they wrongly perceived to be an ally in their quest for freedom from Spain. The Filipinos naively thought that the Americans who were waging a war against Spain in Cuba, also a Spanish colony then, came as a friend, not a foe.
Cutting the story short, the Americans occupied the Philippines when the Spaniards left and the Filipinos were forced to wage war against a military far more powerful and more advance in weaponry than their former colonizers.
The natives lost the war and the sprouts coming out from the seeds of nationalism sown by the forebears of the Filipino race was not allowed to grow and bloom. It was forcibly uprooted and trampled upon by the Americans. Historians explained that the new colonial masters extinguished the flames of Filipino nationalism with laws like the Sedition Law (1901) which imposed a death penalty or a long prison term on anyone who advocated independence from the United States even by peaceful means and the Flag Law (1907) which prohibited the display of the Philippine flag in any place.
Filipino nationalism was nipped in the bud. That period in the history of the Filipino people was referred to as the “Era of Suppressed Nationalism.” While the natives were still licking the wounds inflicted by their former Spanish masters, the Americans started whipping them .
And as everybody knows, the justification provided by the Filipinos’ new colonial masters was the natives were not ready for self-governance and it would have been very chaotic had they been left alone to fend for themselves.
They could have been right…or wrong. Nobody would know now? But what critical thinking Filipinos today know was that the Americans had no right to deprive the Filipinos at that time the opportunity to determine their own fate as people. The natives could have been left to face the consequences of their attempt to stand on their feet. They had no right to deprive the Filipinos for that opportunity to raise their arm in victory against Spain. It would have been so meaningful had the colonizer surrendered to the colonized. That would have been a huge moral victory for a people enslaved and deprived of their basic rights and freedom for so long. That would have been a big boost to the morale of the Filipinos. But instead of a boost to their psyche the actions of the Americans wounded the pride of the Filipino and impeded the development of a stronger national character.
The Americans should have taken a page from their history for them to understand how the Filipinos felt at that time. According to historians, the main reason the American colonists fought for independence against Britain in the 1700s was they believed in the unalienable rights of the individual and them being taxed by the British Parliament without any representation is a violation of such rights. They believed that whatever a government does must have the consent of the governed. The Filipinos did not want another foreign power to govern them, they had enough of the Spaniards already. The Americans did not have the Filipinos’ consent to stay in the country and govern them.
But there was nothing the Filipinos could do, no country could come to their succor at that time. The Americans had France to support them in their drive for independence against Britain and perhaps the Filipinos were hoping that America would be doing a France when they came, but it was wishful thinking.
The Filipinos were on their own and the world at the time was a big jungle where the colonial powers were the predators and the weaker nations the helpless preys.
The Filipinos then cannot even invoke any law to contest the legality of the American occupation of the Philippines. Imperialism has its own laws, and is backed by brute force. Because of its armed forces imperial law supersedes international law. Experts argued that “The legality of imperial activity is based largely on the imperial state’s judicial system and its own legal experts.” They added that since Americans championed liberalism, they should know that natural rights are not contingent upon the laws, customs, or beliefs of any particular culture or government, and therefore universal and inalienable.
So, did the America save the Philippines from Spain?
HELL NO.
Here’s some excerpts from one of the speeches delivered by Manuel L. Quezon, president of the Philippines from 1935 to 1944:
“It is true, and I am proud of it, that I once said, “I would rather have a government run like hell by Filipinos than a government run like heaven by Americans.” I want to tell you that I have, in my life, made no other remark which went around the world but that. There had been no paper in the United States, including a village paper, which did not print that statement, and I also had seen it printed in many newspapers in Europe. I would rather have a government run like hell by Filipinos than a government run like heaven by any foreigner. I said that once; I say it again, and I will always say it as long as I live.
But that is not an admission that a government run by Filipinos will be a government run like hell. Much less can it be an admission that a government run by Americans or by the people of any other foreign country, for that matter, can ever be a government run like heaven.”
Make no mistake, the Americans extinguished the flames of Filipino nationalism that was just beginning to flicker and deprived them of the chance to chart their own destiny as a nation.
How Colonialism Shaped the Filipino Character (1st of 4 parts)
For a better appreciation of who and what the Filipino is one has to decipher the Filipino psyche and identify the factors that contributed to its formation. An in-depth analysis of the character of these people would require a thorough examination of their history and racial origins. The Filipino cannot be figured out by establishing assumptions based on stereotyping and by magnifying him using a supremacist lens.
The pre-colonial Filipino was a race whose culture and genetic pool was a mix of Negrito, Indones, Malay, Arab, Hindu and Chinese and whose spirit was either strengthened or weakened by the geographics of the island nation and its corresponding climate. There was a genetic and cultural identity flourishing in this part of Southeast Asia before the Portuguese explorer Magellan and his Spanish expedition landed in Mactan in 1521. There was a national identity and character evolving when the Spaniards, led by Miguel Lopez De Legazpi, came back in 1565 to establish a stronghold in what the Europeans would later on call “Las Islas Filipinas.”
What the discovery of the Laguna copperplate in 1989 accomplished was to prove that “a well-organized form of government based on customary law” [1] existed in the Philippines long before the Spaniards came. The pre-colonial Filipino was not a lost soul rescued by the Europeans from the dark ages. There was an emerging racial entity when they came and it veered away from its natural course of becoming when the colonizers from the West succeeded in subduing the natives.
For 333 years that the Filipinos were under the mercy of the Spanish conquistadors. There were pocket revolts the Filipinos staged in different parts of the country to overthrow the invaders from the Iberian Peninsula but were quelled. The most significant of those uprisings was that one led by Francisco Dagohoy in Bohol that lasted for more than 80 years (1744-1929). Those attempts to vanquish the conquerors from Spain did not succeed because of the following: they were lacking in national character; based on limited geographical scales; and caused by non-encompassing issues[2]. It was only the 1896 revolution that succeeded which eventually led to the declaration of Philippine independence in 1898.
But it was short-lived.
The Americans who the Filipinos thought came to help them establish a republic had other agenda. They duped Emilio Aguinaldo, the leader of the revolt against Spain, into believing that they didn’t need any colony and that they came to free the natives from the yoke of Spain. Then, the Filipinos watched helplessly as the Spaniards, too proud to accept defeat in the hands of the Indios they enslaved for centuries, surrendered to the Americans instead and was paid $20,000,000 for all the improvements they made in the Philippine islands during their colonial rule. That’s one of the conditions set in the Treaty of Paris in 1898 which the two countries concluded without concurring with the Filipino people.
Would the Americans pay the Spaniards that huge amount (which is worth more than half a billion dollars today) and get nothing in return? The answer is a resounding NO. America, then an emerging world power, needed to flex its muscles in the Pacific. The Philippines was the most ideal place for that. So, the Americans, contrary to their promise which Aguinaldo said he naively believed, declared Philippines a territory ceded to them by Spain.
It was a painful experience for the Filipinos. After centuries of struggle against Spain they finally had a chance to chart their own destiny as a nation. But the Americans stood on their way. The Filipinos had to continue their search for that elusive freedom.
When the Spaniards left, the natives fought the more superior American forces. It was a case of a “David” having to contend with a “Goliath.” But in this version, Goliath subdued David. The Filipinos gallantly stood their ground but eventually lost the Fil-American war after three long years of struggle.
So, the Philippines changed hands – from one colonial master to another, from the Spanish yoke to that of the American.
As a consequence of its being colonized by those two countries in the West, into the nation’s cultural and genetic pool, Spanish and American elements were assimilated. Also, the experiences of the Filipinos in those years of foreign domination have undoubtedly affected the evolution of their character. Even the policies implemented by the Spaniards and the Americans when they took turns in ruling the said nation have strongly contributed to that transformation.
The 20th century saw the emergence of a post-colonial identity, a character, that is distinctively Filipino, a character forged by the mixing of Asian and European influences, by frequent battering from natural calamities, and by the long period of colonization.
How did colonization affect the formation of the Filipino character? How did Spanish cruelty and American treachery impact the evolution of Filipino values and traits?
__________
[1] philippinestudies.net
[2] asianjournalusa.com
How Colonialism Shaped the Filipino Character (Last of 4 parts)
The last quarter of the 19th century was perhaps the most significant stage in the development of the Philippines as a nation. It was when nationalism started to flourish. It took centuries before the natives managed to put up a united front against their colonizers. Like the sun starting to rise from the east spreading its golden rays to signal the coming of a new day, the emerging solidarity among the natives became a portent of greater things to come (that never came.)
The most important ingredient for national development was finally manifesting among Filpinos at that time. The seeds of nationalism began to sprout. The influx of liberal ideas from Europe, the rise of the middle class, and the martyrdom of Fathers Gomez, Burgos and Zamora (GomBurZa) were among the factors believed to have fan the flames of national unity.
It was a long and arduous journey towards national solidarity made difficult to achieve by a combination of factors – the island nation is geographically fragmented, the people speaking different dialects, and the Spaniards’ employment of “divide-and-conquer” tactics.
The Spaniards succeeded tremendously in employing the “divide-and-conquer” tactic against the colonized people so much so that they reigned supreme for more than 300 years. But when the Filipinos began to develop a cohesive spirit to fill their geographical gaps, when they dismantled the language barriers with their deafening cry for freedom, the days of the Hispanic colonizers became numbered. The colonial masters suffered humiliating defeats from the people they held by the neck for a long time and were forced to retreat to the walled city of Intramuros.
But the next chapter of the Philippine drama unfolded not the way the Filipinos had the script written but the way the directors from Hollywood penned it. And just when the Filipinos were ready to hit the last nail in the coffin of Spanish tyranny, the Americans said, “CUUUTTTT!”
With absolute certainty, the revolution the Filipinos started in 1896 would have finally ended Spanish rule. The natives had them figured out. All they needed was just to march together with their hands tied by the bond of patriotism. The Filipinos were ready to storm Intramuros, the last bastion of Spanish rule but they were stopped on their tracks by the Americans who they wrongly perceived to be an ally in their quest for freedom from Spain. The Filipinos naively thought that the Americans who were waging a war against Spain in Cuba, also a Spanish colony then, came as a friend, not a foe.
Cutting the story short, the Americans occupied the Philippines when the Spaniards left and the Filipinos were forced to wage war against a military far more powerful and more advance in weaponry than their former colonizers.
The natives lost the war and the sprouts coming out from the seeds of nationalism sown by the forebears of the Filipino race was not allowed to grow and bloom. It was forcibly uprooted and trampled upon by the Americans. The new colonial masters extinguished the flames of Filipino nationalism with laws like the Sedition Law (1901) which imposed a death penalty or a long prison term on anyone who advocated independence from the United States even by peaceful means and the Flag Law (1907) which prohibited the display of the Philippine flag in any place. [9]
Filipino nationalism was nipped in the bud. That period in the history of the Filipino people was referred to as the “Era of Suppressed Nationalism.” While the natives were still licking the wounds inflicted by their former Spanish masters, the Americans started whipping them.
And as everybody knows, the justification provided by the Filipinos’ new colonial masters was the natives were not ready for self-governance and it would have been very chaotic had they been left alone to fend for themselves.
They could have been right…or wrong. Nobody would know now? But what critical thinking Filipinos today know was that the Americans had no right to deprive the Filipinos at that time the opportunity to determine their own fate as people. The natives could have been left to face the consequences of their attempt to stand on their feet. They had no right to deprive the Filipinos of that opportunity to raise their arm in a victory against Spain. It would have been so meaningful had the colonizer surrendered to the colonized. That would have been a huge moral victory for a people enslaved and deprived of their basic rights and freedom for so long. That would have been a big boost to the morale of the Filipinos. But instead of a boost to their psyche, the actions of the Americans wounded the pride of the Filipino and impeded the development of a stronger national character.
The Americans should have taken a page from their history for them to understand how the Filipinos felt at that time. The main reason the American colonists fought for independence against Britain in the 1700s was they believed in the inalienable rights of the individual and them being taxed by the British Parliament without any representation is a violation of such rights [10]. They believed that whatever a government does must have the consent of the governed. The Filipinos did not want another foreign power to govern them, they had enough of the Spaniards already. The Americans did not have the Filipinos’ consent to stay in the country and govern them.
But there was nothing the Flipinos could do, no country could come to their succor at that time. The Americans had France to support them in their drive for indepedence against Britain and perhaps the Fillipinos were hoping that America would be doing a France when they came, but it was wishful thinking.
The Filipinos were on their own and the world at the time was a big jungle where the colonial powers were the predators and the weaker nations the helpless prey.
The Filipinos then cannot even invoke any law to contest the legality of the American occupation of the Philippines. Imperialism has its own laws, and is backed by brute force. Becausu of its armed forces imperial law supersedes international law. “The legality of imperial activity is based largely on the imperial state’s judicial system and its own legal experts [11]. But wasn’t it that America championed liberalism. They know that natural rights are not contingent upon the laws, customs, or beliefs of any particular culture or government, and therefore universal and inalienable. [12]
But all those are water under the bridge. One thing that every Filipino needs to understand is the importance of revisiting the hallowed pages of their history in order to understand what have become of them and why they think and behave the way they do.
The Filipinos need to do some tinkering in their system. They have to remove the bad microchips their colonizers placed in their harddrive that cause them to malfunction. Find suitable replacements, then reboot.
__________
[9] http://www.thefilipinomind.com
[11] http://www.globalresearch.ca
[12] http://www.crf-usa.org
How Colonialism Shaped the Filipino Character (3rd of 4 parts)
Filipinos are not perfect, far from it. But is there any race or group of people in any part of the world who could claim that they are? No race is without blemish. All people, from any nation, have negative tendencies and characteristics. Some may even be worse than the Filipinos. There’s no shame in accepting that one’s race is imperfect. There’s no reason to deny and hide the misgivings of a nation and its people.
When something bad happens, it’s not accurate to say the expression “only in the Philippines” because things even much worse happen elsewhere in the world.
Among Filipinos, it is almost natural that they stress their minus points and to find fault in their behavior. Sometimes there are Filipinos who compare themselves unfavorably with Westerners by using Western standards [6]. Perhaps somewhere in their sub-consciousness, they have not shaken off yet the cobwebs of having been dominated in the past by the fair-skinned colonizers.
These Southeast Asian people are aware of the negative traits they possess. They never sweep under the rug their perfect imperfections. Some of the negative Filipino traits are petty but there are also very serious ones that are considered inimical to national development and could be the reason the country is lagging behind in terms of socio-economic performance.
One thing that people not familiar with the history of the Filipinos don’t understand is that some (if not most) of the negative traits this race developed through time resulted from their unfortunate and painful experiences during the colonial period.
Filipinos are fatalistic. They believe that whatever happens does happen because of fate. They believe that events inevitably take place. They think that from the beginning of time set of events are put in motion and they go in the direction that they were programmed to, no deviations.
Having been Christianized by the Spaniards the Filipinos developed a strong faith in God, which is a positive trait. However, they embraced almost blindly the doctrine of predestination. They believe that God exercises control over everything in the world and that He freely and unchangeably ordained whatsoever comes to pass.[7] For them whatever happens is God’s will. Filipinos think that if a person is destined to succeed all his stars will align and he becomes what the Supreme Being pre-destined him to be.
This sometimes makes some Filipinos work just half-heartedly thinking that no matter how hard they try they will succeed only if such is written in their stars. They call it “guhit ng palad” or destiny. When something good happens to them they call themselves lucky (“swerte”) and when misfortune struck them they say “malas” (bad luck), shrug their shoulders off and accept their faith. They say it’s God’s will and that He allows both good or bad to happen.
Their experiences during the colonization period also compounded their being fatalistic. The Filipinos during the Spanish and American periods felt that no matter how hard they would work they could go only as far as their colonizers would allow them to and have only what their conquerors would permit. Worse was more often than not that the fruits of their labors would be taken away by their colonial masters. With that, they learned to live life saying say come what may (“bahala na”). They plunge into endeavors uncertain of the results and just keep their fingers crossed that things go well while assuring themselves that “God will see them through” (“May awa ang Diyos”).
And why is regionalism strong among Filipinos? Why do they have this strong feeling of loyalty to that part of the country where they live? Why when in another country they prefer to be grouped with people who speak the same language they are using and eat the same foods they are eating? Why is there animosity between people living in different regionsy
Two of the reasons many believed contributed to regionalism among Filipinos are the following: Philippines is composed of groups of islands and the people spoke different vernaculars. This could be true but there’s a more compelling reason regionalism became part of the Filipino’s repertoire of negative traits.
Both the Spaniards and the Americans had to implement policies that would ensure the longevity of their reigns. The colonizers needed to find ways to contain the colonized, keep the latter at bay, and prevent them from driving the former away from the islands.
As it is, thousands of islands comprise the Philippine nation, geographically it is fragmented. This the Spaniards used to their advantage in order to ensure a tight rein on the natives. It became easier for them to employ their “divide and rule” tactics. They prevented the natives from moving from one province or region to another in order to avoid fostering oneness among them.
Additionally, during the times when there were uprisings in a province or a region, the Spanish authorities enlisted soldiers from other geographical zones to help them quell the revolts. Technically, they made the natives fight against one another while they watched safely from a distance.
This explains the animosity and mistrust between Filipinos living in different regions of the country. While the Spaniards prevented the natives from forming strong ties by literally not allowing them to move one region to another they made them kill one another. They were like Romans enjoying the view of gladiators cutting each other’s throats.
Having been colonized by Spain and America, it was almost inevitable that the Filipinos would develop a colonial mentality. The Filipinos tried to resist the colonizers, thus they staged uprisings but eventually succumbed to the more powerful Westerners. They had no choice but to accept the colonizers and embrace their cultures. The Filipinos grudgingly followed everything the colonizers imposed, from ideas to ways of doing things, and from manners to foods. In the process of either trying to impress or not wanting to get the ire of his colonial masters, he copied his ways, thinks that way he thinks, eats his kind of foods and wears his kind of clothes. And this was how the legendary Filipino colonial mentality started. Through the years the natives came to like and bought those manufactured by the colonizers and disregard their own. Until now this is observable among Filipinos.
But those years under the Spaniards and the Americans created fondness for the colonial masters in one extreme and deep-seated resentment to them on the other.
The primary objective of colonization is the enslavement of both the indigenous people and their land which is achieved either by the imposition of the colonizers’ dominant physical force through raids, expropriation of labor and resources, imprisonment, and objective murders or by sacking the cultural patterns of the native population [8] The colonizers of the Filipinos did exactly those to them and their country.
Would the foregoing be reasons enough that the Filipinos detest their colonizers? Filipinos who know their history do not have a single strand of colonial mentality in them. There’s no love lost between the colonizers and the Filipinos who know that they deserve to have been given the right to determine their own fate as a nation and to chart their own destiny as people.
(To be concluded…)
How Colonialism Shaped the Filipino Character (Last of 4 Parts)
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[6] http://www.crvp.org/book/series03/iii-7/chapter_v.htm
[7] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predestination_(Calvinism)
[8] http://theanarchistlibrary.org
M.A.D. LIGAYA
M.A.D. L I G A Y A 