Forgetting Jose Rizal: History, Nationalism, and our love of Imperialism
“History teaches clearly that the battle against colonialism does not run straight away along the lines of nationalism.” - Frantz Fanon
This complex idea is one that I would argue our proto-nationalists of the late 19th century grasped intuitively; once shown the way by nuRevolutionaries (nee Propagandists) like Jose Rizal. Though, I have long suspected that it is appropriate to consider Rizal first and foremost, from his high school years, a staunch supporter of independence.
The idea being expresses is that the move towards independence from colonialism by imperial subjects cannot be based solely along reductive lines of us vs. them. More than anything that sets the stage for factionalism within the ranks of revolutionaries and the specter of gross revenge as the primary (and intellectually and philosophically weak) substantiation for revolution. A successful national revolution has to be built along lines more empowering than superficial revenge fantasies. Witness the collapse of the glorious French Revolution, or the split of Andres Bonifacio from the Tejeros Convention and the subsequent plotting to overthrow the First Philippine Republic.
But even then the argument could be made that the failure of most revolutions is that they utilize the same language as their imperial overlords; which is what fundamentally differentiates the First Philippine Republic and that revolutionary cause from the acquisition of independence from the Americans. In the former there was a substantive break from utilizing existing Spanish forms of governance; chief among them the creation of a constitutional republic, a presidential system, and inclusive governance. Not to mention transformative philosophical social and political theories espoused by Jacinto, Mabini, Rizal et al. The revolutionaries of the 19th century were not adapting prevailing structural narratives from the Spanish; they were replacing the existing government with some more attuned to the needs of the people, present and future. I think of beliefs like Jacinto’s, which argued that nobility is not found in the color of ones skin. Or Rizal’s demand for inner change and intellectual advancement and evolution first and foremost. In this respect it was much more akin to the American Revolution, which purposefully developed a system of governance at odds with the English form. One of the intellectual battle cries of the American revolutionaries was never a king in America. In the Philippines it was never to be bound by racial discrimination through restrictive cultural, social, and economic policies again.
While the latter case finds us in the American era; where ruling elites were propped up by the needs of American hegemony. The consolidation of power among certain families was a key component in benevolent assimilation; even as American leaders like Taft looked down on them with derision. In this case, Filipinos were provided power structures and narratives from their colonial masters; in essence continuing the type of systems of rule that the US used to consolidate their power in the archipelago. Even their narratives of legitimizing rule were borrowed, with little adjustment to suit the cultural and social realities of the Philippines. Witness the on-going strife between Muslims and Christians today. Scholarship has aptly demonstrated that, while there were tensions in the Spanish era, the American era saw them blossom into full-scale hostilities. Attitudes towards indigenous peoples, best expressed by gunga dins like Carlos P Romulo, were inherited from Americans; imbibed by a ruling elite seeking to curry favor with their masters. Of course, this is a somewhat superficial reading of the attitudes of the elites; not all collaborated with the US to this extent.
The extension to the idea above is that once nationalism is achieved through reductive and adopted narratives, the ‘national’ unity will collapse into perverse regionalism; precisely because the cohesion derived from the development of a unifying cultural sense, defined not only against colonialism but encompassing differences, is absent. This demand for the establishment of an encompassing social and cultural sensibility that can survive past opposition to a foreign power is precisely what Rizal was arguing for and working towards.
Edward Said and Fanon touched on this Rizalian ideal (one which predates their articulation by almost 100 years) best expressed when Rizal cried that slaves today can become tyrants tomorrow, without much needed change. Said wrote it as: “To tell a simple national story therefore is to repeat, extend, and also to engender new forms of imperialism…The old conflicts between regions are now repeated, privileges are monopolized by one people over another, and the hierarchies and divisions constituted by imperialism are reinstated…” Fanon argues that as opposed to these derivative and adopted narratives, the new national consciousness must be “not the closing of the door to communication” and must be about “discovery and encouragement.” In reviewing Rizal, when he speaks of opening the door to a past to chart the future; when he exhorts his fellow Filipinos to take stock of their situation; when he challenges pre-conceived notions of what it is and what it means to be a Citizen of a nation, this is exactly what he is demanding from Filipinos. Floro Quibuyen articulated it well:
Rizal also stressed that if the revolution is not to degenerate into mob rule or ruthless dictatorship and thus create more crimes and injustice than it had sought to remove, it is imperative that the enlightened class lead and direct it. At no other time than when the conflagration comes are reason and compassion most essential. The leaders and their followers must abide by the highest ethical standards and be subject to the strictest moral discipline. These considerations were precisely Rizal’s point in writing the Fili, after working on Morga and his essays.
The upshot remains that Rizal was more revolutionary than we conceive today in popular consciousness. And on a global scale, taken in light of recent imperial scholarship like that of Said and Fanon, Rizal was far ahead of his time. His articulations of post-colonialist thought and national formation remain wholly relevant in modern day discussions of nation building. As does much of the anti and post colonial thought espoused by our propagandists and revolutionaries.
When we argue that what passes for historical scholarship in this country is so simplistic as to be infantile, this is precisely what we mean. We have reduced our history, our understanding of our history, along wholly adopted Western lines; thus undercutting any sense of organic narrative building. The reason why we are still stuck in this anti-colonial state of mind (even while espousing colonial thought inculcated by the Americans) is because we continue to evaluate ourselves along Western sensibilities. We look at our history through the prism of foreign eyes; we derive little pride in our culture because we were told not too. In other words, we continue the colonial legacy imparted during the American period, even as our forefathers in the 19th century moved beyond Spanish colonialism. In other words, we attempted to create new forms of governance and ways of thinking about the Self apart from anti-colonialism in the 19th century, only to fall into the imperial trap of neocolonialism in the 20th century.
We are enslaved by the historical and cultural narratives of the 20th century. And whatever breakthroughs were made in the 1950s and 60s to reconstruct a sense of the Self as espoused in the 19th century, were completely eliminated by the petty tyrannies (and historical perversions) of the late 60s, 70s and early 80s. Again, our ruling and intellectual elite, on the one hand represented by a man elected once and a dictator the rest of the while and on the other an increasingly parochial, ideologically bound, and political academe, adopted the power narratives of the West. Marcos is as much a colonial legacy, a remnant of imperial power structures and lessons, as anything else. And certain members of our academe examples of the superficiality and erroneous thinking that results in whole-sale adapting Western philosophical frameworks and collaborating and supporting prevailing imperial-esque political power blocs.
Poverty cycles may be broken through transformative economic policies; but nation-building is formed through reinterpretations and understandings of national and social consciousness. As it stands now our historical narratives are anathema to that purpose. If that cycle of perverse and monolithic nationalism and historical hate mongering is not broken, national unity and cohesion will forever be out of reach.
Jose Rizal remains both revolutionary and completely misunderstood in his transformative philosophies. In understanding his and other reformists philosophic plans for the Philippines, we will find deeper and more substantive importance in what it means to be Filipino. We will begin to define ourselves as something other than in anti-colonial sentiments; we will begin to see ourselves as supra-colonial; as a people worthy in their historical complexities and cultural idiosyncrasies. Finally unapologetic for who we are and what we want to be.
