Erle Frayne D. Argonza
We have a glad tiding of news coming from the Philippines as the stalled peace talks between government and rebel groups will resume again very soon. A heartwarming news this one is, as Filipinos are now very sick and tired of local wars. It’s time that total peace be achieved very soon.
To recall recent history, Maoist and Muslim insurgencies broke out in the Philippines way back in the early ‘70s. Martial Law, declared in 1972, was instrumental in further swelling the numbers of insurgents, leading at one point to conflicts bordering civil war proportions.
The Maoist New People’s Army, military wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines or CPP, a ragtag band at its inception, grew to a huge size across the major island groups along the way. Smaller factions split off from the CPP-NPA, it shrank in size in the past decade, yet it continues to be a threat to the central government.
The Moro Islamic Liberation Front or MILF was a splinter group from the Moro National Liberation Front or MNLF. The latter, original Muslim insurgency group agreed to a negotiated peace settlement in the ‘90s yet, so only the MILF eventually pursued the old dream of an independent state for provinces where Muslims have a strong presence. While the MNLF held a secular ideology, the MILF was largely a sectarian, Islamic movement.
Talks between both rebel groups and government stalled during the incumbency of the Gloria Arroyo regime. It was unfortunate and tragic a consequence of failed talks, as battlefronts across the islands continuously experience ambuscades and confrontations between warring forces. Collateral damage had already downsized, but it continues to be a phenomenal consequence of the hot wars.
I just hope that the peace talks won’t be for show, like a zarzuela of sorts. Like most compatriot Filipinos, I have grown tired of the wars though I see legitimacy in the advocacies of the insurgents. I myself am of the opinion that social causes are at an all-time relevance, yet these social causes can be fought for through legal and electoral means.
Filipinas has already urbanized across the decades, and urbanization is proceeding at a rapid pace. 2% of folks are added to urban population every year, while 2% are deducted from rural population during the same period. At 68% urban population today, Filipinos can better be convinced about pursuing social causes and advocacies via the ‘urban way’ of mass movements, civil society, and electoral contests rather than the bloody armed way of the old rural Philippines.
The Maoist Left and other Left groups have already proven the relative success of the ‘electoral way’ to institute structural and economic changes. It may be time now to fold up all rebel groups from the most secularly-oriented groups to the most sectarian-fundamentalist groups. The rugs under our feet are changing and the pace of change is fast, so ideological blocs should be fast enough in retooling themselves and co-directing the compass of change via the ‘urban way’.
Meantime, Norway has committed itself as a 3rd party to the talks with the Maoists, while Malaysia has done the same to the talks with the Muslim rebels. The Filipinos down the ground welcome the peace talks, and wouldn’t squirm at the venues of talks whether these be domestically located or overseas. What matters most is peace talks are resumed and warring parties are holding genuine dialogues.
So far, confidence-building measures were already done by the Aquino regime, with the release of political prisoners from the Left. Not only that, even the political prisoners from the military rebel group Magdalo were also released (the mutiny group is ragtag/no peace talks are necessary between it and government). Development projects in areas covered by Muslim rebels are being scaled up.
A nice beginning for the year 2011 indeed, as the crucible of dialogue pervades among warring camps. Let dialogue be the strategic expression, as conflict folds up and is consigned to historical archives.
[Philippines, 06 February 2011]
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Showing posts with label Maoism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Maoism. Show all posts
Monday, February 07, 2011
Thursday, June 19, 2008
RIZAL: MAN FOR ALL SEASONS
Erle Frayne Argonza
Visionary genius, patriot, martyr for Philippine independence, Gat Jose Rizal was a man too far ahead of his own time. So titanic was the luck that came upon this blessed archipelago, the Philippine islands, for the embodiment among its humble people of this encyclopedic mind, Dr. Jose Rizal. He is impeccably a ‘man for all seasons’. And he is the national hero of the Philippine nation.
Most nations declare among their top patriots a warrior or military leader as their ‘national hero’. But for the Philippines, ours’ is a genius, an intellectual giant, a mind capable of engaging in issues so recondite and subjects so diverse that, in so short a span, he was able to pen an enormous variegation of topics that befit, in their totality, an encyclopedia. At the age of 35, he was terminated by the demonic imperial forces of Spain, but he never died in vain. On the contrary, his death continued to inspire libertarian patriots here and in other Asian lands, an inspiration that continues for our youth till these days.
Mystically gifted, little did people know that he was actually transformed into a spiritual guru before his death. His guruship was unique, in that he mentored his fellows on the wisdom of nationhood and patriotism. One of his avowed readers if not disciples, Mohandas Gandhi of India, followed in his steps and became, upon his transformation into a spiritual master, a mentor of nationhood and patriotism just like Rizal.
So mighty a mind Rizal possessed, without doubt, that till these days his works overshadow the combined works of his own fellow patriots, including those who’ve gained double doctorate degrees and published widely in academic circles. Rizal’s following is solid, he need not further articulate nor gesticulate thoughts in the vogue of a desperate social marketing campaign, for even long after his death, youthful and scholarly minds read him, try to follow his ethical precepts, and emulate his exemplary patriotic behavior.
He was the first Filipino. Before his time, the term Filipino was bestowed only on those Spaniards born and raised in the Philipines. The Malayan natives were pejoratively called Indios; Chinese, Sangleys; Aetas and IPs, negritos and montanosas; and Muslims, Moros. With scathing indictment of arrogant racism of Spaniards most especially the friars, Rizal declared, with his mighty pen, that from this day on everybody born and raised in the islands will be called Filipino. That was how we islanders were to be bestowed with the name Filipino, a term that will stick till way into the distant future when a ‘Filipino race’ will evolve from out of a mere nationality today.
In his thoughts he pre-empted the political philosophy of Antonio Gramsci, the eminent Marxist leader of the Italian Left. Rizal mentored his fellow patriots that it will prove unwise to wage an insurrectionary campaign and seize political power, at a time when the ideas of nationhood haven’t permeated the private sphere yet. The most fitting strategy for that long-term goal—of building nationhood—is education. Build the new world’s ideas first till they become hegemonic, after which winning a revolution will be more facile as it was in the French revolution. That’s Rizal, and that’s Gramsci as well, but Rizal preceded Gramsci, let the world be made aware of this fact.
In gender relations, Rizal was no less ahead of his time. He scorned the ‘Old World woman complex’ so deeply that he chose to bury this woman in catacombs of history, which he did by killing Maria Clara, the Old World’s embodiment, in his novels. He advanced the idea of Modern Woman in the figures of the ‘women of Malolos’, even as he championed women who were civic-minded, actively engaged as co-partner in shaping the modern world, intellectually adroit and well-schooled. The Filipino nation he likened to the figure of Sisa in his novels, a nurturing mother who no matter under dire duress will never self-destruct but will stand out firm, tall and well-esteemed by fellows.
Amid Rizal’s liberalism, he never had any fondness for anarchism. Following Zola’s novel-writing tradition (e.g. Germinal), Rizal embodied the anarchist in the young bourgeois creole Ibarra who, at the end of his novel scripts, self-destructed. Anarchism can never be a substitute for prudent authority that should follow the Enlightenment principles of reason, progress, fraternity, and scientific verity. He was a true-blue liberal nationalist, never an anarchist.
We Filipino nationalists will continue to be inspired by Gat Jose Rizal. And his thoughts, the most treasured jewels of Asia during his time, will continue to inspire us, diadems that we magnanimously share to all enthused Fellows of the Planet, thoughts that mentor and serve as balm on the soul, like unto those writ by the most sagely personages. For these are the thoughts of a man no less sagely than the wisest of the days of old, thoughts that long after they are gone will continue to make waves into the minds of men and women of many generations yet to come.
Hail Gat Jose Rizal! Glory, genius, grandeur!
[12 June 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila]
Visionary genius, patriot, martyr for Philippine independence, Gat Jose Rizal was a man too far ahead of his own time. So titanic was the luck that came upon this blessed archipelago, the Philippine islands, for the embodiment among its humble people of this encyclopedic mind, Dr. Jose Rizal. He is impeccably a ‘man for all seasons’. And he is the national hero of the Philippine nation.
Most nations declare among their top patriots a warrior or military leader as their ‘national hero’. But for the Philippines, ours’ is a genius, an intellectual giant, a mind capable of engaging in issues so recondite and subjects so diverse that, in so short a span, he was able to pen an enormous variegation of topics that befit, in their totality, an encyclopedia. At the age of 35, he was terminated by the demonic imperial forces of Spain, but he never died in vain. On the contrary, his death continued to inspire libertarian patriots here and in other Asian lands, an inspiration that continues for our youth till these days.
Mystically gifted, little did people know that he was actually transformed into a spiritual guru before his death. His guruship was unique, in that he mentored his fellows on the wisdom of nationhood and patriotism. One of his avowed readers if not disciples, Mohandas Gandhi of India, followed in his steps and became, upon his transformation into a spiritual master, a mentor of nationhood and patriotism just like Rizal.
So mighty a mind Rizal possessed, without doubt, that till these days his works overshadow the combined works of his own fellow patriots, including those who’ve gained double doctorate degrees and published widely in academic circles. Rizal’s following is solid, he need not further articulate nor gesticulate thoughts in the vogue of a desperate social marketing campaign, for even long after his death, youthful and scholarly minds read him, try to follow his ethical precepts, and emulate his exemplary patriotic behavior.
He was the first Filipino. Before his time, the term Filipino was bestowed only on those Spaniards born and raised in the Philipines. The Malayan natives were pejoratively called Indios; Chinese, Sangleys; Aetas and IPs, negritos and montanosas; and Muslims, Moros. With scathing indictment of arrogant racism of Spaniards most especially the friars, Rizal declared, with his mighty pen, that from this day on everybody born and raised in the islands will be called Filipino. That was how we islanders were to be bestowed with the name Filipino, a term that will stick till way into the distant future when a ‘Filipino race’ will evolve from out of a mere nationality today.
In his thoughts he pre-empted the political philosophy of Antonio Gramsci, the eminent Marxist leader of the Italian Left. Rizal mentored his fellow patriots that it will prove unwise to wage an insurrectionary campaign and seize political power, at a time when the ideas of nationhood haven’t permeated the private sphere yet. The most fitting strategy for that long-term goal—of building nationhood—is education. Build the new world’s ideas first till they become hegemonic, after which winning a revolution will be more facile as it was in the French revolution. That’s Rizal, and that’s Gramsci as well, but Rizal preceded Gramsci, let the world be made aware of this fact.
In gender relations, Rizal was no less ahead of his time. He scorned the ‘Old World woman complex’ so deeply that he chose to bury this woman in catacombs of history, which he did by killing Maria Clara, the Old World’s embodiment, in his novels. He advanced the idea of Modern Woman in the figures of the ‘women of Malolos’, even as he championed women who were civic-minded, actively engaged as co-partner in shaping the modern world, intellectually adroit and well-schooled. The Filipino nation he likened to the figure of Sisa in his novels, a nurturing mother who no matter under dire duress will never self-destruct but will stand out firm, tall and well-esteemed by fellows.
Amid Rizal’s liberalism, he never had any fondness for anarchism. Following Zola’s novel-writing tradition (e.g. Germinal), Rizal embodied the anarchist in the young bourgeois creole Ibarra who, at the end of his novel scripts, self-destructed. Anarchism can never be a substitute for prudent authority that should follow the Enlightenment principles of reason, progress, fraternity, and scientific verity. He was a true-blue liberal nationalist, never an anarchist.
We Filipino nationalists will continue to be inspired by Gat Jose Rizal. And his thoughts, the most treasured jewels of Asia during his time, will continue to inspire us, diadems that we magnanimously share to all enthused Fellows of the Planet, thoughts that mentor and serve as balm on the soul, like unto those writ by the most sagely personages. For these are the thoughts of a man no less sagely than the wisest of the days of old, thoughts that long after they are gone will continue to make waves into the minds of men and women of many generations yet to come.
Hail Gat Jose Rizal! Glory, genius, grandeur!
[12 June 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila]
Monday, June 16, 2008
INTEGRATE INSURGENT ARMY, END COLD WAR
Erle Frayne Argonza
In the beginning were Truman and McCarthy, collectively the ‘Father’ of Cold War. The Father ‘breathed’ out from His inner recesses, and off came a-birthing the new being called the Cold War. Mighty and dreadful, this being unleashed destructive forces of such unparalleled beauty in the eyes of the Father, and so, on the 7th day, the Father slept, fulfilled that his mighty Dragon of destruction has been doing its job well.
So mighty was this Dragon of Destruction that in my beloved nation, the new Philippine republic, everything that looked like a demon (read: patriot) must be staked alive in the town plaza, and upon the expiration of last breath, the demons must be paraded around town. Communists, socialists, nationalists, civil libertarians all appeared as ‘birds of the same feather’ and are, per the Pavlovian stock of knowledge of this hungry dragon, of equal demonic quality as the witches of Salem. Kill them whenever you see them in sight!
Fellows, the Father is long dead, his two heads (Truman, McCarthy) long gone, but many of us still think, both consciously and unconsciously, like the sons and daughters of the Father. We perceive and stigmatize those patriots inside our backyards, whose mindsets remain outside our perceptive perimeters of accepted political forces, as non-human witches worth our termination en masse.
The Cold War mindset has been responsible for the rabid witch-hunt perceptions of insurgent groups. Never mind if the insurgents are not exactly those terrorists that were largely creations of the CIA (Al Quada, Abu Sayyaf) and British Intelligence (Muslim Brotherhood offshoots), insurgents that lay claim to legitimacy of their agenda and relative civility of their methods and tactics. They are sorcerers, they must be hunted and terminated like deadly wolves, show them no mercy, and so name every plethora of denigration and demonization one can think of about any social or political group.
Fellows, when you have patriotic groups around, such as our Muslim and Left rebels here in the Philippines, please treat them as your siblings. Shed off that Cold War mindset, accept them, embrace them, integrate their cadres into the mainstream. And, ipso facto, integrate their armies into your state’s army and national police. Take off that distrust, condescension, arrogance and hubris, period. Accept them without precondition.
The end of Manila’s war with the Moro National Liberation Front or MNLF proves to be a very instructive case. As part of the negotiated settlement, troops of the Bangsa Moro Army or BMA, military wing of the MNLF, must be integrated into the army and national police. 7,000 troops were then screened from the guerilla ranks, received training, re-orientation and indoctrination, and voila! They proved they were equal to the task of being a soldier or cop for the Philippine state!
Please note that we have a history in the islands of deep distrust towards Muslims. The Muslim ethnicities never ever bowed to Western colonial authority for the whole period of 400 years of colonization, they always waged military campaigns against the Spaniards, and were pacified only after bloody integration campaigns by the American forces. “A good Muslim is a dead Muslim,” so goes this rather demented aphorism that I grew up with as a young boy in the 1960s.
Who would ever trust Muslim troops within the army in the 1970s at the peak of the Mindanao war? Or the ceasefire days of the 1980s? No, Sir, nobody could trust Muslims as they fell within the ambit of Cold War discourse and the demented, bigoted perception about them by the majority Westernized peoples.
But the 1990s was a different context. The Philippine state booted out American GIs and re-acquired the U.S. military base lands here, independent foreign policy was championed, the Cold War was eroding fast. The Christian Democrats, who were catapulted to power (President Ramos was among its top leaders), were very open in coalitioning with radical forces, the Left most specially. And so when President Ramos became president, it was among his top agenda to conclude all insurgencies here via the carrot way of negotiated settlement: the ‘win/win’ solution to age-old rebellions.
The military rebels (RAM-YOU, RAM = Reform the Armed Forces, YOU = Young Officers Union or YOU) finally agreed to a settlement and be integrated into the mainstream and the army/police. Likewise did the MNLF agree to a settlement, the top MNLF leaders were elected to the top posts of the Autonomous Region of Mindanao or ARMM, the BMA troops got integrated into the army and national police.
We simply shed off our Cold War mindset right then, and were so euphoric at the fulfilling results of the peace talks. Being a nationalist and socialist, my own Cold War antipathies towards our soldiers and cops eroded, my trust for them quite returned. I had always been under the surveillance of the state intelligence groups here, for nigh three (3) decades, and till these days my dossiers are still in the files of the said groups even if, by 2004-05, I served government as a bureau official.
Albeit I’d reserve my most euphoric moment, with tons of tears of happiness shed, when our other insurgencies will be concluded and their armies likewise integrated into our police and army. Never mind about nauseated rationalizations such as those questions of competency, mental orientation, and other Cold War hubris, they belong to the dirtiest dustbins. Integrate the insurgents at all cost and full acceptance, without preconditions.
[Writ 10 June 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila]
In the beginning were Truman and McCarthy, collectively the ‘Father’ of Cold War. The Father ‘breathed’ out from His inner recesses, and off came a-birthing the new being called the Cold War. Mighty and dreadful, this being unleashed destructive forces of such unparalleled beauty in the eyes of the Father, and so, on the 7th day, the Father slept, fulfilled that his mighty Dragon of destruction has been doing its job well.
So mighty was this Dragon of Destruction that in my beloved nation, the new Philippine republic, everything that looked like a demon (read: patriot) must be staked alive in the town plaza, and upon the expiration of last breath, the demons must be paraded around town. Communists, socialists, nationalists, civil libertarians all appeared as ‘birds of the same feather’ and are, per the Pavlovian stock of knowledge of this hungry dragon, of equal demonic quality as the witches of Salem. Kill them whenever you see them in sight!
Fellows, the Father is long dead, his two heads (Truman, McCarthy) long gone, but many of us still think, both consciously and unconsciously, like the sons and daughters of the Father. We perceive and stigmatize those patriots inside our backyards, whose mindsets remain outside our perceptive perimeters of accepted political forces, as non-human witches worth our termination en masse.
The Cold War mindset has been responsible for the rabid witch-hunt perceptions of insurgent groups. Never mind if the insurgents are not exactly those terrorists that were largely creations of the CIA (Al Quada, Abu Sayyaf) and British Intelligence (Muslim Brotherhood offshoots), insurgents that lay claim to legitimacy of their agenda and relative civility of their methods and tactics. They are sorcerers, they must be hunted and terminated like deadly wolves, show them no mercy, and so name every plethora of denigration and demonization one can think of about any social or political group.
Fellows, when you have patriotic groups around, such as our Muslim and Left rebels here in the Philippines, please treat them as your siblings. Shed off that Cold War mindset, accept them, embrace them, integrate their cadres into the mainstream. And, ipso facto, integrate their armies into your state’s army and national police. Take off that distrust, condescension, arrogance and hubris, period. Accept them without precondition.
The end of Manila’s war with the Moro National Liberation Front or MNLF proves to be a very instructive case. As part of the negotiated settlement, troops of the Bangsa Moro Army or BMA, military wing of the MNLF, must be integrated into the army and national police. 7,000 troops were then screened from the guerilla ranks, received training, re-orientation and indoctrination, and voila! They proved they were equal to the task of being a soldier or cop for the Philippine state!
Please note that we have a history in the islands of deep distrust towards Muslims. The Muslim ethnicities never ever bowed to Western colonial authority for the whole period of 400 years of colonization, they always waged military campaigns against the Spaniards, and were pacified only after bloody integration campaigns by the American forces. “A good Muslim is a dead Muslim,” so goes this rather demented aphorism that I grew up with as a young boy in the 1960s.
Who would ever trust Muslim troops within the army in the 1970s at the peak of the Mindanao war? Or the ceasefire days of the 1980s? No, Sir, nobody could trust Muslims as they fell within the ambit of Cold War discourse and the demented, bigoted perception about them by the majority Westernized peoples.
But the 1990s was a different context. The Philippine state booted out American GIs and re-acquired the U.S. military base lands here, independent foreign policy was championed, the Cold War was eroding fast. The Christian Democrats, who were catapulted to power (President Ramos was among its top leaders), were very open in coalitioning with radical forces, the Left most specially. And so when President Ramos became president, it was among his top agenda to conclude all insurgencies here via the carrot way of negotiated settlement: the ‘win/win’ solution to age-old rebellions.
The military rebels (RAM-YOU, RAM = Reform the Armed Forces, YOU = Young Officers Union or YOU) finally agreed to a settlement and be integrated into the mainstream and the army/police. Likewise did the MNLF agree to a settlement, the top MNLF leaders were elected to the top posts of the Autonomous Region of Mindanao or ARMM, the BMA troops got integrated into the army and national police.
We simply shed off our Cold War mindset right then, and were so euphoric at the fulfilling results of the peace talks. Being a nationalist and socialist, my own Cold War antipathies towards our soldiers and cops eroded, my trust for them quite returned. I had always been under the surveillance of the state intelligence groups here, for nigh three (3) decades, and till these days my dossiers are still in the files of the said groups even if, by 2004-05, I served government as a bureau official.
Albeit I’d reserve my most euphoric moment, with tons of tears of happiness shed, when our other insurgencies will be concluded and their armies likewise integrated into our police and army. Never mind about nauseated rationalizations such as those questions of competency, mental orientation, and other Cold War hubris, they belong to the dirtiest dustbins. Integrate the insurgents at all cost and full acceptance, without preconditions.
[Writ 10 June 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila]
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