Nation marks
Rizal’s martyrdom
After the
Philippines was bought by the United States from Spain in 1898, the Americans
made a startling, albeit pleasant discovery: a brilliant man of letters who
happened to be a physician named Jose Rizal had been executed two years earlier
by the Spaniards. Although sedition was the reason given for his execution, our
new overlords quickly learned from his voluminous writings that what he strove
for was a far greater cause than mere national independence. He was a devotee
of freedom — the very ideal upon which their constitution is based and out of
which a nation where human rights ruled, emerged.
Rizal’s and
our then colonial masters’ vision and ideals of freedom were wrung from a very
mature psyche. Their idea of freedom demanded an enlightened citizenry as basic
condition for self-governance. Enlightenment, they knew, bestows dignity on
human beings. No abuse could be possibly wrought upon an individual with
dignity, nor upon a society made up of these individuals. To Rizal and the
Americans, a society of enlightened, dignified people is a peaceful, hence
progressive one. Rizal’s intense exposure to a very sophisticated intellectual
milieu through his readings and travel enabled him to tell Freedom from
Independence, and he shared his mature views of what love for country is, to
his countrymen fearlessly. His writings, especially his two-volume novel, gave
the Filipino people a clear mirror of their psyche’s urgent need for
rehabilitation, so that enlightened, they will choose freedom— human rights
even under a mature, therefore benevolent, though foreign-ruled government, and
not just national independence. He urged them to read and think, showing them
that the way to freedom is through revolution of the mind, and not through
armed revolutions which lead only to independence, not true freedom.
But the
polished mirror he fashioned, held up by the Americans, stung their eyes,
preventing them to see his message, and so they went on to fight and kill for
independence, unsuccessfully. The Americans, our new overlords, gave us what
Rizal had pleaded for, in vain, from the Spaniards — human rights under a
benevolent government for almost fifty years, until our leaders’ blind clamor
for independence made them give it to us in 1946. Thus our independence removed
us from the protective mantle of a strong, benevolent government and shoved us
into the ranks of other new independent states not yet strong to resist mutual
exploitation by her own leaders and citizenry and by more seasoned nations.
Ironically, it is through our independence that we would finally be able to see
the wisdom of Rizal in not choosing it for us. It is through the miseries
inflicted on us by our independence that we would finally get to see and
appreciate Rizal’s kind of nationalism, and hopefully learn from it so we can
steer our country forward toward self-renewal.
Rizal kept
saying that a people without enlightenment, without dignity, will abuse one
another even under their own independent government; that mutual abuse is what
characterizes a sick society — a society that cannot achieve peace and progress
no matter how many times it changes its leaders, either through peaceful
rallies or through violent coup d’ etats.
The core of
Rizal’s nationalism is love for fellow-beings, not love for the Filipino
proletariat alone. Rizal’s nationalism targets the immature, evil psyche as its
enemy, not the immature, evil people (the imperialists and the elite) as its
enemy. Rizal’s nationalism is based on the whole of reality, not on fragments
of reality. He saw wickedness in both master and slave, in both the rich and
the poor, not just in the rich. Rizal’s nationalism is open to anything that
could give his countrymen human rights — the basis for peace and progress —
assimilation into a mature, foreign government included. It is not focused on
just one — independence or separation from any foreign government no matter how
benevolent. Rizal’s nationalism recommends a change from immature, defective
thinking to mature, sensible thinking via enlightenment or revolution of the
mind. He did not recommend a change of defective government systems or
defective leaders via revolutions, rallies or strikes. Rizal’s nationalism made
him a man of courage who was not afraid to die for the cause of freedom, peace
and progress, yet who will never kill nor inspire others to kill for mere
political independence at the cost of freedom, peace and progress.
Rizal’s
nationalism was engendered and nurtured by classics written in international
languages, that he devoured. His love for his native tongue did not make him
embrace it to the exclusion of the richer, more powerful languages outside his
own. Hence, his mind, open and resilient, got nourished by the immortal
thoughts and insights of great thinkers. He therefore saw what his colleagues
could not see — that separation from Spain will leave us open to new invaders;
that it will cast us from the pan of colonial bondage into the fire of an
independent na tion’s internal strifes and power struggles which sabotage its
own people’s human rights and their chance to live in peace and prosperity.
Had Rizal’s
nationalism rubbed off on our past leaders and historians, would we be weeping
now for an entire generation of university students of the 60’s and 70’s who
threw themselves into the flames of political activism after metabolizing the
rhetoric of a nationalism different from that of Rizal’s? Would we be weeping
bitter tears for the 43,000 young cadres who joined the fight to change our
government system and its leaders and who were killed by their own comrades in
a wave of paranoia that swept through their movement? The EDSA Revolutions, the
coup d’ etats, the Oakwood mutiny, the bloody strikes at Hacienda Luisita now
serve to show us how the immature psyche creates mutual abuse and exploitation
among people of an independent nation. The Filipino ‘diaspora,’ though
sweet-lemonised by Patricia Evangelista in her internationally acclaimed speech
is a loud statement about the economic woes of our independent nation. Our
loved ones have to work abroad, especially in countries whose citizens chose to
be assimilated by a foreign government — Hawaii, Guam, Alaska. We have become
modern-day wandering Jews, although our nation is no longer a colony of a
foreign power, all because Rizal’s nationalism was not plumbed deep enough.
Published by Manila Bulletin
Published by Manila Bulletin
December 30, 2004
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