PART II
An
Alternative Look at Filipino Colonial History
A different way of looking at our past was first inspired by my re-reading the 1975 edition of Teodoro Agoncillo's A
Short History of the Philippines. It coincided with my introduction to Chilean history when I repeated high school in Santiago, which I was forced to do in order to go back to university. It turned out to be the best thing I could have done.
Mario Rodríguez Cobos
This refers to the subtle cultural filters that influence how history books are written and present the
meanings of historical events, either naively (unconsciously imposing the historian's cultural filters), or deliberately, to implant value judgments that justify political and cultural agendas (the inevitable result of the winners writing the history books for the losers).
I tried to become aware of some of these filters as I read Agoncillo, to connect with the narrative while applying my own life experience criteria, and trying to emotionally connect with what was being described at a "less
official" level and thus, sound out depths that were hidden for me before and that I could now intuit.
These filters or dimensions that Rodríguez Cobos points out (as I understand them) are complex indeed, and fascinating in and of themselves:
- · the translation and interpretation that the historian’s formation imposes when she/he consults sources and re-elaborates the information she/he considers relevant;
- the changes of vision that occur at several points of the process of transferring knowledge:
o during the time that intervenes between the genesis of a historical
event and the time when the historian actually writes about it;
o changes of vision by the time their writings have reached their students;
o and as new historians arise from the ranks of the students, and carry out their own research, adding their own generational vision.
In the case of Philippine history, within the past 118 years the Filipino
people experienced a dramatic passage from one cultural mentality and way of
life to another. Mentality changes that have not been addressed or studied as such.
And our historians have had to study and write about these two quite
different cultural landscapes -- (I) that of Hispanic Philippines (a little over three and a
half centuries = 333 years) and (II) that of North Americanized
Philippines (a regime that lasted around half a century but in reality continues to the present =
118 years) –
- without having experienced Hispanic Philippines, and,
- due to their academic training in the North American canon,
- without a strong background in Spanish or Latin American culture and history, and most importantly
- said Americanized academic training having transmitted cultural prejudice against the Hispanic Filipino period, labelling it simplistically as the Spanish period, implying it lacks cultural validity for the present or future, and that the True Filipino History is the pre-Spanish period.
Writing about the Hispanic-Filipino historical process without a deep grasp of (i.e., respect for) its cultural landscape -- one significantly different from the historian's
own -- had to result in a historical image with shallows and shadowy areas of
cultural sensitivity. This shallow, shadowy image was then passed on to
students of history.
No wonder then, that post-World War II Filipinos had no clear
identity and began to aspire to leave the Philippines, the more highly educated
they were. They had become alienated from their own past and saw no future in the country of their birth...therefore, they felt no commitment to contributing to its progress.
And since history was conceived as a monolithic,
"objective" presentation of facts and events, in which the
application of a psychological perspective was irrelevant or detrimental for a
rigorous approach...a colonized country didn't fit in the paradigm because it would just be about complaining and throwing tantrums, which was a no-no. It wasn't serious history. Which was actually not lacking in truth either.
BUT – and this is a HUGE But – a psychological and cultural perspective in histories of colonization is vital for
formerly-colonized peoples to understand their past, to illuminate the shifts
in mentality and changes in cultural meanings that come about when one nation is
colonized by another.
Colonial histories must be – this is my structural proposal –
studied as a specific branch of study, if “colonial mentality” is to be tackled
intelligently as a stage of national history and not as a congenital,
insuperable condition, a sentencing of nations to sub-development because they will never ever reach the stature of the paradigmatic "developed" colonizer nations.
And so, the straightforward, uncritical narrative of the
"here-today-gone-tomorrow" procession of colonizers and the
"free-one-minute-annexed-the-next" story of passage from Spanish to
North American colonization had to
produce alienation and bewilderment in Filipino history students. This was my
experience.
What do you mean, UNCRITICAL? There is a lot of “criticism” of the “Spanish” period and of the “American” period.
But criticism is not serious without the application of a framework, of global points of
reference and comparison. All it is, is
catharsis at best, and – at worst – a tool for demagoguery, and the further propagation
of ignorance.
And given our Diaspora, a global approach to our history is a
necessity for Filipinos, who, even if scattered in all the countries, are still
closely concerned by and connected to the problems of Filipinas. And for the Filipinos in our country, a new
awareness of the stories of other peoples, far distant from our shores but
related to us by destiny, and the initiation of dialog with them will stimulate
the arising of new answers and attitudes to old obstacles and dilemmas.
I believe this approach is useful, given our history's uniqueness,
as a people formed through two successive experiences of abrupt,
traumatic superimposition of radically-different worldviews and cultures over
our original indigenous one.
In 2003 I once walked around an old West Oakland neighborhood, the Victorian houses were huge, imposing...looking slightly haunted. Suddenly (these things happen to me) I felt the wood the houses were made of calling mournfully to me: we are from Filipinas. Years later, I thought: ...and SAN FRANCISCO was rebuilt after the 1906 earthquake and fire with our native woods, harvested cheap and brought over by the ton.
The process of integration has indeed been taking place outside of
our rational awareness, but it is quite complex and to leave it to chance is to
impoverish ourselves. For the Filipinos,
integrating our past is an educational and cultural enterprise of considerable
importance. The legacy of cultural alienation and disorientation is today the
burden of many millions and our collective consciousness suffers a tremendous dispersion of energy and loss of
vital vision because of it.
Perhaps the labor of integrating the past is not the primary
function of our historians, but of our artists. In Latin America, the clash of
cultures and mentalities took place 500 years ago and but its effects still
strongly influence their societies in ways that Latin American writers,
artists, philosophers and social scientists unceasingly strive to elucidate and
understand.
Now then, of course an ignorant, isolated, scattered, prejudiced, divided,
alienated Filipino nation is very useful to those whose racket is precisely to
keep business going as per usual.
But because human consciousness comes from and is divine energy, and we are not (some evidence
to the contrary notwithstanding) brutes with no souls…..that dominion is
ending.
My proposal for a Structural History is therefore:
To throw light on
dimensions of Hispanic-Filipino colonial history that have not been easily
accessible before, by approaching it from the wider perspective of Latin
American history and culture. To validate Hispanic-Filipino history as the cradle of modern Filipino national consciousness and identity.
Study the relations
between our history and those of other peoples who shared the experience of
Spanish colonization -- the Latin American countries -- in
order to
Access a broader vision of the Philippines' colonial process.
Produce the mentality shift needed to move our society and culture out of its crystallized state.
This will open up an incredibly rich new field of study. I know this is going to happen, has already been happening. I have looked just a little into Cuban
history, Havana and Manila were sister cities, and because Cuba was annexed
by the U.S. at the same time as we were (and Puerto Rico), the potential for
comparative studies is phenomenal.
This is the challenge of the new generations of Filipino historians.
This is why the Filipino nation must recover Spanish. Not Korean, not Arabic, not Chinese -- because the documentation is in Spanish, and our fellow ex-colonized countries of the Spanish Empire are a TREASURE TROVE OF COMPARATIVE DOCUMENTATION.
And they are countries -- get this -- with rich traditions of rigorous historiographic research and experience. All waiting for us to dive into and tap.
Because professional Filipino historians depend on their salaries and on sponsoring institutions
that move ever too slowly, ruled as they are by vested interests, then
independent, organic historians are the alternative, and Internet the
perfect vehicle for sharing the new visions we can access and nurture.
Filipinas kong minumutya
We have housed the world, fed it, we have given it beauty.
And we haven't even gotten a "Thank You".
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