Wearing a Filipino nationalist’s
lens, E. San Juan Jr. examines in his book US
Imperialism and Revolution in the
Philippines the role of the United States in subverting nationhood
throughout modern history by weaving a plot around sound theoretical frameworks
from great thinkers fabrics culled from an impressive, if not exhaustive collection
of literature written by mostly American and Filipino historians, anthropologists,
sociologists and academics, who may or may not have revealed through their
writing, their slant on the contentious benevolence/malevolence of the world’s
only remaining superpower.
The book, which chronicles America’s
overt and covert, brutal and diplomatic, local and global participation in
shaping the lives of peoples and races across the globe then and now, is
written with intellectuals and academics foremost in mind. However, if the uninitiated to the language
of sociology, as I almost am, is able to sift through the jargon and details,
one can see a very informative book, thought-provoking in its depth and
soul-stirring in its ability to present its case at how America literally and
figuratively raped and pillaged the country, and the world for that matter. Whatever it lacked in narrative appeal, it
made up for in thoroughness in detail and consistency in argument.
However, I would like to see this
book written in a language and tone that reaches out to ordinary Filipinos,
inviting them to examine their view of the world, of being a Filipino or
whatever it means and symbolizes for them, of how they were robbed blind of
their power over self-determination while they were too busy believing that the
unequal partnership with America was the best thing to happen since the
Spaniards inflicted on the country its very first myopia – religion.
But alas, the book is what it is: a
brilliantly written tome in highstrung language, for the mental masturbation of
the learned and erudite who can participate in endless discussion of how the US
had gained advantage over every nation by putting everyone else at a
disadvantage, impressively punctuated by lines and passages written by such and
such authority on such and such fields. Though
no fault of its own, or the author’s, the book ironically manages by omission
to distance the issue of oppression and manipulation from the very people who
should be able grasp it by heart, if only to spark a little ember of anger, and
hopefully, revolt at why they are who they are.
Eerily, this is ironically similar to how America took away the ambit of
discussion from the masses by empowering the ruling elite to run governance,
dictate social norms, and generally perpetuate the oppressive system which they
no longer desired to dispose of themselves.
No, they are above that.
Language has a way of alienating
discussants, and making what is plain and obvious obscure and unrecognizable. The Americans were, and still are masters at
this. 30,000 American soldiers obliterated
hundreds of thousands of Filipinos, and by many accounts up to a million, or
one in seven Filipino, and we were mesmerized by the term pacification of the
brigands, as if fighting for your home, for the way you want to live, to
protect and exploit your own resources in a manner that benefits you and your
kin was a beastly crime that needed to be rustled to the ground, and buried
underneath it, preferably with the shovel still in our hands. No, they didn’t want to call it for what it
was – a massacre, a genocide, a most barbaric killing -- words too raw and
well, bloody to include in polite, polished, educated conversation. Didn’t they say we were savages?
The Americans absconded with our
nation’s collective pride, co-opted our minds, and forever changed how we view
ourselves and they called it benevolent assimilation, a manifest destiny of a
nation bound to be led to a world that is just, progressive, free. Or at least that’s what the rhetoric wanted
us to believe. No, they wouldn’t call it
brainwashing, annihilation of a culture, or disenfranchisement of a nation –
words that don’t give justice to the brilliant strategy they employed to systematically
and mercilessly strip us of our dignity and pride, first by force, then by
guile. How dare us, we ungrateful
bastards?
The white people twisted our elbow
with one hand and patted our shoulder with the other and condescendingly called
us their little brown brothers, as they carted out our natural resources from
our mountains, seas and land. And we are
supposed to beam with pride and expect that snow would fall on our benighted
land the moment we all sing White Christmas.
They wouldn’t want to call it plunder, rape or the eradication of one’s
belief in sovereignty and patrimony. They
called us brothers, didn’t they? What
were we thinking? We should be glad that
we are able to please our benevolent white mentors who went out of their way,
and their country, to show us how to exploit everything we have for their consumption. So stop using words that cite contempt.
All throughout its history, Americans
have shown their propensity for so righteously using might to subjugate races
that stand in the way of their greed.
They drove American-Indians from their land, which happened to be oozing
with gold and timber, decimated their ranks with superior firepower and
shackled their pride in far-flung locales euphemistically called reservation,
where curious tourists may visit them to marvel at their culture, like children
gawking at colorful fishes inside an aquarium.
They went to the Korean Peninsula
to fight off the “evil” communists; and they sent mayhem to Vietnam, except
that their napalm bombs were no match for the grit of the Vietcongs. They did not win these wars, but they didn’t
lose either. They simply managed to
ensure that the world will be a more dangerous place.
Ironically, even as America is at
the forefront of every significant war in modern history, not one of the
significant battles occurred in its soil.
And no war is considered significant without the stars and stripes
involved in it. Why? Because America, inspite of its posturing as
the protector of the free world and the ally of the burdened, chooses which war
to use its ammunition on; and this is mainly predicated on what good, and in
what quantity can they gain from such an incursion. And when they can’t be in the battle zone,
they conveniently supply weapons and resources to those willing to fight for
them. They supplied weapons to
Nicaraguan rebels trying to overthrow a communist regime, to the mujahideens of
Afghanistan who would later become the core of Al Qaeda, to the warriors of
Israel who promise to defend its territory, and it goes without saying
America’s interests as well, against any and all forces. They sent warplanes and boots to Afghanistan
and Iraq when they lost trust in local militias to get the job done, which is
to actually install a regime that is willing to satiate its thirst for oil
until it can take in no more, or until a more effective and renewable energy
source is discovered – whichever came first.
America must get something, preferably
everything from its effort. Victors,
after all, devour the spoils of war.
America watched in mock horror as
Rwandans killed each other by the hundreds of thousands with machete, clubs and
bare hands. They did the same when
fragments of disintegrating Yugoslavia drew genocidal blood across the
Balkans. They continually thumb their
noses at North Korea as its population die from hunger even as its demigod
leaders gorged on caviar, expensive wine and everyone else’s pretty
daughters. But why should they lift a
finger? Rwanda was nothing more than a
vast untamed forest, it had diamonds underneath its mountains but America had
never been enamored with precious stones; Yugoslavia was nothing more than beautiful
mountains, ice, snow and plenty of pine trees; North Korea is little more than
a barren land in the peninsula – South Korea, its ally is richer in resources,
as well as in technology that are aligned with its own. Why problematize over issues that pay nothing
or little in return?
America is not afraid that its
bases Subic and Clark have been removed in the 1990s, they still have the
Visiting Forces Agreement and a strong ally/lackey in the Philippines to ensure
that if any shooting war happens with China, Philippines as a de facto
extension of the US, will suffer the onslaught long before any Chinese missile
hits American soil. That’s what small
brothers are supposed to do – take up the cudgel for big brother.
Another Filipino, Jennifer Laude,
dies in the hands of an American soldier.
America is not alarmed. A few
years back, an American soldier raped and dumped the victim on the road like a
banana peel and the soldier, Daniel Smith, is now back in US soil, shamed
perhaps but safe and in anonymity in his land of milk and honey. Meanwhile, the Philippine government plays it
cool. Come on, it is as if this is the
only fatality that an American soldier has ever inflicted on a Filipino before. Remember up to a million Filipinos were
massacred between 1899 and 1913, we should be immune to the news by now. After all, aren’t we supposed to feel that
way after the ultimate sacrifice of a million Filipino brigands? No one remembers because no one knows.
The book under review contains
stories about my country: how it was rich and pillaged, how it was populated
with a people fighting for freedom and how the fight turned from a struggle for
freedom into a battle for racial survival, and of how the mantle of thought was
taken away from the masses and entrusted to the intellectuals, the elite, and
the academics. These stories will not
reach the masses, the book was never intended for their consumption.
This is a well-written,
well-researched, well-argued book. And I
don’t like it.
