Imperialism Makes Me Nauseous

The synopsis I made from this weeks educational experience, is that Filipinos have experienced both an internal struggle within their political and social system, and an external struggle of centuries of colonial oppression. Both rooted in extreme efforts by the elite class to maintain their power and wealth. This has been accomplished in part by the erasure of accurate history, truth and censorship of information.

This discussion would not be complete without first examining privilege. As McIntosh points out, those who have more privilege, have an invisible source of power, which grants them access to parts of society that are inaccessible to the majority (p. 100).” This authorizes a special kind of power; the power to dominate other and, “gives license to some people to be, at best thoughtless and, at worst, murderous (p. 101).” The concept of privilege is very important in this discussion, because it’s a mindset that is pervasive among those who are exploit others to maintain their power and wealth.

As Zinn illustrated in the Invasion of the Philippines, the United States agreed to support Aguinaldo and the First Philippine Republic. When in fact, The Benevolent Assimilation Proclamation given by McKinley articulated American intentions to stay in the Philippines because they believed Filipinos were unable to govern their own nation and needed US support. Additionally, Ileto adds, in his article The Philippine-American War, Friendship and Forgetting, that in the process of the subsequent Philippine-American war, “the US army was able to turn a situation of utter destruction and suffering, for which it was largely responsible, into a redemptive situation (p. 17).” Filipinos were encouraged, indirectly, to forget the experience and tragedy of the war with the United States and instead become dependent on them to rebuild after the war and were grateful for their aid.

The U.S. was feeling pressure from Europe to go against its agreement with the Philippines, colonize them and expand the American empire. In his article, To the Person Sitting in Darkness, Twain articulates that, “there must be two Americas: one that sets captives free, and the one that takes a one-captive’s new freedom away from home, and picks a quarrel with him with nothing to found it only then kills him to get this land (pp. 64).” This statement succinctly describes the type of colonial oppression Filipino’s experienced, and illuminates that the motivations behind it were for the expansion of the American empire. The Philippines was a gateway to the Pacific and Asia, which could create new markets and access to cheap labor for American industry (Rafael 2016).

According to Perez and Mangahas, and their lecture on Indigenous peoples in the Philippines, land was taken away from Indigenous peoples in the process of colonial domination. In discussions about the elite and the poor, “Indigenous peoples get written out, even though they are the framework for the dichotomy (Perez & Mangahas 2016).”The appropriation of land by colonial powers was a way to assert dominance and secure power over newly conquered peoples. If you take everything away from people, strip them of their land and their rights, and then they have to depend on you (colonial power) for everything. Not only was land appropriated, but also culture was erased as well through the assertion of a new education system modeled after American pedagogy, which helped spread a new history and sentiment of American occupation.

During our trip to the Aguinaldo museum, I observed that he is depicted as a hero, yet he killed Andres Bonafacio who was the leader of the revolution against Spain and wanted to continue to fight against American Imperialism. This is yet another example of the forgetting that Ileto unpacks. “To Imagine Filipinos warring with Americans simply contradicts the dominant tropes of the Philippine-American relationship (Ileto p. 3).” The narrative of American colonialism in the Philippines had to be constructed in this way, to protect American political and business interests, fueled by the desire to continue accumulating wealth and power.

In reference to the internal political and class struggle in the Philippines, Baseco, an urban informal settlement in Manila is a example of the fault lines created between the elites and the poor, as the consolidation of wealth and power have many people in the Philippines living on the fringe of society. As Carin Gonzales stated, “it is government sponsored marginality and political patronage.” The people that live in this settlement form a voting population of 60,000 and it is in the best interest of those in power to keep this community in poverty because they are in a very important political district. Additionally, Susan Quimpo spoke about the power of the erasure of history in her work on reviving the history of the Marcos regime and Martial law during the advent of Duterte’s rise to power. The purpose of her project, the Martial Law Chonicles Project, is to fight “historical revisionism” and educate young peoples on the atrocities and reality of martial law.

This week was quite over stimulating for me. After all the information we learned, how it can be that in the face of obvious manipulation and exploitation by both the American government, and the Filipino government, do I continue to speak with Filipinos who express friendly sentiments about their past and current political and social situations within their own country and with the United States?

References

Gonzales, C. (2016). Urban Informal Settlers. Presentation. University of the Philippines.

Ileto, R.C. (1998). The Philippine-American War, Friendship and Forgetting. In Shaw, A.V.  Francia, L.H. Vestiges of War. (pp. 3-21). New York: New York Press.

Mangahas, M. (2016). Indigenous Peoples. Presentation. University of the Philippines.

McIntosh, P. (1988). White Privilege and Male Privilege: A personal account of coming to see correspondences through work in women’s studies. In K. Tupper, Introductions to women’s studies: Women 200 (2^nd ed) (pp. 62-71). New York: McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

Perez, P. (2016) Indigenous People Laws; IPRA. Presentation. University of the Philippines.

Quimpo, S.  (2016). Ex-Detainees: Martial Law. Presentation. University of the Philippines

Rafael, V. (2016). Week 2 Discussion. University of the Philippines.

Twain, M (2002). To the person sitting in darkness. In Shaw, A.V.  Francia, L.H. Vestiges of war. (pp. 57-68). New York: New York Press.

Zinn, H. (2008). Invasion of the Philippines. In A people’s history of American empire. (pp. 53-72) NY: Metropolitan Books.