Transforming "Objective Knowledge"

Being in the Philippines for a little over two weeks means that I’ve had more time to reflect on my own issues about identity and understanding the relationship that the Philippines has with the United States. It’s still and will continue to be difficult for me to process everything that I’m learning on this trip because of my perspective as a first generation Filipino-American college graduate. I’ve come to realize that everything the United States does is inherently confusing because of the deceptive actions and greedy justifications. This past week, we had a variety of activities. Among these experiences, visiting Intramuros and the museum dedicated to Jose Rizal was the most significant for me as I continue to grapple with history and identity. After carefully contemplating these experiences and the readings assigned for this week, I want to consider the way in which “objective knowledge” is formed and controlled by the country in power – in this case, the United States. By saying “objective knowledge”, I’m thinking about the fact that Filipinos have been controlled through education that has been dictated by U.S. militaristic goals.

Before I incorporate the readings for this week into my experience, I first want to explain my thought process and reaction to visiting the museum dedicated to Jose Rizal. I want to preface this reflection by clearly stating that I am not an expert on the Philippine revolution and this is the first time in my life that I’ve been asked to critically consider the history. I sometimes worry that my own perspective is compromised because of where I come from. The main message of the facts in the museum was that Jose Rizal is a revolutionary national hero and should be held with the utmost respect. From the facts I gathered, though, the entire museum struck me as a way the United States has controlled “objective knowledge” in the Philippines. Jose Rizal had a western education and through his writings was not actually calling for a total revolution against Spain. Instead, he advocated for equality within the colonial system. His words were inspiring to others to fight Spain for Philippine independence. During this time, the United States was interested in colonizing the Philippines and intervened in order to gain control by striking a deal with Spain and misleading the Filipinos. From Howard Zinn’s piece, Benevolent Assimilation, I learned that the U.S. helped revolutionaries swiftly remove Spain from the country. In the comic from Aguinaldo’s perspective he states, “Little did we know that, on May 19, McKinley ordered his secretary of war to send 20,000 troops to occupy the Philippines” (Zinn 58). The U.S. acted deceptively on greedy intentions. The point I want to make here is that the United States chose Jose Rizal as the Philippines’ national hero because he was benevolent but pushed many people to act against Spain. My thought process is that Rizal was instrumental in pushing Spain out and thus was an ally to the United States to take over immediately after. It’s as though Rizal was simply a pawn in the U.S.’s game to take over the Philippines Because of his usefulness, the United States chose Rizal as the national hero of the Filipinos and thus controlled the sort of “objective knowledge” I was referring to earlier.

            I want to elaborate my argument further by considering Reynaldo Ileto’s article, The Philippine-American War: Friendship and Forgetting as well as Mark Twain’s piece, To the Person Sitting in Darkness. Ileto states:

The fact that just about all the town centers… were under U.S. civil or military control by mid-1900 facilitated the war’s forgetting… U.S. pacification and education programs after 1902 managed to transform resistance in the ‘boondocks’ into a condition of banditry while the American towns came to signify progress and democratic tutelage. (Ileto 9)

The U.S. had the power to transform “objective knowledge” in the Philippines and chose to frame the history of their colonizing acts as a sign of progress and cooperation. The mis-education of Filipinos began as soon as the United States took political interest in the islands. Mark Twain, who vehemently opposed U.S. occupation of the Philippines also detected the control. The person sitting in the darkness he is referring to be the countries that are the targets of colonization. He states:

…for the sake of the Business we must persuade him to look at the Philippine matter in another and healthier way. We must arrange his opinions for him. I believe it can be done or Mr. Chamberlain has arranged England's opinion of the South African matter, and done it most cleverly and successfully. He presented the facts- some of the facts—and showed those confiding people what the facts meant. (Twain 64)

He recognizes that the United States, and any colonizing country in general, changes a country’s “objective knowledge” to take control. Exerting their own ideology on knowledge that is being taught to the Filipinos and everyone else throws objectivity out the window even though it is still considered “facts”. The question that I have is how can we, or if it’s even possible to, incorporate subjectivity in learning without forcing the information to benefit the one who is teaching?

References

Ileto, Reynaldo C. “The Philippine-American War: Friendship and Forgetting.” Vestiges of War.            Ed. A. Shaw and L.H. Francia. New York Press: New York, 1998. 3-21. Print.

Twain, Mark. “To the Person Sitting in Darkness.” Vestiges of War. Ed. A. Shaw and L.H. Francia.           New York Press: New York, 2002. 57-68. Print.

Zinn, Howard. “Invasion of the Philippines.” A People’s History of American Empire.           Metropolitan Books: New York, 2008. 53-72. Print.