Visiting the Rizal
Memorial Museum enlightened me on the impact the colonial education system the
American government brought to the Philippines on the Filipino national
identity. As a History major whose plan it is to go into museum work, I tend to
have a critical eye when it comes to how events and people are portrayed in
museums. The information must be made concise and much of the details must be
cut out to one keep visitor’s attention and due to the subjective nature of
writing History. Every presentation of history comes from a certain perspective
and has a certain message. The
information chosen to support that idea and the information omitted is telling
of the stance of the author and scholarly legacy that the writer comes from.
For me I received the feeling that the portrayal of Jose Rizal fit into the
colonial debt to America side of the Filipino colonial mentality, which states
that Filipinos should be grateful for America bringing freedom, education, and
civilization to the Philippines. The representation of Rizal disseminated
through the American education system, which the museum exhibits, was perfect
for justifying the brutal Philippine-American war.
The
image of Rizal presented at the museum was that of a perfect Western gentleman
who was of little threat to the colonial system. Rizal was the typical
upper-class privileged Renaissance man and was educated like many of the other
Filipino elite in Spanish style universities, where he learned to think like a
European. Throughout Southeast Asia and other colonies the elites were educated
in order to help collaborate in governing. The museum used most of the space to
describe his many talents. Rizal was a doctor, a writer, a poet, a fencer, a
biologist, a land owner, a farmer, a philanthropist, a cartoonist, a sculptor,
a painter, a biologist, an activist, and even a god. He read and translated
books from German, Spanish, French, English, and Italian. His persona was not
unlike Thomas Jefferson. He was also a deeply religious man and focused heavily
on his Christianity in his final letters to his family. Every painting of Rizal
either shows him as a scientist working in the field of Western medicine
helping the sick: “He sought the power of rational thinking in the search for
the truth. He believed in exploring and using one’s good potentials and using
them to benefit others” (Museum Visit). Or he is depicted as a scholarly writer
sitting in the dark writing his critiques of Spanish colonization. In all he is
always dressed as a European, because he was educated as a European. Rizal was a symbol of the civilization and
wealth that benevolent assimilation could bring to the Philippines.
Although
Rizal was educated in this style, he still felt concern for his people. In his
writings he demanded better treatment of common Filipinos from the Spanish
rule. However, he was prosecuted as inciting rebellion and starting a revolt
against Spanish rule and was executed. A large portion of the museum is
dedicated to proving the claim that Rizal was not involved with illegal
societies or the rebellion (Museum Visit). Rizal himself stated this himself in
his appeal to the court: “I am not guilty of organizing a revolutionary society
or of taking part in other such societies or of participating in the rebellion.
I hope I have shown that on the contrary I have opposed the rebellion” (Museum
Visit). In reality Rizal wanted equality
under the Spanish and not independence (Museum Visit). Ultimately what Rizal believed “On the day
when all Filipinos should think like… us, on that day we shall have fulfilled
our arduous mission which is the formation of the Filipino nation” (Museum
Visit). All of these ideals can also be
seen within the American colonial rhetoric of Benevolent Assimilation used to
justify the bloody Philippines-American War, which tore the hard heard
independence after the Filipino war with Spain from the newly formed Philippine
Republic’s hands: “The goals of the ilustrado
leaders of the 1898 revolution were apparently fulfilled through U.S.
intervention” (Ileto 3).
In
1896-1898 Philippine forces led by Aguinaldo fought to sever their colonial
ties with the oppressive Spanish colonizers only to have their land sold to the
U.S. The Filipinos had created their own constitution and republic (later
described as a “high point” of Philippine History in American textbooks), but
the Americans turned on their Philippine allies calling the new republic
“immature” and unfit for self-rule in need of America’s tutelage (Ileto 4). According to the textbooks given to Filipino
students after Aguinaldo’s surrender, the fight for Philippine sovereignty with
the new republic against the U.S. was proof of their need for the war, and
Filipino students learned to see it as an insurrection and “rejection of the
gift of enlightenment” (Ileto 4). President Mckinley claimed that there were no
imperial intentions and he did not want the Philippines. However, he could not
let the feudal Spanish keep the Philippines and the Filipinos were unfit for
self-rule, so he had to educate through civilizing and Christianizing (Zinn
55). Mark Twain sarcastically tears down this notion in “To The Person Sitting
In the Dark” when he write:
There must be two Americas; one that sets the captives free, and one that
rakes a once captive’s freedom away from him, and picks a quarrel with him with
nothing to found it on; then kills him to get his land. The truth is the Person
Sitting in the Darkness is saying things like that and for the sake of the
business we must persuade him to look at the Philippine matter in another
healthier way; we must change his opinions for him.
For Mark Twain, the U.S. was not
there to fulfill Rizal’s desire, but unfortunately his ironic suggestion of
changing the way Filipino’s think was followed and Rizal himself was the perfect
candidate for this. America was able to argue through Benevolent Assimilation,
they were bringing the rest of the Filipinos to this understanding that Rizal
mentioned they needed for self-rule. Therefore through promoting Rizal as a
national hero in the education system, America created this debt of nation
building and civilizing that Filipinos feel today.
My
question is why someone as critical of American influence and colonialism as
Kidlat Tahimik would feel the need to promote Rizal. At the lecture he wore a
Rizal shirt and spoke about how his day of remembrance is overlooked. Kidlat Tahimik focused a lot on focusing the
“bamboo camera” on the indigenous perspective and the Western interpretation of
history has had been focused on too much. I feel that the museum presented a
very American centric understanding of Rizal and the answer to my question lies
in pointing the “bamboo camera” at Rizal. Both Kidlat and the museum briefly
mentioned the religious and supernatural side to Rizal. Ileto has written
articles in the past about the indigenous understanding of Rizal, and I feel
that Kidlat is resisting American colonial influence through embracing this
supernatural side of Rizal and making him more Filipino rather than European.
Bibliography
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.
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.
No comments:
Post a Comment