Facts and
Fallacies
There is no attempt either in this chapter or in this book to
revisit the entirety of our separate histories. That effort is a project worthy
of the labor of a company of scholars, and will require volumes. I restrict
myself to reexamining a number of previously unchallenged assumptions on which
the myth of our common "nationhood" is premised, and begin with the underlying
argu- ment --- preached as dogma by our nationalists and
swallowed as such by most -- that our coloni- zation was an
unqualified disaster, nothing less than the triumph of evil
over good. This I reject as
absolutism --- the simplistic, misleading, and irresponsible
depiction of history as either black or white. Jarle Simensen, a history
professor, also challenges this assumption, saying it's time we "abandon the
perception of Asians and Africans exclusively as victims." He asks, among other
queries: What might have happened had colonization not taken
place?
In order to evaluate colonial rule, it
is also necessary to form an opinion on what would have
happened without colonial rule
. . . Opinions vary and are strongly coloured by political ideo- logy and
wishful thinking. However, historical comparisons can be drawn with countries
that were not colonised, such as Ethiopia . .
.
If our partisan scholars have no
intelligent response to this hypothetical, it's because they dare not ask the
question. They fear it because they know the answer, which negates their canvas
of
a "homogenous race" consisting of people speaking "different
dialects" and living in relative peace, of a society whose grand destiny
was thwarted by "the curse of colonialism."
If we
were never colonized and
ended up like today's Ethiopia, would we be better off? Hostile
as our
nations and regions were towards one another before Legazpi and Urdaneta, would
our nationalists prefer that we evolved into atomized island-states? Would they
be happier if --- ab- sent a competing
creed --- we all became Muslims? If
Ethiopia --- never colonized --- was
com-pelled to accede to the secession of its Eritreans, who never identified
themselves as Ethiopians, shouldn't the Philippines --- a
colony for centuries and a much more plural, multicultural
state ---
allow the secession of our Muslims, who have never
considered themselves Filipinos? In the al-ternative, let's assume for a moment
that we were colonized only briefly by the "demonical white man,"
like the Caribbean country that became the second in the Americas to achieve
indepen-dence [1804] after a successful 13-year, native-led revolt. If we ended
up like today's Haiti, would that satisfy our nationalists? Would they have
preferred Duvalier to Marcos? Or what if we ended up like today's Cuba, which
gained independence in 1902? Find me nationalists with honest answers to these
questions, and I'll be glad to provide them, gratis et
amore, with first class, one-way tickets to Ethiopia, Haiti,
or Cuba -- their
choice.
