By Amando Doronila
SINCE American rule in the Philippines at the beginning of the 20th century, Filipinos have been talking about their ''identity crisis,'' causing a search for a ''Filipino identity'' and an inferiority complex in their relations with industrially advanced countries of the West and even with Asian societies with more indigenous cultures.
This ''identity crisis'' is fostered by the condescending thesis, uncritically accepted by many Filipinos, that they are in Asia ''but not part of Asia,'' that they are a mongrel between East and West, and that they are not part of the so-called ''Asian values'' system. The search of the Filipino identity using the above perspectives leads nowhere.
We don't have to do all this to find ourselves. We have already found ourselves and we are what we are--Filipinos, unique, talented in some ways and flawed in other ways, but we are what other peoples are not.
There is no need to be embarrassed or to be defensive about ourselves. It is time to stop imitating other people with different cultural, historical and political experiences, and to use them as a measuring stick for our identity. Just by being ourselves is enough. In political terms at least we have been one of the more enduring democracies in a region where democracy has short existence or is still seeking fuller expression.
In economic terms, there have been peaks and slides in our economic development, but as a modern economy, the Philippines has proven resilient in Asia's most recent economic crisis--the financial and currency turmoil that led to the political and economic collapse of some of the emerging tiger economies in Southeast Asia.
In cultural terms, the Philippines may not have the magnificent monuments of past decayed civilizations--like the Angkor Wat temples in Cambodia or the Pagan temples in Myanmar--but these monuments merely illustrate that they do not guarantee the survival and progress of societies responding to catalytic social, economic and political change that has swept the world especially after the Industrial Revolution and during the 20th century.
Interaction
My thesis is that what Filipinos are today and what their national identity is--that defines them and differentiates them from other societies--is a function of their interaction and adaptation to the waves of migration, invasions, cultural influxes and trade that have crossed paths over the Philippine archipelago from pre-historic times onto the Age of Exploration and down to the current age of economic and technological globalization.
That these powerful cross-currents swept our lands was decided for us by geography. The Philippines lies at the cross-roads of regional/international trade, invasions, and cultural evangelism.
These cross-currents, that came in layers like the layers of cities and eras that buried Homer's ancient Troy and the Trojan War before Schleimann excavated its ruins, shaped our identity, our personality, our politics, our culture, our history and our economic development.
Coveted territory
Our lands have had, in other words, a strategic geo-political position in Asia that made us a coveted territory, a playing field of larger regional or international conflicts and designs of big powers.
Consider that for nearly a hundred years the United States held in the Philippines the most strategic military bases in Asia Pacific to carry out the role of the leading Pacific power and to be the gendarme of the Pacific during the Cold War and even now, in a more reduced circumstance, to maintain the regional balance of power.
Few countries in the world occupy strategic geo-political junctures. In most cases these crossroads countries have been seen to struggle with ''identity crisis'' caused by the encounter of cultures, civilizations and conquering armies on their lands.
Thus, this is the case with Turkey, part of which is in Asia and part in Europe. From this geo-political position, Turkey over the centuries has maintained its rich Ottoman and Islamic culture while looking at Europe for models of modernization and economic development.
Similarly, Spain, the former mother country, sitting on the southern flank of the Mediterranean, is the historical route of invasions by the Romans, the Goths, the Moors, invasions that have left Spain a rich and complex cultural and historical legacy both Islamic and Christian. These encounters have bequeathed to Spain what some would call an ''identity'' question.
But maybe that is not the right word. Spain's cross-current influences are what make Spain Spain and the Spanish Spanish.
What I am arguing is that we cannot change our historical experience. It would be worse glossing over some aspects of this total experience.
Overreacting to past colonization only overlooks how the Filipinos have coped with these encounters and transformed their widely scattered tribal units into a nation state and at some point, proclaimed their independence as we did on June 12, 1898 in Kawit, far ahead of any colonized Asian country.
External influences
The political influence of the French Revolution and the European Enlightenment on the Philippine Revolution is an illustration of my thesis that most of the turning point events in our history were triggered by external influences.
This means that even before the Spanish conquest, the inhabitants of our islands had already been inserted into regional or international systems of trade and caught in imperial rivalries fought out in the Philippines, such as those between Spain and Portugal over the partition of the globe by the Treaty of Tordesillas in the 15th century; between Spain and the Dutch in the 17th century; between Spain and England in the 18th century; and between Spain and the United States in the late 19th century.
Because of our geo-political position in Asia where their conflicts spread out, we did not escape the turmoil in the then existing international power system. If the Philippines were an insignificant cluster of islands in the Pacific and South China Sea, we would have been left in peace and also excluded from the infusion of rich cultures and civilizations.
Prior to the Age of Exploration, the Philippines was already on the cross-roads of trade among Asian nations, like China, Vietnam, Cambodia and Siam, and were penetrated by Arab traders who at the same time brought Islam to Mindanao.
The artifacts of pre-hispanic Chinese and Southeast Asian potteries exhibited in our museums are evidence of the insertion of the Philippines in the regional trading system of the time.
The Spanish conquest linked the colonial economy to the New World through the Manila-Acapulco Galleon Trade, which was merely one side (the Pacific side) of the global trading system. The other branch linked Manila and the Asian mainland, the source of the luxury items that found their way to Europe through Hispanic America.
Later, the Philippine economy was linked to European trading system following the opening of Philippine ports in the 17th century to direct European trade.
Key role
Perhaps, the most important legacy bequeathed by the encounters of conquest, trade and cultures and religion in our lands is that they have transformed the Filipinos into a nation that can bridge East and West in Asia because their exposure to these encounters has made them familiar with the values and idiom of the East and West.
This familiarity has made Filipinos not only global minded for opportunities--look at the diaspora of migrant workers--but has also enabled them to reduce into nonsense the posturings of ''Asian values,'' as if there is a homogeneous Asian value. Asian culture is extremely diversified.
SINCE American rule in the Philippines at the beginning of the 20th century, Filipinos have been talking about their ''identity crisis,'' causing a search for a ''Filipino identity'' and an inferiority complex in their relations with industrially advanced countries of the West and even with Asian societies with more indigenous cultures.
This ''identity crisis'' is fostered by the condescending thesis, uncritically accepted by many Filipinos, that they are in Asia ''but not part of Asia,'' that they are a mongrel between East and West, and that they are not part of the so-called ''Asian values'' system. The search of the Filipino identity using the above perspectives leads nowhere.
We don't have to do all this to find ourselves. We have already found ourselves and we are what we are--Filipinos, unique, talented in some ways and flawed in other ways, but we are what other peoples are not.
There is no need to be embarrassed or to be defensive about ourselves. It is time to stop imitating other people with different cultural, historical and political experiences, and to use them as a measuring stick for our identity. Just by being ourselves is enough. In political terms at least we have been one of the more enduring democracies in a region where democracy has short existence or is still seeking fuller expression.
In economic terms, there have been peaks and slides in our economic development, but as a modern economy, the Philippines has proven resilient in Asia's most recent economic crisis--the financial and currency turmoil that led to the political and economic collapse of some of the emerging tiger economies in Southeast Asia.
In cultural terms, the Philippines may not have the magnificent monuments of past decayed civilizations--like the Angkor Wat temples in Cambodia or the Pagan temples in Myanmar--but these monuments merely illustrate that they do not guarantee the survival and progress of societies responding to catalytic social, economic and political change that has swept the world especially after the Industrial Revolution and during the 20th century.
Interaction
My thesis is that what Filipinos are today and what their national identity is--that defines them and differentiates them from other societies--is a function of their interaction and adaptation to the waves of migration, invasions, cultural influxes and trade that have crossed paths over the Philippine archipelago from pre-historic times onto the Age of Exploration and down to the current age of economic and technological globalization.
That these powerful cross-currents swept our lands was decided for us by geography. The Philippines lies at the cross-roads of regional/international trade, invasions, and cultural evangelism.
These cross-currents, that came in layers like the layers of cities and eras that buried Homer's ancient Troy and the Trojan War before Schleimann excavated its ruins, shaped our identity, our personality, our politics, our culture, our history and our economic development.
Coveted territory
Our lands have had, in other words, a strategic geo-political position in Asia that made us a coveted territory, a playing field of larger regional or international conflicts and designs of big powers.
Consider that for nearly a hundred years the United States held in the Philippines the most strategic military bases in Asia Pacific to carry out the role of the leading Pacific power and to be the gendarme of the Pacific during the Cold War and even now, in a more reduced circumstance, to maintain the regional balance of power.
Few countries in the world occupy strategic geo-political junctures. In most cases these crossroads countries have been seen to struggle with ''identity crisis'' caused by the encounter of cultures, civilizations and conquering armies on their lands.
Thus, this is the case with Turkey, part of which is in Asia and part in Europe. From this geo-political position, Turkey over the centuries has maintained its rich Ottoman and Islamic culture while looking at Europe for models of modernization and economic development.
Similarly, Spain, the former mother country, sitting on the southern flank of the Mediterranean, is the historical route of invasions by the Romans, the Goths, the Moors, invasions that have left Spain a rich and complex cultural and historical legacy both Islamic and Christian. These encounters have bequeathed to Spain what some would call an ''identity'' question.
But maybe that is not the right word. Spain's cross-current influences are what make Spain Spain and the Spanish Spanish.
What I am arguing is that we cannot change our historical experience. It would be worse glossing over some aspects of this total experience.
Overreacting to past colonization only overlooks how the Filipinos have coped with these encounters and transformed their widely scattered tribal units into a nation state and at some point, proclaimed their independence as we did on June 12, 1898 in Kawit, far ahead of any colonized Asian country.
External influences
The political influence of the French Revolution and the European Enlightenment on the Philippine Revolution is an illustration of my thesis that most of the turning point events in our history were triggered by external influences.
This means that even before the Spanish conquest, the inhabitants of our islands had already been inserted into regional or international systems of trade and caught in imperial rivalries fought out in the Philippines, such as those between Spain and Portugal over the partition of the globe by the Treaty of Tordesillas in the 15th century; between Spain and the Dutch in the 17th century; between Spain and England in the 18th century; and between Spain and the United States in the late 19th century.
Because of our geo-political position in Asia where their conflicts spread out, we did not escape the turmoil in the then existing international power system. If the Philippines were an insignificant cluster of islands in the Pacific and South China Sea, we would have been left in peace and also excluded from the infusion of rich cultures and civilizations.
Prior to the Age of Exploration, the Philippines was already on the cross-roads of trade among Asian nations, like China, Vietnam, Cambodia and Siam, and were penetrated by Arab traders who at the same time brought Islam to Mindanao.
The artifacts of pre-hispanic Chinese and Southeast Asian potteries exhibited in our museums are evidence of the insertion of the Philippines in the regional trading system of the time.
The Spanish conquest linked the colonial economy to the New World through the Manila-Acapulco Galleon Trade, which was merely one side (the Pacific side) of the global trading system. The other branch linked Manila and the Asian mainland, the source of the luxury items that found their way to Europe through Hispanic America.
Later, the Philippine economy was linked to European trading system following the opening of Philippine ports in the 17th century to direct European trade.
Key role
Perhaps, the most important legacy bequeathed by the encounters of conquest, trade and cultures and religion in our lands is that they have transformed the Filipinos into a nation that can bridge East and West in Asia because their exposure to these encounters has made them familiar with the values and idiom of the East and West.
This familiarity has made Filipinos not only global minded for opportunities--look at the diaspora of migrant workers--but has also enabled them to reduce into nonsense the posturings of ''Asian values,'' as if there is a homogeneous Asian value. Asian culture is extremely diversified.
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