"The U.S. Fears Ignorance" LOL

Throughout my life I have always been somewhat rebellious, though mostly internally. I have always had somewhat of an issue with whatever I deemed to be unnecessary authority and with a lot of things about the way our country works, though it has been a bit unfocused. Coming here to the Philippines and diving into all of this frightening truth has been extremely meaningful to me. It has been the most specific thing I have ever been able to direct my general dissatisfaction with our country towards and it feels more significant to be unhappy about something that is actually founded. I do not want that sound to as if I was seeking something to be upset about but now that it is in front of me I cannot help but be troubled by it. I shared the comic by Zinn from week one with a few people as it is a good place to start sharing the dark historical relationship of the the Philippines and America. One response I got was more or less, that yes it is indeed messed up but that's how history has gone forever. This is very true and it is the same camp I have always been in as well. Now that I am digging into something more precise, I am learning to not dismiss things as "just history".

All of that being said I have spent the first bit of this trip just being appalled and generally upset, though intrigued, with what I was, and am, learning. Now that the weeks are going by and I have read more readings from more perspectives I am trying to organize my thoughts more and evaluate things from more angles. Though I do not cease to be less blown away by the past, I am trying to be more focused and less blindly angry by what I am learning. For this week I wanted to start thinking more from the American historical perspective and try to think about why it was that the Americans felt justified in doing things they did and explore the contradictions that they displayed. I also wanted to think about why some Filipinos seemed to be okay with the American's presence. Of course since our readings this week are basically all about the control of education, I would hope to use that as a medium to explore these ideas.

It is hard to think that the American's could have had any good intentions when you hear things such as a quote from Rafferty's reading that says, "Kill the Indian in him and save the man". Reading this now it is obviously ignorant and straight up wrong, but for the sake of analyzation I want to think about where, if anywhere, the good intentions lie. It is well known that a lot of the colonization was based on the "white man's burden", as if we were doing them a favor. Although something this blatant would probably not happen now the same way, I have to wonder if a lot of Americans really did think that they were completely helpful and if some really did not have ulterior motives. It seems that some Americans were really torn on whether or not they should have been doing what they were doing. According to Rafferty the Americans claimed to be different than the colonizers from Europe because they said that they were teaching colonies to be independent rather than conditioning them to continued occupation. My thought is that mixed up in the whole mess there may have been people that really wanted to help the Filipino's (not that they needed it), but even if that was true, the powers that be managed to make of a mess of things.

Although they are obvious to most of us as we read these different articles, it is really wild to see the unconcealed contradictions that most Americans exercised. In the reading by Paulet he quotes an American as saying, "other countries fear the education and enlightenment of the people they rule over, the U.S. fears ignorance". With this thought the Americans continued to push their ways on the people of the Philippines. What is more ignorant than assuming so much about a people that you make no effort to learn the truths about them and then assume that they need your knowledge? It seems like America got so caught up in "knowledge" that they completely spaced out on morals. It seems as if Americans have perpetuated this sort of assumed obligation to share their "superior ways" for so long that some, and most in the days of colonization, truly think they are guilt free. One prominent American government official in the Philippines speaking about education in Paulet's reading said that he, "believes it to be the duty of the government in this hour of supreme opportunity to extend the system of education for the Indians, that has slowly grown to its present admirable proportions, to these other dependent people". Right off the bat you see that Americans had considered the Filipino's to be dependent. With this misconception all of the other follies follow. I just do not see how you can see a nation that was just about to win their revolution against Spain as they were proclaiming independence, and then consider them dependent, especially when it was not that long before that America had just gone through their own revolution. But going further into that quote it is seen that some Americans really thought they had done good by the Native Americans! To base the education of the Filipinos on one devastating suppression set it up for bad vibes right from the beginning.

On the other end of this I have been wondering why many Filipinos seemed to have been down with the American's presence throughout history. The primary conclusion I have come to is that it is a combination of the Americans putting on a front of course, but also their timing. The first instance is of course right after the Spanish revolution. Watching the documentary in Dr. Jose's class actually gave a little more insight into this. The Filipinos had just finished up with the Spanish and America had just defeated Spain in Cuba and then won the battle in Manila Bay (part of the front I spoke of, as we already know the battle was staged). The people of the Philippines were told to gather where they saw the American flag flying and had no reason not to be excited the American's entrance. The Americans had just stuck up for Cuba and just kicked the Spanish out of the Philippines, what was not to be excited about? Of course there were also plenty of Filipinos that knew better but it seems like America was just had really good timing. The second case of good timing that seemed to redeem America's occupation was after beating the Japanese. The Japanese were a little more aggressive and obvious about their intentions, so when the Americans defeated them, they once again came off as liberators. Another aspect of why so many Filipinos were down was maybe that the American indoctrination through the education system perhaps worked on some people.

As Constantino pointed out in The Miseducation of The Filipino, by the time the commonwealth rolled around it was already a "captive generation". This generation knew nothing but American occupation and many of them did not go through what their parents did and were perhaps more apathetic. This is obviously a more complex situation than what I have boiled it down to but these are just some of my thoughts. There is no question that the Americans were never and will never be justified for getting into the Filipino's business but since they did the least we can do is look at every aspect of it and question what people's intentions were and why things went down the way they did.