ONCE again, the Deegong has threatened a revolutionary government. This could be the latest harangue of an infuriated president. But this time, he didn’t mince words on using this power to get rid of his critics, whom he now calls “enemies of the state,” lumping them with common criminals, drug lords, corrupt bureaucrats, greedy politicians, communist rebels and terrorists, and of course his bête noire — the princes of the Catholic Church hierarchy.
The Deegong has once again upped the ante with these latest antics, which to the student of presidential politics, by now reading him so well, expect him simply to do the expected. Such predictability! And the President, true to form, indeed played to his audience, particularly his base. He seems unable to remain presidential for long and must intermittently revert to the uncouth and foul-mouthed persona which his sycophants love. Watching him rant on TV, switching from topic to topic off the cuff, ranging from the detested illegal drug proliferation to corruption within his government to the size of his penis, is an awkward experience by itself. It reflects simply his total mastery over a cowed captive audience pretending to lap up his every word with the males reluctantly emitting mortified chuckles while the ladies nonplussed, merely exhibiting sheepish smiles. Methinks this is a helluva frightened audience but can’t do anything about it.
And on the eve of the Holy Week in a speech in a campaign sortie in Cagayan, he was again on TV cursing the crucified Christ, disparaging the “idiots who attended the last supper”; yet in the same breath he professes to believe in God and fears karma. Can the President at least moderate his political virulence during this much-revered solemn Filipino observance of Lenten traditions? Perhaps not! These ramblings of late have been accelerating and getting into his nerves, conceivably precipitated by attacks on his immediate family by a certain “Bikoy” appearing anonymously on video clips going viral in social media. Today this incident has morphed into a full-blown conspiracy to unseat the President, seeing print in broadsheets and scattered in social media complete with pictographs and Power Point presentations. Yet, the dandyish Malacañang spokesman admits no evidence has been found, thus, no cases filed.
Days before the national elections, the President’s campaigning sorties have taken an ominous turn. He has been going around with his PDP Laban senatorial slate taunting the opposition and singing the praises of each of his senatorial candidates; going through the motions of following the tenets of democracy yet insulting the very spirit of that same democratic process by threatening to suspend the writ of habeas corpus if things don’t go his way.
If I were a betting man, which I am, with several formerly imprisoned senator-plunderers either out on bail or simply let loose but not completely exonerate, but allowed a legal aperture back to the Senate, where once again they will line their pockets with the people treasures, I’d probably bet this time on more people supporting the Deegong’s initiatives out of disgust.
But does he still have the balls to push through a RevGov? And more importantly, is he the right leader we need for this wild adventure? Even his DDS and the fist pumpers no longer show the kind of enthusiastic response expected of sycophants. He is beginning to sound like “the boy who cried wolf.” If his intentions are really clear to him and has the courage of his convictions — just DoH it! As Sec Javier’s once said, Don’t telegraph your punches, don’t advertise.
But DU30 has been erratic in his messaging and actions. I myself would give the Deegong an A+ for vetoing the billions in pork barrel in the new budget, chastising in the process the congressional tradpols allied to him. For this, I would excuse him his indelicate public insertion of his peripatetic erectile organ. As I wrote in this column several months back, RevGov can only succeed if four ingredients are present: He must have the support of the military, the political elite; the people’s support; and he must have the balls (roughly translated to political will) to carry it out. Any one of the four absent, it won’t succeed, or if it succeeds, it is not sustainable and will cause a bigger problem than what originally it intends to solve. He has done well, pre-positioning ex-generals and admirals in odd jobs in his bureaucracy. But when push comes to shove, these men are extraneous to the chain of command. The police and the armed forces become the main instruments of the Deegong in his RevGov declaration and by inference, instruments of the state.
I will quote my Manila Times article of Aug. 24, 2017: “The state by right has the ‘monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force’ (Max Weber, political scientist). This has been the core concept of a democratic state’s right to use, threaten, or authorize physical force on its citizens; along with it is the concept of a ‘police force’ and the concomitant system of justice within the defined territory of that state.
But will this legitimate instrument of physical force, sworn to defend the Constitution have the same appreciation of the situation as the President and follow his lead?
Secondly, the newly elected political elite and their backers and allies in the oligarchy may not be induced to support the Deegong in this destabilizing undertaking. Hindi pa nakakabawi sa gastos sa election. They need a little more time to once again refill their coffers by sucking the marrow off the people who put them back to office.
And despite his high approval ratings, paradoxically DU30 has been a polarizing leader, who, as he himself intimated doesn’t give a hoot about traditional institutions — the Church, political parties, international protocols and even conventional family values. So, people’s support for his RevGov may not be widespread and deep. But what the heck — does he really care?
But the most important element is the Deegong’s demeanor. He burst into the country’s political consciousness as a fresh outsider with nary a personal interest to protect – except perhaps his desire to run the country the way he ran his city. But now having established his own political dynasty, extending their political and possibly economic influence, protecting the same and guaranteeing his safety when he steps down from power — if ever — these perquisites could be a compelling disincentive to go all-in. One cannot equate political will for puffery; not in bullying Catholic bishops, not in the use of unpresidential vulgar speeches for shocking effect. Not even projecting an image of an alpha male, the ultimate macho with his turgid appendage!
But if the President acts to declare a RevGov, heading a military junta, replacing the 1987 Constitution with a truly centrist one — parliamentary-federal government with a liberalizing economy, perhaps, just perhaps, I may volunteer to be his adjutant. There are many of us who will deal with the devil today for a guaranteed bright future for our people. But, then again — does he still have what it takes?
Last of 2 parts
IN part one of this series, we examined the split and the eventual victory of St. Paul’s faction over that of the Jerusalem Church of Christ’s brother James, giving rise to the current Christian set of beliefs. In essence, the divinity of Christ, as promoted by St. Paul, is the central doctrine of Christianity. It was therefore imperative that Christ’s divinity be established and sustained from birth. How can one reconcile the human Jesus to being the son of God? Jesus cannot be born of a man through the natural operation of sex between Joseph and Mary. Therefore, Mary the mother must remain a virgin “impregnated by the spirit,” as announced by the angel Gabriel (Matthew 1:18-25, Luke 1:26-38). Matthew’s Gospel, which was written by either a compendium of unknown writers or one named Matthew, 50 years after Jesus’ death, had to carve out a story that would fit the virgin birth. The gospel has to make sure that Jesus’ birth be seen as foretold by prophecy from the Old Testament. Matthew found the answer in Isaac’s prophecy: “Behold a virgin shall conceive and bear a child and shall call his name Immanuel” (Isaiah 7:14).
Joseph and Mary lived in Nazareth, a town in Galilee. But when the time came for Jesus to be born, the family traveled to Bethlehem, a 7-to-10-day trip on a donkey purportedly to take part in a Roman census. Bethlehem was where King David came from and was crowned King of Israel. Jesus too had to be born in Bethlehem to establish a symbolic descendancy from King David. Historical facts revealed there was no Roman census around Jesus’ time. Jesus most probably was born in Nazareth.
Matthew’s other exotic ingredients in the birth story — a star appearing in the heavens and the three wise men were no doubt conjured to establish Jesus’ credentials as a man of the masses yet shrouded with a mystique attributable to the divine. The alternative biography, stripped of the aura, would simply define Jesus as an ordinary, minimally educated Jew living a mundane life as a carpenter’s son until infected by the revolutionary fervor of John the Baptist, one believed to be his mentor.
As painted by the Gospels, life in Nazareth was pastoral, peopled by itinerant preachers and healers. But contrary to the bucolic images, Nazareth and Galilee and the whole of Judea in Palestine were in fact under the cruel grip of Roman occupiers. Around 60 BC, Palestine was invaded by the Roman Legions and over the following decades, Jewish uprisings were suppressed and mercilessly crushed. Thousands in the rebellion were executed through the Roman-preferred death by crucifixion.
Jesus could not have been blind to the economic injustice perpetrated by the Roman puppets. Galilee’s economy was booming but the disparity between the Jewish elites and the peasants were glaring — a decidedly revolutionary atmosphere.
After the beheading of his cousin John the Baptist, and with the suffering of the Jews under the Roman boot, Jesus’ trajectory was to follow John’s revolutionary path. Thus, he began to recruit his own coterie of converts, friends and believers from the masses. One of them became his favorite, Mary Magdalene. Jesus’ divinity too required that the Gospels present him as pure and celibate. Thus, his relationship to Mary Magdalene was understated in the New Testament. It is highly unlikely that Jesus was single among his male disciples. Further inference of Mary Magdalene as his wife was in the circumstances of his burial. In the Jewish and Roman traditions, only spouses of the crucified could claim the remains of the crucified for burial; and only after an interval of a few days leaving the body for scavenging dogs and crows as a gory warning.
Given the humanity of Christ, his role as a Jewish patriot and a leader and more importantly his belief that he is to establish God’s Kingdom on earth, the most plausible earthly scenario is for the revolutionary patriot to make a bid for power and restore the throne of David.
In 34 AD, amid the turmoil in Palestine, particularly in the seat of power, Jesus entered Jerusalem. His timing and the drama could not have been more perfect as the Jewish feast of the Passover was being celebrated commemorating the liberation of the Jewish nation from Egypt. There was an estimated half a million pilgrims. Jewish tradition envisaged the appearance of a messiah at Passover. This was a volatile situation the Roman governor Pontius Pilate was facing.
To ram the Pauline Church narrative against the old Jewish religion, the Gospels have to paint Jewish priests as the enemies of Christ and depict Pilate as a merciful Roman tolerant of Jesus. The Gospels therefore presented a Jewish leaders’ plot to execute Jesus. Christ unwittingly helped this fabrication when he cleared the Jewish temple of moneychangers and scalawags. But it was the intent of Christ to rid the house of prayer, the symbol of the religious and political establishment. It was not an attack against the Jewish priests and leaders as these were merely Roman puppets. The temple was no longer the seat of God but controlled by the Romans.
Titus Flavius Josephus (circa 1st century AD), a Jewish-Roman historian, painted Pontius Pilate as a “ruthless, vicious and a rapacious butcher.” And he would not tolerate a Christ that would challenge the primacy of Rome over Palestine. Rome abolished the Jewish monarchy and Jesus was a rebel. Rome was to apprehend and try him for political subversion, and crucify him — the Roman punishment of choice. And indeed, Christ died a revolutionary death in Palestine.
But the Gospels have to play around this straight narrative, blaming the Jews on several turns. The Gospels have to present Judas as a betrayer. This was not even necessary as the entrance of Jesus into Jerusalem was public and dramatic. Later biblical scholars advanced the argument that Judas’ betrayal was a “… mythological necessity. In most great legends, someone has to function as one who betrays. Without betrayal, the great protagonist of the story does not become a martyred hero.”
And in the endgame, “For Paul, Jesus death was the whole point of his life…Paul was not interested at all in the historical Jesus. He never met the man. For Paul, history begins the night before his death and finished three days later with his resurrection. And the real Jesus was ignored by Paul. All he wants to know was Christ was crucified.”
Yes, he may have been resurrected from death as Lazarus was from a miracle or Jesus resurrected himself. But after 2,000 years the Pauline Church through the New Testament prevailed. Christians believe that it was the will of God for a new religion to evolve from the Old Testament of the Jews.
But just consider, there would have been no Christianity now had James’ version of Christ’s biography prevailed. And James, the brother of Christ, knew him best.
Islam, China and the Philippines
Part 2
IN the book, Huntington began forming his hypothesis several decades back by exploring the archetypes of global politics in the post-Cold War period, in an attempt to predict the future world order. The dominant thought surfacing then was that the West won the Cold War, therefore liberal democracy, capitalism and expansion of free markets, with the attendant Western values of human rights were the only remaining alternatives for other nations to adopt.
Western prismatic view of the clash of civilizations followed a logical trajectory of historical development from the struggles between kings and nation states and ideologies. But after 1991, non-Western civilizations, especially those behind the iron curtain and those co-opted by the West, began to shape the new world order.
Further Huntington postulates that historical antecedents produced his so-called “cleft countries” where a country contains two civilizations, example, Sri Lanka comprising Hindu and Buddhist. Conflicts appear in two forms: fault lines and core state conflicts. The former occurs between adjacent states belonging to different civilizations (Egypt-Israel), or within states that are home to populations from different civilizations (Ukraine). The latter are full-blown conflicts between major core states of different civilizations spilling over from expanding local fault-line engagements (India and Pakistan).
He also introduced “swing civilizations,” giving Russia, Japan and India as examples. These countries have the capability of taking sides, upending the power dynamics, dictated by their country’s self-interest. An illustration is Russia absorbing predominantly Muslim Chechnya while cooperating with Shia Muslim Iran to avoid Muslim-Orthodox encroachments in Southern Russia.
But several political scientists debunk Huntington’s take on the Western belief in the exclusive universality of Western values and political systems. Such insistence only further widens the cleavage between civilizations, further exacerbating the already untenable situation.
Critics have attacked Huntington’s position that nationalism, pluralism and democracy are alien to people in Arab lands and Muslim countries. This simplistic view is the biased Western assessment on the long dormant longings of a subjugated people. Countries during or after the Cold War act on the basis of their national interest and they will continue to do so in the new world order; although admittedly (Huntington could be half correct) national interest are likewise defined broadly and increasingly in cultural terms, perforce aligning themselves with countries of similar cultures.
With this insight, nations too are subject to a Jekyll and Hyde syndrome with multiple identities, one appearing when circumstances change. Fear, resulting in political passivity, is largely the stimulus wielded principally by fundamentalist Muslim regimes. But when fear is substituted for hope, as in the post-Muammar Gaddafi’s Libya and post-Mubarak Egypt, a surge of heightened expectations and aspirations appear — which could be equated quite erroneously with an exclusive definition of Western values of freedom and democracy. The eruptions of the “Arab Spring” (Tunisia 2010) give the lie to Huntington’s Western-values premise. Islam in these countries were prepared to surface their own values of pluralism, democracy and freedom in exchange for their lives.
Having said all these, the book’s major corollary controversies are becoming more obvious. First, is the Chinese hegemon replacing America? My take is perhaps today we are still in a flux between the ideological Cold War conflicts towards a full-scale clash of civilizations. This is a slight departure from Huntington’s premises.
The world will not tolerate a power vacuum and a dangerous political vacuity opened up resulting from the withdrawal of the United States from world engagements. The unilateral abrogation of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the ominous bilateral trade talks with China and Trump’s naïve posturing towards its protegee, Kim Jong Un, allowed Xi Jinping a degree of confidence to flex his muscles, test the waters and encroach into the West Philippine Sea (South China Sea), upsetting the countries in the periphery. This has altered the power equation in Southeast Asia. We can only surmise how the two major civilizations in the area, Japanese and Hindu, will react to the similarly ancient Chinese civilization.
And the impulsive withdrawal of US presence from the conflict in Syria allowed a possible resurgence of the IS and half-abandoning the hapless Kurds to their ancient foe, Turkey; all these despite Trump’s grandstanding and arrogant pronouncements of having won over Islamic terrorism. True, the Islamic civilization has no core states, but Islamic and Chinese are being driven into each other’s arms with the careless actions of America or at the very least, present an entente against the insufferable West.
President Duterte may have deduced certain negative elements of the Huntingtonian premises that propelled him earlier in his administration to pivot away from Mother America to Brother China. Any which way, the Deegong has led his country down an untrodden foreign policy path. We are a country heavily influenced by Western values, but scratch the surface and one finds a proud Malay race, a civilization once dominant in the region but long gone. Huntington in his book, doesn’t even mention such civilization. He erroneously lumps the country as composed of mixed civilizations, with the South (Mindanao) described as Islamic.
Which brings us further to the Christian-Islamic undercurrents — which in Huntington’s thesis designates the Philippines as a “cleft country,”that is, one containing two civilizations. This is where Huntington’s hypothesis is on shaky ground. Added to this cauldron is a large influence of the Chinese and even Japanese civilizations. Would we then categorize ourselves as mongrelized?
The second corollary controversy: is Islam really at war with the West? And what are the implications to our country, particularly Mindanao? Dr. Pervez Hoodbhoy, a critic has this to say: “… (Huntington claims) US, helped by European countries, has repeatedly invaded Muslim countries, Afghanistan and Iraq…Facts! Since WW2 US invaded 30 countries: Vietnam, Korea, Laos, Cambodia, etc. In South America, El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, Granada. These are not religious wars. US wanted to steal their resources, extend power and influence and fight against Soviet Union and communism.”
Dr. Hoodbhoy deflates Huntington further: “…why many Muslims want to migrate to the West? And why accept them? If there is war why Muslims born in the US become automatic citizens?
And his clincher: “…Muslims from Philippines, Pakistan, Bangladesh working years in Saudi Arabia or Gulf Estates can never be citizens nor their children born there. And these countries claim to be protector of Islam and guarantors of their prosperity.”
The notion of a clash of civilizations was not advocated by Islam nor by the Chinese, Hindu or Japanese but by the Westerner Huntington. Today, in all regions, the lives of Muslims are threatened not by the Western, Sinic, Hindu and ther civilizations, but mostly by Muslim themselves: Shite Iran and Sunni Iraq; Syria’s civil war; and Pakistan’s religious extremist violence are just among the few.
And perhaps, at the risk of oversimplification, I might add, these conflicts may be an offshoot of the acts of a uniquely ill-informed leader of an erstwhile “free world” who singlehandedly destroyed the legacy of his forebears and the residues of the Cold War. The current American President.