Life, works, and political ideas of Dr. Jose Rizal Essay

Was Dr. Jose P. Rizal unfeignedly the stubborn crusader who advocates undisturbed and incremental societal falsify as he is portrayed to be by popular agriculture and the dominant schoolman perspective? Was he really the renaissance man the undischargedest ilustrado of the late19th degree centigrade who was so obsessed with the values of education and enlightenment that he chiseldemned both violence, yet those that would have take to the license of the very people he sacrificed his life battle for? Or was he something else, a character darker than what his brownish skin suggests? Was he, in fact, a true noveltyary a Simoun, an Elias, aKa besang Tales? The purpose of this news report is to critically project the historic and biographical studies conducted on the life, works, and political ideas of Dr. Jose Rizal. In particular, the paper aims to compare and contrast the two positions in the controversial re descriptorist- rotatory debate over the political panoram a of the writer-philosopher-ophthalmologist Filipino wizard.The main thesis that this paper hopes to gain is that the debate is in itself flawed and that a new and more(prenominal) than nuanced understanding of Rizal is necessary if we wish to uplift the hero by means of more academic lenses. Specifically, I argue here that the contemporary emblem of Rizal perchance, sluice Rizal himself whether in academic literature or popular media is nonhing more than a social constrain and one that is socially and culturally connived, conspired, and manipulated. Rizal was, for example, used as a social construct by both the propagandistic blendment and the Katipunan, though in contrasting respective ways, and deconstructing him is perhaps necessary for a more sobered understanding. Before we proceed, however, an important pre-exami acres is inevitable Why is this critical abstract important and relevant within the social context of its committal to writing? There can be many rea sons and one that is curiously important to me is that any study of Dr.Jose Rizal is exhilarating and surprising.The mans biography and the study of his mind can perhaps neer be resolved, precisely the adventure towards their resolution gives us designerly un noniced save equally prolific insights as to what this man this First Filipino contributed or at least hoped to contribute to the germination of our nation and our issueism. Nonetheless, the study is of course also relevant in a more societal sense. First, in the academic world, the story of Rizal as ahero and thinker is a continuous stream of dialectical dissertate that is forever in danger of changing its course. It is quite puzzling to realize that, despite a century of discussions, the discourse-debate remain fragile and the balance of academic power remains a balance.Certainly, the reformist arguments have set up their ground in the chauvinistic geniuses of Teodoro Agoncillo and Renato Constantino and that thei r rhetoric prowess can come along daunting and intimidating, but the scale leaf and depth of the dominance of the reformist position remains questionable. To what extent they have seeped into the Filipino consciousness, we can perhaps never resolutely determine but we do know that contests to their gargantuan analyses continue to spr out(a). Thus, whatever persona is a source of vitality for the discourse, even those that quite ironically challenge this very discourse. The latter is what this paper hopes to achieve. Second, 150 years after his birth in 1861, Rizal the man remains a mystery. In a nonher(prenominal) project in celebration of Rizals birthday anniversary last June 19, 2011, I attempted to write articles devoted to Rizal within the month of June and reached a number of more than 80 works. The literature is thus overindulge with mentions of and insights about Rizal and Rizal himself was an obsessive writer, giving historians and biographers no problem about first-ha nd documentation. However, the curse of studying a knackered man is inevitableWe volition never know Rizal fully well. Thus, in an attempt to critically see the studies on Rizal, I also wish to contribute a few insights here on the hero, who he was, and what his views really were. Finally, whatever contribution to the discourse on Rizal is also a contribution to the Filipino national project. A century since Rizals cobblers last at Bagumabayan and the eruption of the Philippine transformation, the Filipino nation remains incomplete and, much like the unfinished roads of Metro Manila, the way towards its completion is intermittently hampered by moral, political, and even academic-intellectual corruption. Rizal, through his imagination and dream of a Filipino people, is more or less the intromission of this national project yet this foundation is still misapprehend in fact, its understandings are still misunders to a faultd A more sober examination of his political thought is therefore crucial if we wish to move on towards the building of this nation. On the one hand, for more than a century, it has been a dominating belief in both Filipino literature and active progressivecircles that Dr. Jose Rizal, the Philippines just about prominent political thinker and writer, was in writing and in action a genuine reformist. The depiction of Rizal as such is so systematized that it would seem a grave mistake to liken the hero to other more subverter figures such as the subversive political organizer Andres Bonifacio and the politico- armament haper Gen. Emilio Aguinaldo.For one, we are taught in our schools and universities that Rizal was a part and product of the propagandist movement and non of the revolutionary movement. In fact, as if exclusively to make the historical moment of the 1880s-1890s more theoretically digestible, we clearly de rakehellate between the two movements in terms of aims, means, nature, and even chronology. Rizal was an intellectu al novelist, a social critic, a believer in the power of the pen over the sword. He did not lead the revolutionary Kataas-taasang Kagalang-galang Katipunan ng mga Anak ng Bayan or the KKK. He repudiated the Philippine Revolution at the time, symbolized most dramatically by his refusal to endorse and join Bonifacios Katipunan when he was invited by Dr. Pio Valenzuela in Dapitan in 1896.Thus, it has been so inherent in the Filipino psyche that Dr. Jose Rizal was, in the true, nothing more than areformist and nothing like a revolutionary. On the other hand, however, historiography and literary evidence would not as categorically declare Rizal as a reformist as suggested. Many academicians and Rizalist (Constantino, 1970) scholars point to polar historical, biographical, and literary references to seek the point that Rizal did ap designate of the essence of arm struggle. For example, it can be argued that Rizal, being himself of the liberal democratic tradition, knew well of the mer its of the 18th century French Revolution. The educate ilustrado was himself a fanatic of history and as such he knew that when there is no more preference and chance for peaceful change, the people mustiness rise to the cause of their freedom and take arms against heaviness and the perpetrators of the oppressive system. It is also no secret that Rizal had at the very least sympathies for revolutionary thought, portrayed most definitively by the characters he used in his two well-celebrated novels Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo. From the plots of these fictional narratives, it is clear that Rizal believed in the hardship of the reasons for revolting against the Spanish colonial and clerico-fascistsystems of his time.Illustratively, we see Elias and Kabesang Tales from Noli and Fili ,respectively, as genuinely oppressed personalities who were more or less, at least according to the internal narratives of the novels, justified in their cause of forwarding gird offensive s against the exploitative machinations of the colonial regime. Further and in a more political sense, it makes one wonder how and why Rizal was used as an inspiration for the Katipunan if he really showed no sign of endorsing a, if not the, build up revolution against Spain. The question of why is relatively clearer Dr. Jose Rizal was an inspiration for many indios natives of the archipelago at the time. It was quite convenient for the Katipunan to have used his name to earmark the huge mass following Rizal has generated over the years.This could not have been done as effectively, however, if Rizal was sincerely, whether in writing or rule, against armed struggle. Thus, the rhetorical question is How could the Katipunan secret society that mobilized the Philippine Revolution and thereafter naturalised the first indigenous revolutionary government in the country have used Rizal if he really were nothing more than a staunch reformist? The main representatives from the reformist camp come from, as said above, the nationalist historians led by Agoncillo and Constantino of the latter 20th century, the same historians who also advocate for the hump of Andres Bonifacio over Rizal as the true revolutionary leader the noble plebeian (Agoncillo, 1956) who organised the nationalist-separatist movement of the Katipunan in the 1890s.Although Agoncillo in The Revolt of the Masses (1956) also postulates well that Dr. Jose Rizal was like the other ilustrados of his time merely a self-interested reformist whose gravest mistake was that he condemned the Philippine Revolution, the more compelling critical review of Rizals political thought comes from Constantinos Dissent and Counter-Consciousness (1970), in particular its ninth chapter entitled Veneration without Understanding. Constantino begins his critique of Rizal right remote in his first two paragraphs, contrasting him with other principal heroes of other nations. The argument is difficult to challenge concord t o Constantino, the main intriguing fact about Rizal as a hero is that, when seen in a matrix inclusive of other national heroes such as Washington of the UnitedStates, Bolivar of Latin America, and Ho Chi Minh of Vietnam, Rizal did not lead the nationalist revolution of the Philippines our Revolution (Constantino, 1970). Constantino then moves on to directly guide the question of reformism and revolutionism and Rizals claimed rejection of the Philippine Revolution, writing In no uncertain terms Rizal slurd himself against Bonifacio andthose Filipinos who were fight for the countrys liberty, pointing to Rizals December 15, 1896 manifesto as evidence (Constantino, 1970).After that, Constantino poses an important truth that, as he argues, has been ignored in mainstream academic thought the disjunctive contradiction between Rizal and the Revolution. According to the historian, this contradiction has led to the great dilemma that the Filipino people must face in parliamentary law to make full sense of their national history that the Filipino people must disown either the Revolution or their national hero, Dr. Jose Rizal, and not neither. He presents the choice starkly Because the national hero condemned the Revolution that brought us our freedom from the colonial grip of imperial Spain, either the Revolution was prostitute or Rizal was wrong. Constantino writes The Philippine Revolution has always been overshadowed by the omnipresent figure and the towering reputation of Rizal. Because Rizal took no part in that Revolution and in fact repudiated it, the general regard of our Revolution is not as high as it otherwise would be. On the other hand, because we refuse to analyze the significance of his repudiation, our understanding of Rizal and of his role in our national development remains superficial.This is a disservice to the event, to the man, and to ourselves. (Constantino, Constantino solidifies his argument further by pointing to the Americans rational of endorsing and sponsoring Dr. Jose Rizal as the hero of the Filipino people. He cites Governor W. Cameron Forbes (1928, p. 55, as cited in Constantino, 1970) who exposes that the Americans kick upstairs Rizals symbolic status for the Filipinos on the nose because he urged reform from within by publicity, by public education, and appeal to the public conscience. Thus, we see how even the Americans at the time knew and understood Rizal to be are formist, a non-separatist, and one who advocated nothing more bow than assimilation into Spain and peaceful social change for the improvement of the Filipino colonial condition. Finally, Constantino points out that such a reformist position was only to be expected of a man like Rizal whose statusand place in history assured him of a less radical, non-revolutionary, and more optimistic ideological position.Echoing aloud Agoncillo s analysis (Agoncillo, 1956) of the ilustrado position during the Philippine Revolution, to Constantino Dr. Jose Rizal was nothing more than the greatest of the propagandist-reformists the greatest, but still not ahead enough of his time to have agreed with and joined the Revolution. Nevertheless, the historian saves Rizals face by alluding to the power of structure over agency, claiming that Rizal should not be blamed nor disowned and that heroes should be seen not as movers but products of history. Constantino concludes with a grim but sensible depiction of Rizal Today, we indispensability new heroes who can help us solve our pressing problems. We cannot rely on Rizal alone The true hero is one with the masses he does not exist above them The in voice are now making history while the articulate may be headed for historical anonymity, if not ignominy. When the cultures of the people are finally achieved, Rizal, the first Filipino, will be negated by the true Filipino by whom he will be remembered as a great catalyzer in the metamorphosis of the decolonized indio. (Constantino, 1970 italics mine)Of course, Renato Constantinos work and thesis did not remain unchallenged.An example of an audacious critique of Constantinos critique comes from Floro Quibuyen who defended Rizals revolutionary aspirations through his 1996 dissertation entitled Imagining the Nation Rizal, American Hegemony and Philippine Nationalism, the second chapter of which was devoted entirely to Dr. Jose Rizal. Quibuyen in his work aims to reveal by historiographic evidence and content analysis that Rizals bourgeois reformism, opposition to the Philippine Revolution, and assimilationism are all but historical myths perpetrated to tarnish the image of Rizal as the Revolutions inspiration. His main thesis therefore is quite the opposite of Constantinos To Quibuyen (1996), Rizal was not are formist obsessed with peaceful change but a genuine revolutionary, even a booster amplifier of armed struggle as a means for true social change. To prove his point, Quibuyen uses three historical documents written by R izal, namely, his correspondences with his close friend Ferdinand Blumentritt, his earns to Marcelo Del Pilar, and his last poetry now known by many as Mi Ultimo Adios.First, Quibuyen debunks the supposedly stubborn belief of Rizal in the prospects of peaceful change by referring to his January 26, 1887 letterto Blumentritt. In his letter, Rizal tell aparts, A peaceful struggle shall always be a dream, for Spain will never learn the lesson of her SouthAmerican colonies. It is clear therefore that Rizal understood well that peaceful change, though ultimately the high-flown means, cannot be the means with which the freedom of the Filipino people will be obtained. Second, by referring to Rizals letter to Del Pilar, Quibuyen (1996) proves that Rizals reforms were only tactics within the larger and more encompassing strategy of a revolution. In a letter to Del Pilar dated April 4, 1890, we see a sudden shift in the aspirations of Rizal, particularly those that concern his advocacy of Filipino representation in the Spanish Cortes. Quibuyens excerpt of the letter reads I could not accept a seat in the Cortes although my ancestors on my mothers side were Congressmen Jose Florentino and Lorenzo Alberto. I am no longer interestedin those things. (Quibuyen, 1996)Finally, Quibuyen points to Rizals last untitled poem as the biggest proof of both Rizals revolutionary characteristic and the conspiracies associated with his portrayal as nothing more than a reformist.In particular, Quibuyen strongly criticizes the poems translation by Austin Coates, pointing most spectacularly at the lines that originally read, En campos se batalla, lunchando con delirio Otros te dan sus vidas sin dudas, sin pesar. These lines were translated by Coates as Others are giving you their lives on handle of battle Fighting joyfully, without hesitation or thought for the consequence compare this translation with Nick Joaquins literally closer translation On the field of battle, fighting with de lirium, Others give you their lives without doubts, without gloom. The political implications of these two different translations are important and very much relevant to our aim Whereas Coates portrays Rizal as thinking the revolutionary armed struggle was not careful and thoughtful of its consequences, Joaquin depicts Rizal a sin fact ameliorating and romanticizing violent revolution and sacrifices of human life for the country without doubts, without gloom. At the end of the chapter, Quibuyen (1996), in a final attempt to prove that Rizal was indeed a revolutionary not just in writing but in practice as well, conjures the Passion of Jesus Christ as Rizals inspiration of his own revolution.According to Quibuyen, to Rizal, fighting an armed struggle and self-martyrdom are both valid forms of revolutionary struggle, pointing to Jesus revolutionary moment when hegave up his life for, supposedly, our redemption. As such, therefore, Rizal was revolutionary in his own, Jesus-like way. Wh ich of the two scholars then makes more sense? As said above, I argue here that neither is correct and that, in fact, there is something terribly wrong with the entire discourse itself. I argue this for three reasons that Constantinos reformist position is flawed, that Quibuyens revolutionary position is as well just as flawed, and that reform andrevolution are, in the end, not mutually exclusive. First, it must be conceded that, despite Constantinos genius in narrating the nationalist history of the Philippines, some flaws in his line of argumentation against Rizals revolutionary character must necessarily be pointed out. The first point to be made is that Constantino intentionally used American sponsorship of Dr. Jose Rizals heroism as a tool to prove that Rizal was genuinely an assimilationist and against anti-colonial revolution whereas he should not have. For one, this is not in any way fair.Sponsorship by the US colonial regime does not necessarily put Rizal on the side of ref ormism against revolution even as the Americans say so. What needs to be studied is not what the Americans thought of Rizal but what Rizal really believed in, explicable through the various documents and letters he wrote. In fact, it makes one wonder If Constantino were really pushing for a nationalist understanding of Rizal as a political thinker, then why should the American shave a say in this process of understanding? A second point to be made is that Constantino focused too much on what Rizal did and neglected what Rizal wrote. What is important to Constantino is that Rizal never approved nor joined the Philippine Revolution he was outside it, writing his life away. How are we then to judge a mans thought if we really did not consider his theory and looked only at his praxis? It is also quite salient in Constantinos work that there is no reference to Rizals writings other than his December1896 letter to Blumentritt.Again, the question of fairness can be raised Was it fair to ha ve judged Rizals political thought based only on a document that was written 15 days ahead his death? Do we judge a mans lifelong journey with political theorizing according only to his last few words? Finally, it is clear that with Constantinos non-negotiable class analysis of history, he really did not give Rizal a chance from the very beginning. Because Rizal was a bourgeois ilustrado of the 1880s-1890s, he was quite expectedly a squealer to therevolution and, even if he were the greatest of the propagandists, he was a propagandist nonetheless and by addition merely a reformist. While the structural analysis is to be admired, where then is the power of agency? Clearly, not within Rizals grasp in Constantinos world. Second, examining Quibuyens work, we see that the revolutionary position on Rizals political thought is just as flawed. To illustrate, whereas Constantino was too focused with what Rizal actually did or did not do, Quibuyen on the other hand was toofocused on what R izal wrote. Content analysis is never enough to judge a mans thought and role in history. For example, while Rizal indeed wrote that peaceful struggle is but a dream, he was in practice an advocate of peaceful means as he was in general a writer, a novelist.In fact, even if we were to employ content analysis strictly, this presentment can be contrasted with what Rizal did with his revolutionary characters in Noli and Fili They al lfailed. Kabesang Tales failed, Elias was killed, and Simoun died realizing his mistakes in conjuring a revolution that was largely borne out of self-interest. some other point is that Quibuyens strongest point is based only on Rizals last poem. If we were to base Rizals political thought on Mi Ultimo Adios, we would be no different from Andres Bonifacio who was hallucinated with a revolutionary Rizal approving of the Revolution he was leading .Again, I ask the question of whether it is fair or not to judge a man only by his last few words. Further, is i t not also likely that Rizal merely sympathized with and did not necessarily approve of armed struggle as a valid form of fighting for freedom? Finally, and I hope there is in fact no more need of belaboring this point, I seriously think that the comparison made by Quibuyen between Jose Rizal and Jesus of the Christians is nothing more than an exaggerated extension of Rizals martyrdom. In the ultimate end, the third and final point that must be made is that reform and revolution are not necessarily mutually exclusive.In a keep back entitled Requiem for Reformism The Ideas of Rizal on Reform and Revolution, Bonifacio Gillego (1990) makes a crucial point that Rizal in fact favored both reform and revolution. The only difference afforded by Rizal between reformism and revolutionism is that he favored the former before the latter but nonetheless saw the latter as a necessary resolution if the former were to fail. This makes more sense, judging by the merits of the two positionsreprese nted by Constantino and Quibuyen. As such, therefore, while Rizal strongly believed and hoped for a peaceful struggle a dream he also knew that, when push comes to shove and the Spanish regimeremains as stubborn and oppressive despite his more negotiating and reformist approach, a revolution will be necessary.The Philippine Revolution (called the Tagalog War by the Spanish),citation needed (Filipino Himagsikang Pilipino) was an armed military conflict between the people of the Philippines and the Spanish colonial authorities. The Philippine Revolution began in August 1896, upon the discovery of the anti-colonial secret organization Katipunan by the Spanish authorities. The Katipunan, led by Andrs Bonifacio, was a liberationist movement and shadow government spread throughout much of the islands whose goal was independence from Spain through armed revolt. In a mass gathering in Caloocan, the Katipunan leaders organized themselves into a revolutionary government, named the newly estab lished government Haring Bayang Katagalugan, and openly declared a nationwide armed revolution.2 Bonifacio called for a simultaneous coordinated attack on the capital city of Manila.This attack failed, but the touch provinces also rose up in revolt. In particular, rebels in Cavite led by Mariano Alvarez and Emilio Aguinaldo, from two different factions of Katipunan in the province, won early victories. A power struggle among the revolutionaries led to Bonifacios death in 1897, with command shifting to Aguinaldo who led his own revolutionary government. That year, a truce with the Spanish was reached called the Pact of Biak-na-Bato and Aguinaldo went to self-exile in Hong Kong. Hostilities, though reduced, never actually ceased.3 On April 21, 1898, the United States began a naval blockade of Cuba, the first military action of the SpanishAmerican War. On May 1, the U.S. Navys Asiatic Squadron under Commodore George Dewey decisively defeated the Spanish navy in the Battle of Manila Ba y, effectively seizing control of Manila. On May 19, Aguinaldo, unofficially allied with the United States, returned to the Philippines and resumed hostilities against the Spaniards. By June, the rebels had gained control over nearly all of the Philippines with the riddance of Manila.On June 12, Aguinaldo issued the Philippine Declaration of Independence and the First Philippine Republic was established. Neither Spain nor the UnitedStates recognized Philippine independence. Spanish rule in the islands officially ended with the Treaty of Paris of 1898 which ended the SpanishAmerican War. In it Spain ceded the Philippines and other territories to the United States.3 There was an uneasy peace around Manila with the American forces controlling the city and the weaker Philippines forces surrounding them. On February 4, 1899, in the Battle of Manila fighting broke out between the Filipino and American forces, beginning the PhilippineAmerican War. Aguinaldo immediately ordered, that peac e and friendly dealing with the Americans be broken and that the latter be treated as enemies.4 In June 1899, the nascent First Philippine Republic formally declared war against the United States.56 The Philippines would not become an internationally recognized, independent state until 1946.