Human rights and the whispered threat of neocolonization

Oooh, isn't that a title worthy of a (pseudo)academic!

Anyway, this post comes about after hearing from some guest speakers I invited to my Filipino American studies (FAST) class. Katarungan is a group of volunteers who are tracking human rights violations in the Philippines. When I mentioned this to one of my informal advisors, she honestly could not understand why young Filipino Americans would or should care. From her standpoint, the yearning for Filipino/Filipino American identity should "look forward" and be planted here in America, not in "looking back" to the country from whence we (or our parents) came. And that to intervene in Philippine affairs is simply an extension of America's neocolonist ways--only now with Filipino actors as well as white ones. I don't think it would surprise too many of you to know she is Fil-Am, though some of us might call her "Fil-Fil"because of her accented English and fluency in Tagalog.

Anyway, I didn't invite this group just because I wanted to have the class hear about human rights in the Philippines. I invited them because I wanted to show off community building and activism, and to have the class think about the role that Filipino Americans should play in Philippine affairs (after having read a history of the KDP by Helen Toribio). So I asked the speakers to address the issue of "why should we care?" and "whether we are just being the new colonists by intervening in Philippine affairs."

You can read Redante Reed's thoughtful response here (or look on my blog list, he's An Ordinary Person).

So my thoughts on "whether we are just being the new colonists by intervening in Philippine affairs..."

FIRST, the charge of neocolonialism can be easily dispensed with when you look at the intent: no colonizer, whether old or neo style, ever cared about human rights.

But SECOND, the language of American involvement in human rights (anywhere in the world) is easily reminiscent of the benevolent assimilators who sought to Christianize and civilize the Philippines.

NEOCOLONISTS take over the affairs of other countries not (just) by military might, but through infrastructure building, social programs (like teachers), and trade agreements that favor the colonist. The US did this in taking over the Philippines in 1898 and again in giving the Philippines independence in 1946--independence with strings. One could argue that the ubiquity of American media (film, television, music) in the world today further hegemonizes American pop culture (I don't usually use such academic jargon but hey that word has my name in it) such that any country hoping to make it big must imitate American ways of storytelling, downplaying its own cultures.

But whatever dressing colonists put on it, what they really want is economic supremacy. The US wanted the Philippines for military bases (to protect economic interests) and a stepping stone to future economic riches in China. Portugal and Spain competed for God, gold and glory, claiming lands all over Asia for the ultimate prize of India (which neither got).

But no colonist ever concerned himself with human rights. Magellan didn't die in the Philippines defending human rights, and McKinley and Teddy's war against the Philippines might have been exhibit A at the Geneva Convention's "what not to do" seminar. So intervening to protect human rights is not a neocolonist's goal.

But it could be a neocolonist's strategy. It's the language justifying America's role as the world human rights watcher that concerns me. True, as Redante points out, we in America have the enviable position of being able to speak out without fear of losing our lives, unlike many places in the world. But justifying action on the basis of America's role as a world power (which Katarungan does not do, but other groups do), as a beacon of democracy and human rights (which you might laugh at nowadays, but the fact that we are so concerned about this image shows its priority in our national identity), and because we have the resources and know-how is eerily reminiscent of the benevolent language used by Americans in the Philippines. They sought to Christianize and civilize us--never mind that Filipinos had already spent 300 years under Spain's civilizing and spiritual tutelage. All as a cover of course, for what the colonists really wanted.

When our leaders (in the Administration and in Congress) speak about human rights, and attach conditions on foreign aid, what will those strings be? What might will we use to make our way right? Groups like Katarungan probably won't be in the room when those deals are made, but may unwittingly provide the cover for these hidden agendas.

So what to do? Well, the answer is not "nothing." Katarungan, more power to you. In the marketplace of community activism, of volleying for human and financial resources to do good in the world, social reformers can and should stay focused on their missions while not worrying too much about the unintended consequences of their work. Control is an illusion. All we can do is pray. The serenity prayer is a good one.

Papers

I've piled myself under papers...student research projects, creative writing, weekly reflections... magazines, powerpoints, Washington Posts... hence no posts...

Lesson for next semester: When I assign work to the students, I assign work to myself. When I assign lots of work to them, I assign lots of work to me. Simple, yet another lesson best learned the hard way. Oof!

My horoscope

Your even-keeled temperament is contagious. Your secret? Tolerance. You don't require that others do things the way you would. The people around you are getting along because of you. --Today's Horoscope by Holiday Mathis, The Washington Post, Wednesday, 11/26/08, c13.

Diversity of thought

A lesson in what it means to be tolerant of diversity (from one of my students who feels stigmatized for being registered Republican. I don't know how he voted.)

HEADLINE: Tolerance fails T-shirt test

(excerpt) Catherine Vogt, 14, is an Illinois 8th grader, the daughter of a liberal mom and a conservative dad. She wanted to conduct an experiment in political tolerance and diversity of opinion at her school in the liberal suburb of Oak Park.

She noticed that fellow students at Gwendolyn Brooks Middle School overwhelmingly supported Barack Obama for president. His campaign kept preaching "inclusion," and she decided to see how included she could be.

So just before the election, Catherine consulted with her history teacher, then bravely wore a unique T-shirt to school and recorded the comments of teachers and students in her journal. The T-shirt bore the simple yet quite subversive words drawn with a red marker:

"McCain Girl"

Read about her classmates and teachers reactions:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/chi-kass-13-nov13,0,2881384.column

When the only tool you have is a hammer...

...everything looks like a nail

One of my favorite sayings explained in a new way.

from the Healthcare Economist blog
http://healthcare-economist.com/2008/11/14/when-the-only-tool-you-have-is-a-hammer-everything-looks-like-a-nail/

Availability bias is why we need science, not just journalism (and blogs).

[excerpt] How do we solve the health care crisis? The Healthcare Economist received his training in economics and you may notice that he often uses an economic framework to analyze issues. Is economics always the right framework? Likely no.

Salon.com gives some instruction: “You know the joke that economists like to tell each other about the drunk looking for his keys under the streetlight, not because that’s where he lost them, but because that’s where the light is? That’s just the way life is — you use the tools that you’ve got to examine the problems that you’ve got...

Utah Helps California Prevent Marriage--Again

Prop 8 backlash: Gay marriage backers to protest outside Salt Lake LDS Temple
http://www.sltrib.com/ci_10918202?IADID=Search-www.sltrib.com-www.sltrib.com

Mormons reached across state borders to fight marriage equality in California. According to this article which appeared in the Salt Lake Tribune last week, the "LDS Church got into the thick of the California battle when officials issued statements encouraging members to actively support the ban. All told, Latter-day Saints are estimated to have given, by some counts, as much as $22 million to the effort."

That's a huge amount of money invested in taking away our rights.

And it's not the first time that Utah has helped California prevent marriage.

Back in 1933, Filipinos(1) were added to the list of people who could not marry white people in California (so-called anti-miscegenation laws, which were really about preventing non-white men from marrying white women). But this did not stop mixed marriages. No, those determined couples just went over to Utah and other states to marry. The California legislature did notice, so in 1938 they passed a strongly-worded resolution urging Utah to "stop the practice whereby citizens of the state of California and members of the non-assimilable alien race [that's us] have been defeating California marriage laws by resorting to subterfuge of transient residence in the State of Utah." A year later, Utah added Filipinos to their anti-miscegenation laws.

I don't know enough about Utah or Mormon history to know if Mormons were involved in that 1939 decision, but the parallel is obvious enough. Utah has twice now helped take away the right of marriage.

Reference
(1) Staff, “Anti-Miscegenation Laws and the Pilipino.” In Letters in Exile: An Introductory Reader on the History of Pilipinos in the United States, ed. Jesse Quinsaat. UCLA Asian American Studies Center, 1976, pp.63-71. The actual term used was "Malay." The legal fight had been over whether Filipinos were Malay or Mongolian. It was resolved by adding Malay to the law. This story is one of several examples of "just-us" in Filipino American history.


It's Veterans Day. Thanks to all veterans everywhere and especially to the Filipino WWII veterans. From just-us to justice...we will have it.

Stray thoughts on the "post-racial" era

We value the individual and autonomy in this country. But the burden of race is that we feel pressured to represent a people, that our actions as individuals are somehow representative of our race. And this burden is heaped upon us not just by racists (who take every negative headline as indicative of the whole), but by our families and friends (who expect exemplary behavior, as in, "you gotta represent" or "you gotta be twice as good as your white competitor").

Barack Obama surely felt this pressure in ways that I can only imagine. Many people were disappointed that he so rarely addressed race in a direct way. Sometimes I was, but more often I was sympathetic. And I was impressed with his ability to combine an acknowledgment of historic and systemic wrongs (through his community organizing work) with a call for personal responsibility (pull up your pants, and take care of your kids).

I don't buy the assertion that Obama represents a post-racial dialogue. Rather, now that he is going to be President, I am hopeful that we can have new conversations about race, ones that include new ideas for the unfinished fight for civil rights and immigration, and prioritizes building communities (plural) and leaders (definitely plural).