Prof Lim's review of E. San Juan's radical interpretation of Rizal in SISA'S VENGEANCE (amazon.com) focuses on Rizal's view of women as actual/potential agencies in the national liberation struggle of the Philippines from Spanish colonialism and U.S. imperialism. Dec. 30 marks the anniversary of Rizal's execution by the Spanish colonial govt., making him the national hero of the Filipino people.
LONG LIVE ANDRES BONIFACIO, FILIPINO REVOLUTIONARY (tags)
November 30 is the anniversary of the Philippine revolution against Spain led by Andres Bonifacio, the "supremo" organizer, theoretician and strategist. This essay seeks to explain the essence of his greatness.
REMEMBERING JOSE RIZAL AND SISA, THE ANTI-POSTCOLONIAL DIFFEREND (tags)
June 19 this year marks the 53rd anniversary of the Philippines' national hero Jose Rizal's birthday. In Nov 1884, Rizal joined mass demonstrations in Madrid to protest the government's repressive policies. He wrote to his family:"Filipinos are dishonored, entrapped, debased, opposed and tyrannized," so he had to disguise himself three times. The following review centers on Rizal's ideas and Sisa, the character in Rizal's novel, who symbolizes the "wretched of the earth," discussed in E. San Juan's book, SISA'S VENGEANCE (available at amazon.com & createspace).
The anniversary of the death of the Philippines' national hero Jose Rizal this Dec. 30 affords us the occasion to reassess his work, particularly in the context of ongoing fierce class war in the Philippines between the oppressed, impoverished majority and the few privileged landlords and politicians bought by global capital. This is taking place at a time when the Philippines is being re-colonized by the U.S. as the world's imperialist hegemon. Would Rizal want the country partitioned to greedy transnational corporations and their national elites in the current terrorist war against peoples of color in particular? These reflections hope to provoke a re-thinking of what it means to be a Filipino with the Philippines in permanent crisis, using Rizal as a point of departure, especially in the light of its citizens becoming an embattled diaspora--more than ten million OFWs as exploited domestics and contract workers around the planet, while the country's rich natural resources, cultures and traditions are wasted by foreign profiteers of globalizing capital supported by local comprador parasites currently headed by the corrupt Arroyo regime. "O where is the hope of the motherland...."?