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Monday, October 13, 2008

Filipino Diaspora In A Proposition

"Diaspora" does not consist in the fact of leaving Home, but in having the factuality available to representation as such- we come to "know" diaspora only as it is psychically identified in a narrative form that discloses the various ideological investments.

1st thesis: Phenomenon of Filipino Dismembership

Given that the Philippine habitat has never cohered as genuinely independent nation-national autonomy continues to escape the nation- people in a colonial setup- Filipinos are dispersed from family or kinship webs in villages, towns, or provincial regions first, and loosely from an inchoate, even "refeudalized," nation-state, This dispersal is primarily due to economic coercion and disenfranchisement under the retrogressive regime of comprador-bureaucratic (not welfare-state) capitalism; migration is seen as freedom to seek one's fortune, experience the pleasure of adventure, libidinal games of resistance, and other illusions of transcendence. So the origin to which one returns is not properly a nation-state but a village, a quasi-primordial community, kinship network, or even a ritual family/clan.

2nd thesis: What are the myths enabling a cathexis of the homeland?

They derive from assorted childhood memories and folklore together with customary practices surrounding municipal and religious celebrations; at best, there may be signs of a residual affective tie to a national heroes like Rizal, Bonifacio, and latter-day celebrities like singers, movie stars, athletes, and so on. Indigenous food, dances, and music can be acquired as commodities whose presence temporarily heals the trauma of removal; family reunification can resolve the psychic damage of loss of status or alienation. In short, rootedness in autochthonous habitat does not exert a commanding sway, experienced only a nostalgic mood. Meanwhile, language, religion, kinship, the aura of family rituals, and common experiences in school or workplace function invariably as the organic bonds of community. Such bonds demarcate the boundaries of the imagination but also release energies and affects the mutate into actions-as performed by Garcia's characters- serving ultimately national-popularity emancipatory projects.

3rd thesis: Unification in Alienation

Alienation in the host country is what unites Filipinos, shared history of colonial and racial subordination, marginalization, and struggles for cultural survival through hybrid forms of resistance and political rebellion. This is what may replace the none existent nation/homeland, absent the liberation of the Filipino nation-state.

4th thesis: Return due to Economic Security

Some Filipinos in their old age may desire eventual only when they are economically secure. In general, Filipinos will not return to the site of misery and oppression- to poverty, exploitation, humiliated status, despair, hunger, and lack of dignity. Of course, some are forcibly returned: damaged, deported, or dead. But OFWs would rather move their kin and parents to their lace of employment, preferably in countries where family reunification is allowed, as in the United States, Italy, Canada, and so on. Or even in places of suffering and humiliation, provided there is some hope or illusion of future improvement.
Utopian longings can mislead but also reconfigure and redirect wayward adventures.

5th thesis: Nationalist Struggle

Ongoing support for nationalist struggles at home is sporadic and intermittent during times of retrenchment and revitalized apartheid. Do we see any mass protests and collective indignation in the United States at the Visiting Forces Agreement, for example, and the recent invasion (ca. 1998-2000) of the country by several US Marines in joint US-Philippines military exercises? Especially after September 11 and the Arroyo sycophancy to the Bush regime, the Philippines- considered by the US government as the harbor of homegrown ''terrorists"
like the Abu Sayyaf- is plausible to be transformed in to the next "killing field" after Afghanistan.

6th thesis: Filipino Collective Identity

In this time of quandary, the Filipino collective identity is in crisis and in stage of formation and elaboration. The Filipino diasporic consciousness is an odd species, a singular genre: it is not obsessed with a physical return to roots or to land where common sacrifices are remembered and celebrated. It is tied more to a symbolic homeland indexed by kinship or particular traditions and communal practices that it tries to transplant abroad in diverse localities. So, in he moment of Babylonian captivity, dwelling in "Egypt" or its moment of building public spheres of solidarity to sustain identities outside the national time/space "in order to live inside, with a difference" may be the most viable route (or root) of Filipinos in motion- the collectivity in transit, although this is, given the ineluctability of differences becoming contradictions, subject to the revolutionary transformations emerging in the Philippine countryside and cities. It is susceptible also to other radical change s in the geopolitical rivalry of metropolitan powers based on nation-states. There is indeed deferral,postponement, or waiting- but history moves on in the battlefields of Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao where a people's war rooted in a durable revolutionary traditions rages on. This should not allow the Filipino Diaspora and its progeny to slumber in the consumerist paradises of LA, NY, Chicago, or Seattle, Dubai and so on. It will certainly disturb of those benefiting from the labor of OFWs who experience the repetition-compulsion of globalized trade and endure the recursive traumas of displacement and dispossession.

notes on the book: BALIKBAYANG SINTA by E. San Juan

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