Rizal's Concept of the Filipino Nation

Rizal's letter to Blumentritt:

It would seem that Rizal considers the Chinese as racially apart from the
people of Mindanao.

They are not part of the Filipino Nation.

Rizal's boycott was motivated by considerations other than the racial identity
of the store owner.

Here I have become half physician and half businessman. I have established
a commercial company here. I have taught the poor Mindanao folk to unite for
trading so that they may become independent and free themselves from the
Chinese and thus be less exploited. But I have to talk a great deal with the
local governor, who, despite being a good man, is a supporter of the Chinese
and prefers the Mongols to the Mindanao people. Fortunately, the company is
prospering; we make a little profit; and the poor Dapitan folk are becoming
active and satisfied.

Rizal urged the people of Dapitan to unite and be self-reliant so that they
would not fall prey to the exploitative Chinese merchants.

FOR US TO BE ABLE TO UNDERSTAND RIZAL'S CONCEPT OF THE

FILIPINO NATION, WE NEED TO CONSIDER BOTH RIZAL'S SOCIAL
MILIEU AND THE SOURCES OF HIS IDEAS.

Spanish colonial rule in the Philippines had been bedeviled by anti-Chinese

racism.

Feodor Jagor:
"neither the hostility of the people, nor oppressive and prohibitory laws by the
government, not even the repeated massacres, have been able to prevent
their coming."

emphasized the necessity and the possibility of historical and cultural studies
without reducing culture and individuals to the mechanistic objects of the
enlightenment. (Nader Saiedi, 1993)

Two crucial problems:

The distinction between the restrictive nationality of the state and its
supporting elites from the wider national community among the ‘people’.

The divisions within the ‘people’, giving rise to conflicting ideas about what or
who constituted the nation.

Both ethical and cultural aspects are integral to Rizal’s concept of the Filipino
nation.

Fili calls forth those courageous

Rizal’s concept of the national sentiment is not tied to the heimat.

Heimat- devotion to one’s native land.

Rizal’s view of the nation can be construed as neither patriotism nor

nationalism.

Rizal’s response:
WHAT PRECISELY IS THE NATIONAL SENTIMENT?
BEYOND THE “HEIMAT”
Integrity of all peoples and historical epochs have intrinsic values and
therefore must be respected

Comparing Herder and Rizal…

Rizal's affirmation of a Filipino identity for precolonial indios in
his work on the Morga opens up a number of critical issues.
Herder: But the very moment their inherited national feeling awakens again,
the fire, that so long has been assiduously kept smoldering in the ashes, will
burst out into open flames.

According to Guerrero, what Rizal had in mind was a "racial secular Nation."

Rizal’s North Borneo Plan

Rizal: (Tasio) When the light of day shows up them monsters of darkness, the
frightful reaction will come. So many sighs suppressed, so much poison
distilled drop by drop, so much force repressed for centuries, will come to light
and burst.

Exclusion of the Spanish creoles and the ethnic Chinese.

ethnoracial terms

political meaning

What Benner says of Marx applies to Rizal as well.

Rizal's concept of the nation as a community was constituted
by two complementary perspectives:
Rizal’s concept of nation refers to a people with a “soul” or
“sentiment”
A people who, because of their solidarity, sense of dignity, and concern for
justice, will not put up with any tyrant or despot.
His emphasis was on people taking responsibility.

Vox populi, vox dei is a fundamental principle in Rizal’s moral concept of

nation

It can be characterized as antistatist and has a prescriptive concept

Anti-statist-it affirms separation between people and state

“In Borneo I shall not be a planter but the leader of the planters who are
thinking of emigrating there with me. I feel flattered by the thought that I can
still serve my country with my pen. You know very well that always, at all
times, I am ready to serve my country not only with the pen but also with my
life whenever my country will demand of me this sacrifice. But as I see that I
am getting old, my ideals and my dreams are vanishing. If it is impossible for
me to give freedom to my country, at least I should like to give it to these
noble compatriots in other lands. So I am thinking of emigrating to Borneo.
There are vast fields over there where we can found a new Kalamba. When
the exiles and persecuted have found an asylum in Borneo, then I shall write
in peace and shall be able to look forward towards the future, if not happy, at
least consoled.

“The prescriptive content of Marx’s early conception of ‘nationality’ appears

considerably more radical than the other democratic and republican concepts
of the nation that have been drawn on the legacies of the French and
American revolutions.”

For Rizal, vox populi, vox dei means maintaining the bifurcation between the
ruler and the ruled

Rizal's political ideas were derived from the Enlightenment tradition of the 18th
century.
Isagani and the concept of political obligation: Making direct
connection between power and obligation
Rizal was most impressed by the German ethnologists

Ferdinand Blumentritt
It might cause international embarrassment to the Spain, according to
Despujol.

The friars…by monopolizing in their hands all the studies of the Filipino youth,
have assumed the obligation to its eight millions of inhabitants, to Spain, and
to humanity, of which we form a part, of steadily, bettering the young plant,
morally and physically, of training it towards happiness, of creating a people
honest, prosperous, intelligent, virtuous, noble and loyal. Now, I ask you in my
turn-have the friars fulfilled that obligation of theirs? (Derbishyre trans.)

the good that man pursues in accordance to with the nature he has in
common with all living substances such as self- preservation

“Resignation is not always a virtue; it is a crime when it encourages tyrants:

there are no despots where there are no slaves!”–Simon to Basilio (The Reign
of Greed,65)

Borneo immigration did not push Thethrough because Governor-General

Despujol disapproved of it.

“The Borneo project is not good. Shall we leave the Philippines, this beautiful
country of ours? And what will they say? For what have the sacrifices been
made? Without having exhausted all our forces for the welfare of the land that
has sustained us since the cradle, shall we leave for a foreign land? You
decide it.”
As far as self-realization and or the fulfillment of human potential is
concerned, innate desire and duty coincide

Natural Law-came from nature

Rizal’s expressed objective: To lay down the foundations of the Filipino nation
by spreading an idea, the concept of a national community founded on virtue
and sacrifice.

man’s specifically human inclination such as the desire to know God and to
live justly.

The Filipinos must unite and do for themselves what the Spanish colonial
state refuses or is unable to do for them.

Today’s slaves could be tomorrow’s tyrrants

“national” is contrasted with “individual”.

Refers to the “common good”

National Sentiment is developed in “the spirit of the people” or the “national

spirit”

Inflamed by an awareness of the evils of the colonial system.

Two approaches to national identity:

To establish a farming colony in Sandakan

The displayed and dispossessed farmers of Calamba could relocate and

begin a new life.
The project was seen in two different viewpoints: Hidalgo’s and Jaena and
Luna’s.

Manuel Hidalgo’s view point: unpatriotic

Voltaire
Equally crucial is the socially unifying function of Catholicism.

Cultural dimension

Johan Gottfried Herder

Ethical dimension

Vox Populi, Vox Dei

Vox imperii, vox populi

The idea of sovereign people can legitimate even the most horrendous
actions of the government

“Our arduous mission… is the formation of the Filipino nation”

Rizal’s Concept of National Sentiment
Isagani invoked the liberal concept of political obligation, that is, a sort of
contractual relationship between the ruler and the ruled.

He who gives his gold and his life to the State has the right to require of it
opportunity better to get that gold and better care for his life

The purpose of forming a national community:

Division of natural law
WHAT PRECISELY IS THE NATIONAL SENTIMENT?
This question served as the motivation of his intellectual labors during his
second sojourn in Europe from 1888-1891.

Resulted in seminal works that provided the historical basis for imagining the
nation.

-Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas

-“Filipinas dentro de cien anos”

-“Sobre la Indolencia de los Filipinos”

-El Filibusterismo

the inclination he shares with animals such as sexual intercourse, education

of off spring and so forth

Rizal's letter to his mother:

Graciano Lopez-Jaena and Antonio Luna’s viewpoint:
welcomed the plan with enthusiasm
Herder largely influenced Rizal and this can be seen in his writings.

Rizal informed Blumentritt that he has the complete works of Herder

Stimme der Volker-opened a new era not only for historians but for
ethnologists as well

I had a lawsuit with the Chinese and I vowed not to buy anymore from them,
so that sometimes I find myself very hard up. Now, we have almost neither
dishes nor tumblers.

Filipino by blood < Filipino by heart

Being a good men or citizen of the country.

Rizal is a true Filipino and is a good human being, and a citizen of the world.

“ I received your post card which you sent me from Borneo. I congratulate you
on the attainment of the purposes that have brought you there, the Filipino
congratulates you also, the same as I do. All are congratulating themselves
and congratulate you on your idea of founding in that new colony a town of
Filipinos, the center from which later will spring the redemption of
Archipelago.” -Jaena

To ensure that no tyrannies and depotisms emerge or, if they already exist to
resist and oppose them.
 RIZAL VIEWS ABOUT THE FUTURE
Even before holism was adopted as a paradigm for the modern world, Rizal
had already applied the theory to his school in Dapitan, where he strove to
teach the “whole man”. In addition to offering formal academic subjects, he
taught his pupils boxing, swimming, fencing, agriculture, and the need for
community services. As an important part of their education, he took them on
venturesome excursions to test their mettle in real situations. For he believed
it was in the unpredictable world where intelligence was needed most.

      As a statesman without portfolio, his vision of the Filipino nation and his
precepts for its guidance are as fresh today as they were a hundred years
ago. In Noli Me Tangere, his first novel, Rizal warned Spanish authorities of
the blood bath their colonial policy, or lack of policy, would lead to. In Noll’s
sequel, El Filibusterismo, he predicted the coming of a revolution while
hinting, in the same breath, that the revolution would fail because the Filipinos
lacked the arms and organization to see it through.

     In his most prescient essay, Filipinas Dentro de Gen Anos, written in 1889,
he foretold that Spain and the Philippines would eventually become equal
independent partners in the world of geopolitics, that the United States, after
appropriating the Philippines for herself, would emerge as a new colonial
power in Asia.

     One might say that the predictions found in Noli and Fill were merely
insights of an alert observer since they were based on the apparent worsening
conditions of Spanish colonial rule in the country. But the predictions in
Filipinas Dentro de Gen Anos is proof of a complex intellect. We must
remember that at the time Rizal wrote the essay, the Revolution of 1896,
which would lead to the creation of a Philippine Republic, independent of and
equal to Spain, was more than six years away. And America’s presence in
Asia would not happen until the turn of the nineteenth century, long after he
was dead.

     Rizal foresaw the strengths and weaknesses of the Philippine nation today
as it stands on the brink of a new and exciting world. Like a chastising father,
he warned us, through the words of Padre Florentino in El Filibusterismo, that
we will never have a successful state or bayan, until we also have a
successful nation or bansa. There is a world of difference between the two.
While statehood provides the infrastructure of government, it is nationhood
that creates the temper of governance. What Rizal saw as an ideal nation-
state was embodied in La Liga Filipina, yet another one of the hero’s
scenarios for the future. Organized on the basis of regional and district
councils, La Liga Filipina was envisioned to unite the archipelago into one
compact, vigorous, and homogenous body. Members were pledged to mutual
assistance in the face of every want and necessity, to provide defense against
injustice, to encourage education, agriculture, and commerce, and to study
and apply reforms. In short, La Liga was a vision of a moral community in
which all of the people worked together for the common good, for a better
future.

      That vision, upon which La Liga was founded, is as vital today as it was
100 years ago. Rizal, through his writings and his deeds, has given us a
blueprint for our future. But what we do with it is up to us.

      To this day, we are trying to attain Rizal’s ideal of a mutual-aid society.

The question is, are we trying hard enough? It is true that we have made great
strides in many aspects of national life. But it is also true that all too often we
lack the collective spirit to act as one in order to serve the good of all.

      I’m not saying we are unconcerned as a people. Far from it. We can look
back to two revolutions – the Revolution of 1896 and the EDSA Revolution of
1986 – to remind ourselves of what we can do and be, when we unite as a
people with a common purpose. Should we ever forget, we need only to
summon Rizal who wrote, “Very probably the Philippines will defend with
indescribable ardor the liberty she has bought at the cost of so much blood
and sacrifice. With the new men that will spring from her bosom and the
remembrance of the past, she will perhaps enter openly the wide road of
progress.”

      If, as Rizal suggests, the past holds the contours of the future, this nation
has indeed a lot of solid ground on which to build the just, caring, and
progressive society of the future.

      Just as Rizal knew then, we must know now that we can move forward
only if we work together, combining our energies toward a common goal and
finding direction from the lessons of the past. Let the compass of history guide
us into the next one thousand years.